Hi,
I came across a topic, which I was not so aware about and was wondering if anybody has some input for me: My internet got disconnected the other night and already with a motion sensor turned on lights did not go out anymore. After a quick research I found out that Smartthings depends more on the cloud than I thought/expected.
Okay, so I looked into this a little bit and found an article of the German tech newspage “heise.de” from April 2015 (not the first - hahaha) with the title “Smartthings turns away from the Cloud”. The article basicly states that Smartthings wants to do more and more locally and a new hub supporting this even more will be coming out 3rd quarter the following year (so end of 2016). Since now there actually is a new wifi hub in the US: is is true? Does this hub support more local control than the 2nd gen hub? And if so: does anybody know something about the UK release?
If not: I read that somebody mentioned a local server etc., but I assume that a normal mobile stick for the router, so that the connection is going to switch automatically when cable goes down, will be the simplest way to fix this problem, right?
Nevertheless, I would appreciate if Smartthings would do more locally, because I don’t see the point why stuff which can be done locally has to be in the cloud causing problems like the one (even though it’s a small issue!) mentioned above!
SmartThings are now starting to test more local operation
But… at the moment it will only be for smarttings created apps and DTH
This means (currently) ‘smart lighting’ is about the only thing that works locally with just a few DTH.
But watch this space, with the current firmware beta there appears to more of a move to local processing. Although I think ST will always rely on the cloud for some/most things.
On another note…
I have a UPS to power my internet modem and smart things… SmartThings hub, Philips Hue Bridge etc…
My requirements are probably not the same as your as I run my business fron the internet so need constant connection… but… I can run most of my house for about 6 hours without power… and a generator for essential stuff after that
Thanks for your comment! Okay, so basicly nothing new with the new hub and probably the improved local implemenations will come with FW updates to the hub v2 anyways, right?
As I said, I don’t even expect much, but the other day my switch did not turn of the light (and if you bridged the wires for a normal switch that kinda su*s) and the one light did not switch off via motion sensor. If for example dimming would not work anymore or sth. like that: ok. I could live with that (even though turning night dimmed lights to 100% is kind of important for me too - you never need it, till you really need it.)
In general, I am not such a big fan of putting everything in a cloud and if the cloud is not only adding features etc. but is the main core of automation this imho blows.
Anyways, I just come from a system which works locally and caused other issues or was not as flexible / adaptive as smartthings. I also don’t like to run many different systems (even when may be connected via ifttt). So except the cloud thing I am pretty statisfied with Smartthings so far (allthough I still have to setup scenes and so on).
I am living in Germany and our power supply is pretty stable compared to the US and since I don’t have an alarm set installed (yet), I don’t mind that it’s not working if the power should go out ('cause lights won’t run anyways). The cable drops out from time to time though and I had it out for a day or so a while ago and if the lights then don’t run at all this would be a minus. Hence my idea with a LTE stick. I have to look into that if it’s worth the investment for “just to be safe” for me.
I agree, I’m not really a fan of ‘the cloud’ for home automation
Apart from ST, I also have a VeraPlus which controls some of my important stuff as it also works locally.
But, of course, it’s no where near as configurable as ST.
I live in a village in the UK and loose power perhaps twice a year but that is enough to disrupt my business if I can’t control it. ( and most of my lights work without mains power)
