Or, you can sack off this godawful system like do many others, admit it used to be pretty good, accept its a load of bollocks now.
And happily move on. Only to pop back to the forum occasionally to see how many ‘new’ faces are posting about various platform isues. 
As @JDRoberts always says: choice is good
I’m pretty new, did my first smart switch about 2 years ago.
It’s purely a convenience for me, nothing critical on the platform. It’s nice to be able to say “Alexa, lights out” at bedtime instead of walking around flipping switches. And motion controlled garage lights handy, too.
Sure, but there are many different platforms that can give you that. At this point, the unique value proposition of smartthings falls in two areas:
integration with Samsung smart appliances and smart televisions
The ability to add hundreds of different devices and build really complex automations while still having a very contemporary looking app. (I know it’s a bad day to mention the app, but still.) these do require being willing to work with custom code and being willing to trust your integrations to the cloud, but it is unusual at this price point.
If you just want voice controlled light switches, there definitely are competing systems which are more stable. Choice is good. 
Wanna talk about my experience so far with SmartThings. It might seem like I’m a fan boy to you but I’d tell you SmartThings earns my trust and respect.
I definitely understand your situation and struggles, which I too suffered from ST down times. And I still have one open ticket with their integration of sensi thermostat where the connection goes haywire after a platform outage and I have to relink the account every time.
Based on my use case (medium sized townhouse, with just 2 dozens of devices) though, I’m actually pretty happy with it. And actually thanks to webcore I’ve been able to create most of my automations to my devices, to a degree where I basically have no interactions with light switches anymore and only need to push a remote button or just tell Google to do it for me.
And honestly from my personal observation last year SmartThings had improved on their reliability, you may argue with that though but I actually saw less interruptions to my system.
Lastly on the migration to new app, yes it’s less than ideal and the speed still sucks (why does it take over a second to load a device’s status?) But I think I’m one of the lucky ones with minimum efforts to migrate to new app, I only had to recreate my automations and update a few webcore pistons, and my custom smart apps magically works right away in new app, that’s all. And I actually deleted classic app months before they decommissioned it.
All in all I wanted to say perhaps SmartThings as a platform is still not for power users that have hundreds of devices and automations to configure. Medium to small system would shine using SmartThings integrations IMHO.
You know there’s been a platform outage going on more than 12 hours right now, yes?
I believe most people have been affected by that, but maybe you’ve been lucky.
New SmartThings App now completely broken (Outage 14 Jan 2021)
My system is fine at mo, did have a few wobbles around midnight but currently no issues found ( UK)
I had and outage yesterday, but it only lasted a couple hours. My only lasting problem was that it rearranged my home page. Since I only have around 60 devices it was a quick fix.
Yes and that’s the reason I came to the forum in the first place 
and you’re right I’m one of the lucky guys, my system is mostly functional except for some loss history and a few times of command loss.
This platform outage is 2021 though, I was referring to 2020 and in my bad memory there wasn’t anything like this time, am I right or wrong? I may be wrong lol. But you get my point
I’m going to concur. I’ve had a relatively good experience with ST since I abandoned Wink last May. Albeit there are some issues and sometimes the app is slow to refresh, but overall, the system seems to be up and running correctly most of the time. I’ve been able to do much more than I ever could dream of doing with Wink and it does appear updates (even if sometimes “downgrades”) appear to be happening on a regular basis. Even the “cloud” activities seem to work much more responsively and consistently than Wink’s ever did. And, I’ve probably increased my # of devices by a factor of 4.
I’m also in the small to medium use case (around 60 devices in a medium sized condo and no custom code beyond custom DH and a limited number of smartapps). Perhaps this is the ST sweet spot.
I was not aware there was a system outage until I came on this site. One light didn’t trigger on last night and one didn’t go off this am, otherwise, everything is normal.
I’ve considered other platforms when I left Wink, but honestly, ST seems to have a good balance of functionality and interoperability that does not require extensive user programming. Running mostly local would be a plus though. Beyond convenience, one of my justification for home automation is to save energy. I keep fine tuning my system to that end.
In my opinion, the single most important thing that SmartThings has never fully understood (and this was even before the Samsung acquisition) is that for HA to ever take off on a wide scale it has to just work; the average home owner thinks of their devices (lights, door locks, alarms, smoke detectors, switches) as dumb-but-100-percent-reliable, just like their analog predecessors and their other electric appliances. They don’t expect to have to troubleshoot light switches or locks any more than they do their refrigerator or washing machine. They expect those devices to work when they NEED them to work.
SmartThings has always appealed to the more technical owner and hacker and that’s also what originally attracted me. I could tolerate some glitches in exchange for the cool automation. But when I can’t operate my simple devices, or I lose automations because ST no longer supports them, or I have devices become bricked because they’re no longer supported, it’s just not worth it. And the average non-technical homeowner won’t have any tolerance for that.
Additionally, as more stable and reliable platform alternatives to ST become available (e.g. Hubitat, HomeBridge etc) the techies are going to jump the ST ship in droves.
I really see no long-term future for SmartThings because they fundamentally just don’t get their market and their needs.
To me it feels like Samsung is targeting towards what Google and Amazon have envisioned their platform to be - a multi partnered, intuitive smart integration platform rather than a reliable, professional home automation system. And based on what they’ve been doing these 2 years it definitely makes sense.
So while I agree with you SmartThings would never (or at least, not in the near future) become a reliable home automation platform, I’d say rather it would lean more towards Google Assistant and Alexa. So I would disagree with you that SmartThings has no long term future
For those people claiming their systems and reliability is fine.
Not the best illustration of ‘reliability’.
Also pretty interesting that a thread which (accurately and honestly) adds opinions on other hubs (Alternative Hubs) has been closed down for no reason.
The platform’s dead, kids. Move on. Or at least, do the right thing and don’t for one second post anything which is falsely claiming that the platform is fine. It’s really, really not. And hasn’t been for a long time. According to the emails and the platform outages, this really isn’t an ‘occasional glitch’. Smarthome people need to find an alternative system - there are plenty.
Nobody is bullshitting, they are all saying their own experience.
If you don’t like it, good luck. If you like it, give a thumb up, simple as that
Different things work for different people, and in different ways. Some people may have their system set up in a way where they either don’t notice or aren’t really impacted by some of the recent issues. And some people truly may not have been impacted.
I don’t doubt anyone’s report of their individual experience, there are a lot of variables and a lot of regions and not all platform glitches affect everyone.
I moved my critical use cases off of smartthings a few years ago because I needed a longer MFOP than they were providing. But I still use it for somethings where reliability is not as critical.
Choice is good. 
Well, sure we’ve had outages from time to time and admittedly this one seems to be the worst I’ve experienced but otherwise, I have near zero issues with about 60 devices. My app doesn’t suffer from the slowness talked about by others and 99% of the time it just works and I have no plans to “move on” as I am satisfied…it’s not dead and majority of other would agree
I did not know the alternate hubs discussion topic was closed. In all reality this is a smartthings topic forum so samsung does have a right to close it but I think that was wrong move. My guess is too many people are bolting & maybe samsung thinks that’s going to stop them from leaving but they are dead wrong. As jdroberts said… choice is good & we have been witnessing people make those choices as they left smartthings for food, especially the user/developer & that’s not good for us users.
I had problems for an hour. It was educational in some ways as it was the first time when using ST that I’ve really lost adequate control of the home to an extent and just waiting things out wasn’t an immediate option. There was just a hint of the batshit mental about things.
I am well aware of the pros and cons of ST and that influences how I use it.
There is one thing that sometimes makes me want to rip the whole lot out, but the same thing also discourages me from considering some of the alternative solutions.
Fair enough. If it works for you (whoever you are), then that’s great. And I’m genuinely happy that you don’t suffer any problems.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have an extremely bitter taste from this ecosystem. Its going to take me a long, long time to forget about the hours upon hours I wasted rectifying issues, before finally getting so utterly demoralised by the whole thing, that I purchased a hubitat hub on impulse.
I’m always going to be annoyed at myself that I didn’t do it sooner. My experience virtually overnight improved. 6 months on, never looked back. But I still keep tags on the forum here as it was my ‘home’ for such a long time, and I’ll always be grateful for the help and advice provided by the staff and the community here.
But the system itself? Can’t trust it. At all. Can’t recommend it. To the point of physically putting mine in the bin as an alternative to giving it to my parents after my upgrade because seriously - from my experience, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Apologies to anyone who feels strongly about it this, but I have more than enough detailed, specific experiences to qualify my opinions.
But best of luck to those of you who have somehow managed to co tinue to ‘hit lucky’.
I agree fully with Troy. I have over 120 devices with few issues and I also don’t have a slowness issues. I figure what I have now will be changed once the new Google/Amazon/Apple/Zigbee Alliance finish the Project Connected Home over IP initiative. I foresee a bright smart home future.
I also very much like knowing Staff is participating in the conversations and offering help when they can. The developers and advance users on these pages are great as well. I am not saying you don’t have the same with the other platforms. Just wanted to say it.
Good luck mccarbc, I hope all your smart home automations work for you. Peace.
And if I had known about them 3 years ago when we were building this house I might have gone that way. But then again, I didn’t know I’d mostly stop with lights. I’ve got Nest outdoor cameras, Chamberlain garage doors, and Honeywell WiFi thermostats, none of which work easily, if at all, with SmartThings. And I’m not really concerned about it.
I’m not an Apple user so HomeKit gear is not an option. I dislike the look of the Lutron dimmers I’ve seen. And I made the, possibly mistaken decision that Z-wave was superior to Zigbee.
