Hey everyone. Im New to SmartThings, and was wondering your thoughts ive i made the right decision. I have an IOS Device, i hear homekit is not likey to come with Smartthings is this true?
Also to give some background, what i ordered is the smartthings 300$ smarter home package. What i currently use in my home is a foscam, Kevo Bluetooth, Phlips Hue, Amazon Echo, Sonos, Ring Doorbell, and Roomie Remote. How well can i get everything to work with SmartThings?
Cant wait to get the kit and start setting this all up in my new room in a week or 2.
Homekit isn’t really a player yet. I wouldn’t worry too much about something that you can’t really buy yet.
iOS mobile app for ST is where all the magic happens…
Foscam can be hooked up via image capture in ST.
The Kevo, not sure.
Phillips Hue works with the labs integration.
Echo is in progress, some hacks to get it bridged to ST
Sonos, no problem for basic features, announcements etc.
Ring doorbell, nope, good luck…
Roomie remote, no idea.
The smarter home package has some cool basic sensors in it to trip automation, like motion, contact and presence to do other things.
Just depends on what you want to integrate and do with smartthings.
BTW, none of the above will work today with Homekit Maybe someday… As might ST. Once Homekit is out in the wild, I’m sure someone if not ST will figure out how to bridge ST to Homekit. ST is an open platform, almost anything is possible.
Welcome to the community! Absolutely one of the best things about SmartThings is the high activity and helpfulness levels of these forums.
As for your questions…
Version 1 of the SmartThings hub, which is what you got since V2 is not yet available, can do the following integrations:
Basic command set Zwave with some extensions
Zigbee HA 1.2 with some extensions
Some cloud to cloud if both companies cooperate or there’s an open API
An official IFTTT channel which is useful for many things
That’s it. No Bluetooth. No Homekit. No websockets. No local WiFi.
Right now there is no official Echo integration, although that’s the one that seems most likely to apper in the next few months as we do know that people are working on it.
There is some Sonos integration through the “SmartThings Labs” route (which essentially means Beta). Not perfect, and a number of features are missing, but a lot of people in the SmartThings community do have Sonos and are using it to some extent.
No integration with Ring Doorbell. There are some community members who have it and like it, it just doesn’t integrate.
Roomie Remote does have official SmartThings integration that seems to work quite well. See their forums for more information. One of their company founders also has SmartThings, which I’m sure helps.
Philips Hues are also in SmartThings Lab status, meaning some things work, not everything. The Tap does not work with SmartThings.
I cant say whether you made the right decision or not, that just depends on your use case.
I personally have SmartThings, have invested minimal money in it, and use it for some convenience cases. It handles my zwave doorlock well for what I need, I have a contact sensor that tells me whether a first aid cabinet was left open and another that tells me when a gate is opened. It also has limited Harmony remote integration which we use a lot at my house. The IFTTT channel gives me awkward but workable voice control of quite a few things. I moved all my lights over to Echo for now.
There are other people who have literally hundreds of devices running on SmartThings, do a lot of custom coding, and are very happy with it.
So it all depends on what you need. If you’re already using Roomie Remote and like it, SmartThings may be the perfect way to add some additional devices, even though you aren’t likely to be integrating everything within ST itself.
That doesn’t mean ST won’t bring value to your setup: everyone’s needs and preferences are different. I personally don’t use RoomieRemote because I need handsfree options. (I’m quadriparetic.) But I know a lot of people love it.
Once we get better Echo/ST integration, that will be very nice for my purposes. (Love my Echo.) Other people might not care at all.
Can some of you provide cool and interesting things you use smart things for to do around your house, as a newbie that be helpful. Below is what I seen so far:
Smart multi sensor to know when clothes is done and get an alert.
Using Sonos to tell you weather, or when your door has been opened or window etc.
What other cool ideas do you guys use or heard people doing
The first is a list of the misc options in the official app. Lots of interesting ideas there! And those are all easy to use as they’re already set up for installation:
Next is the projects topic. This is where people share their current project ideas:
Third is the official blog, with video interviews on highlighted projects:
And last but definitely not least is the community-created smartapps section of the forum. This is where people who have created custom code share it with others. All kinds of stuff there.
I have two zone heating - both thermostats are integrated into ST - one is a Nest, the other a basic zwave. All the doors and windows that open have contact sensors. I integrated the weather tile so I know the outside temp - a zone heats if the temp is below 65, and turns off heat above 71 OUTSIDE - inside temp is whatever you set it to - unless a door/window is open in that zone - open a door/window for a few minutes, heat is off until closed. No more thinking about the thermostat.
I also use the weather tile to give me “LUX” light levels - below dusk lights will turn on automatically on motion (I have motion sensors in every room, and smart dimmer switches controlling lights) dimmed to 30% - unless they are already on - so you don’t ever have to walk into a room.
I put kwickset locks on all doors, gave out contractor codes that work in contractor mode only, while renovation was in progress. The locks also lock themselves if everyone is away…
Motion sensors trigger notifications if we are away.
Maybe someday… As might ST. Once Homekit is out in the wild, I’m sure someone if not ST will figure out how to bridge ST to Homekit. ST is an open platform, almost anything is possible.
