Alternatives?
If:
Then I can’t recommend Indigo enough. I’ve STcanned SmartThings and I am delighted every day by Indigo’s flexibility, reliability and speed.
Edit: Yeah, just looked at the campaign page. Everything they offer as a possible if they get funding is something Indigo already does, to at least some degree.
Does anyone have a working setup of Home Assistant? I’m not a programmer but can follow instructions well, really curious if this is something to consider as alternative to ST.
Been checking it out for a few weeks now. I am just about to give up on a very cryptic, limited with a very small base of knowledgeable people even a geek like me cant understand . Here are just a few thoughts:
Not for the average joe. You got to love puzzle solving and interpret poorly written and incomplete instructions
HA forum and chat room is full of questions and very few answers.
Unable to get the basic open/close sensors to work without going through hoops each time HA restarts. You had to physically go to each sensor and press the z-wave button on the back. No one anywhere seems to have a solution. Most simply considered this “the cost of doing business with HA”.
The SW is very far behind the times. “New” devices such as Aeon Multisensor 6 appear not to be support. One user describes how he got this particular device working. If you want to follow his directions take heed of my first point above.
Setting up and maintaining the configuration. Bah!!! (configuration.yaml)
What did work, worked extremely well. I added some door sensors and “died and gone to heaven”. The lights would come on before the door was halfway open. (but… see point 3 above).
Adding wemo and hue was the easiest ever. Adding all my (streaming) foscam cameras was pretty easy too.
Bottom line for me was this product is just too limited for my needs. I love techy stuff as much as the next geek but this went a little too far for me. Will keep an eye on it though. I have not written it off just put it on the shelf for now.
Thank you for the detailed input. Is it possible to simultaneously use a couple of devices with ST and HA If I want to give this a try using my existing gadgets? I believe the answer is no but just trying to make sure.
I haven’t used these particular two sets together, but I can tell you that I have had luck with 2 simultaneous zwave mesh’s in my home, So I can’t foresee an issue on that side of it.
Ya, as long as you split the devices up and don’t try to have any one device in both ecosystems, it should be fine.
I’ve heard that, with OpenHAB, it’s possible to add an OpenHAB instance into a SmartThings setup as a ‘secondary’ Z-Wave controller, and if I’m understanding it correctly, in that case, the devices can indeed be connected two ecosystems at the same time. I know you were specifically asking about Home Assistant, but just thought I’d mention it, in case the alternate ecosystem doesn’t matter.
This TP-link router is coming down the pike Q2 2016 and looks like it might have some promise. It has both Z-wave and Zigbee radios along with dual band WiFi. The big question is the software implementation. Right now it seems like all marketing hype. At least it’s not from Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
Again, I think it’s best to keep this thread to things that could actually be installed now.
Until it’s available to buy, there’s no way to tell if the new TP Link Zigbee/Z wave/Wi-Fi router Will be a hub like SmartThings, or whether it will just be a controller like the harmony hub extender. That is, will it have a rules engine? What device classes will it support? What is an “if” and what is a “that”? Are there any button controllers and are they limited to one protocol?
SmartThings may not come with the world’s best rules engine, but it is extremely flexible both in what Devices can be added and in what can be structured as a trigger as well as an event. So when people are looking for alternatives, or to extend the functionality of their system, they are comparing it against both the SmartThings hardware and its multiprotocol hub function. But that comparison is only possible once the other system is actually available to install. 
This does look promising, at least from the hardware point of view.
TP-Link will use their existing Kasa mobile app, which does have some scheduling capabilities.
It was announced at CES, but according to the manufacturer site it has not yet been released. The mobile app discussion was part of the CES presentation, but as we all know, what’s announced and what’s released aren’t always exactly the same. (Cough cough V2 cough cough )
Other than that particular article, have you seen a release announcement anywhere? Maybe I missed it.
So, for those of us interested in acquiring info about new things like this “coming down the pike” (and wanting to acquire it here among trusted friends and leaders (you in particular) in this Community), should we create a new thread named " ST Alternatives On The Horizon"?
And after those alternatives become commercially available be move those posts back to this thread? 
You can setup an MQTT bridge, that talks with your smartthings hub. This way you can create automations etc, with devices that are connected to both HA and smartthings. More information on how to set it up can be found here: https://home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/09/smarter-smart-things-with-mqtt-and-home-assistant/
Love my TP link products. Always rock solid. I’ll wait for the SR20 or look at Veraplus. Smartthings will be DOA if they don’t change their ways quickly. Notice how they were so quick to create an app for a Samsung refrigerator but they can’t seem make the one thing we all want to be reliable? Home security? Smartthings will be following WINK and Staples very soon if they don’t change their ways. Really too, too bad.
Pretty sure the team that created the app for the Samsung smart refrigerator doesn’t have anything to do with the team that works on the SmartThings hub.
Samsung is a huge company with many different divisions, quite a few of which were working with IOT before Samsung acquired smartThings. For example just last year they released a new Z wave-based home security system in Korea out of the security division that had nothing to do with SmartThings. ( and the SmartThings hub still doesn’t work with Samsung locks.) The “smart home” app that the refrigerator uses is done by yet another team out of the appliances division. Still another division does all of the health products, including their wearables health app.
Some of this will eventually come together, some of it may always be separate. But right now I believe the team that supports the SmartThings hub is the original startup team plus new hires since the acquisition. But there are still lots of other efforts going on in other divisions.
I am starting to worry a little about the future of ST. We are half way into 2016, with 2017 TV models around the corner and the ST integration is not live. Also, everyone is talking about Artik and its greatest cloud services. Would Samsung offload ST or disolve them? Here is a food for @tgauchat ’ s thought lol
Stop feeding Terry’s @tgauchat thoughts, he’s busy with SmartTiles 
Yeah right, he is at Google I/O!
Not this year, sadly – It’s out of town anyway.
My wild speculation?
I think Samsung is more likely to “absorb” SmartThings rather than offload or dissolve them (though some dissolving may be required to facilitate absorption).
I can definitely imagine a surgical team being assigned to come in, mussing things around, and putting it back together again in a new or existing, but less independent, Samsung division. And the product being relaunched as “Samsung Artik Home, formerly known as SmartThings”.
This speculation is mostly based on my “feeling” (
) that SmartThings has both architecture and management issues, and they can’t be solved independently. Sure – with Robert Parker coming on board, ST is getting some fresh blood … but Samsung may really want to perform a full transfusion and multiple organ transplants, and plastic surgery too!
You might be onto something. ST seems to be getting a handle on the architectural issues. But speaking as the newcomer that I am I find that broken promises and vaporware are prevalent here. ST is not a start up anymore, they need to start delivering on promises.