Smartthings reliability and suitability for commercial applications? (2019)

There have been at least three of these threads in the last few months, and, yes, my opinion at least is the same. Smartthings is not designed for commercial use and is not suitable for commercial use.

Their own product usage guidelines have not changed,

https://www.smartthings.com/guidelines

  • Data accuracy and consistency from SmartThings sensors, including those provided by SmartThings directly, resold by SmartThings, or supported by SmartThings, is not guaranteed. Therefore, you should not rely on that data for any use that impacts health, safety, security, property or financial interests. For example, because temperature readings may vary significantly from reading to reading on an individual device, between devices, or over time, those readings should not be used to control heating and cooling in environments where food spoilage, health risks, or damage to physical goods could occur. Alternately, presence data from SmartThings devices or mobile/Smartphones can vary in accuracy, and therefore should not be used to control access to secure locations without secondary authentication.

Unlike Lutron, Leviton, Philips, and even Amazon echo, they do not have a commercial services division, which is usually a big clue. :wink:

There continue to be random bugs of the “this has been working for months and now it just stopped working“ Variety, including one just this week where integration with the Phillips hue bridge stopped working for a number of people. And another where the smart home monitor “disarm” tile disappeared from the app for a day or two. (Note that both of these were officially recognized as bugs and resources assigned to fix them, but they never appeared on the official status page.)

Hue integration stopped working (27 June 2019)

Arm & Disarm tile missing (SHM disappeared from V3 app 26 June 2019, had been working fine)

They continue to push out firmware updates that can be neither delayed nor denied.

There are still no network mapping utilities and still no easy way to manage multiple locations/hubs.

Smartthings staff has told us many times in this forum that their typical customer has 15 or fewer devices and never uses any custom code.

It remains an interesting candidate platform for DIY residential installs for people with a high tolerance for minor glitches who are extremely budget sensitive on a per device basis.

But whether you are looking for a security system, Home Automation system, or just lighting controls, it just doesn’t yet meet the reliability required for commercial operations.

JMO, of course. :wink: (Well, mine and Samsung’s: again, see the product usage guidelines link above.)

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