This is a very complicated subject and I fully understand both sides of the argument, so let me first address the issue of responsibility. I believe that since Smartthings is primarily advertising itself as an alternative to a home security system they have the responsibility to concentrate on making that part of their business first and foremost and make it as reliable as can possible. If they need to create a division within the company to solely concentrate on this aspect then it should be done as quickly as possible. The other division would be the home automation part of their business. If they donāt excel at both sides of this eventually someone will and take their customers away. Because, IMHO both sides of their business should be separated.
A lot of this also depends on customerās expectations and applications. If enough people complain that Smartthings is not offering them the security that they thought they were buying the reviews here, on Amazon and other places will cost Smartthings a lot of customers.
I canāt call this false advertising because it does what it says it will do. How much reliability and functionality is enough? 95%? 90%? 85%? Only the customers can answer this and if the majority of them are not satisfied then the bad reviews will come and sales will drop. If most customers expectations are being met or if most of the customers only want the home automation features and not the security sales will grow.
In my case my Smartthings system has been about 90% reliable. For me personally this was not high enough for me to rely solely on Smartthings for my personal safety. But 90% is still pretty good and for many people this is good enough. As I said before, Smartthings does many things for me that my Security System will not.Although I have had many frustrations and lack of reliability I am not tossing the system any time in the near future.
In another post I will talk about what a true security system should accomplish.
I had ADT for several years at our old house. It worked fairly well most of the time. We didnāt have a land line so it required radio (extra expense, plus extra monthly fees). It would go down maybe once every 2 months or so, so not 100% reliable.
But really the issue was remembering to arm and disarm the system. Eventually we got lazy and stopped using it. I like ST because it can be totally automated so I donāt have to do anything. At 11:30pm it performs Goodnight routine and arms the system. at 6:30am it performs Good Morning and disarms system, when we all leave for work it arms the system. When we arrive home it disarms the system (most of the time). ST is also nice in that I can cheaply add smoke and flood alarms to the system (which are also an extra monthly fee for regular alarm companies).
That said, I would like to add in the ability for some manual arming/disarming with a keypad or even a double tap of a secret switch, but a delay is absolutely required!
If anyone else thinks a delay before SHM alarms would be a nice feature, send an email to support@smartthings.com. If enough people request it, they might finally get around to making this a priority and adding it.
https://support.smartthings.com/hc/
I am only posting here about my personal experience with Smartthings. My biggest problem has been long delays in arming/disarming automatically with Geofencing and sending me notifications. That is the reason I donāt give them a 98 to 99 percent reliability rating. Often I have been at my destination 20 to 25 minutes away before I get a notification. When I first purchased the system it was nearly instantaneous after leaving the ares. It appears that many people are asking for delays and keypads. In my case, the last person leaving and after locking the doors will arm MY main security system and Smartthings with our smartphones while walking to his/her car or after sitting down in the car. It only takes about 15 to 20 seconds to arm or disarm both systems. For me having a keypad and delays is a non starter. If Smartthings could get the Geofencing and notifications to work quickly and reliably there would be no need for this IMHO.
Out of curiosity, how long did you try to use ST for security? I would be pretty satisfied if the only issues Iāve had with SHM were just lags in arming/disarming based on geofencing (in fact I donāt use presence to arm/disarm SHM).
When it looks like your system is disarmed, then the alarm goes off anyway, or you canāt even disarm the system in the mobile app your reliability rating might decrease somewhat.
Mark, my home was burglarized on Thanksgiving, Evening, 2015. After doing a lot of research I was taken in by Smartthings Advertising and all the rave reviews online. I purchased my Smartthings home monitor shortly thereafter so it is coming up on nearly a year. In the beginning everything including Geofencing worked flawlessly. In fact I recommended that my daughter purchase one which she did.Notifications arrived almost instantly. After the first hub upgrade the delays started and got worse and worse. They have never gotten back to the way they were. Sometimes I had to wait forever for the system to arm/disarm and sometimes the system said it was disarmed and as soon as I entered the house the alarms and notifications would start coming. I almost threw the system in the trash. When Smartthings coupled up wit Scout Alarm for monitoring purposes, I passed as I was getting too many false alarms and too many delays. Most everything has improved over the past year, but there are enough problems still that I adamantly do not recommend anyone rely solely on Smartthings to protect their belongings and safety. My wife had just come home from work and I had not arrived home yet and she came very close to walking in on the burglars. That gives you something to think about. After a lot of research I chose Frontpoint as my Home Security solution. I chose the cellular only plan which allows me to hide the base station to prevent or at east delay the crooks from finding it. Yes I have to pay a monthly fee but their system has worked flawlessly for me.
You would think that I am down on Smartthings, but I am not. I realize that the concept and technology are in their infancy and I believe in the future they will become the leaders in this field. But they have quite a ways to go before I trust my home security to them completely.
As I walk around my house and monitor my devices in the āRight Nowā section of the Smartthings mobile app, as long as my iPhone is in range and connected to my home wifi network each device triggers and communicates with my iPhone instantaneously. It is when I arm/disarm my system that long delays can occur and in some cases preventing me from arming/disarming it, even though I am in range of my home wifi. To me it looks that those functions are being sent to the cloud somewhere and back to either my hub or my iPhone. Once I am out of range of my home wifi the delays become longer. Is this a problem with my carrier, my internet provider or just too much traffic on the internet at that particular time? It may or may not be Samartthings fault but either way it is causing serious unreliability issues that Smartthings must address and find a solution to.
I set up a custom app to notify me when my wifeās iPhone comes within the range of my Geofence. Last night she had been home for at least 10 - 15 minutes before I received the notification. Tonight it worked perfectly.
Iām sorry to hear your family had to go through that experience. I think you made a good choice in deciding to rely on a ārealā home security system. I also agree that the cloud-based architecture of the ST system undoubtedly introduces lag or even bigger issues when it comes to reliability, which makes it kind of a ridiculous design for something as important as home security.
Thanks Mark. In my particular case I suspect my next door neighbors although I have no evidence to back that up. That makes me even more cautious when it comes to my security as they donāt need to case out my home. They know when my home is occupied and when it is not. What most people donāt realize is that if no one was hurt in the incident unless the evidence falls in the policeās laps or they can catch the burglars in the house and there is no video evidence your case goes to the bottom of he list. They simply donāt care. You have to provide the evidence to them for example if your stuff is sold to a pawn shop or shows up on Craigslist. That is why after all I have learned since then that each person must give a lot of thought as to how they are going to protect their homes and families. I sincerely believe that anyone wanting to save some money and rely solely on Smartthings need to have their heads examined. The cost of my Frontpoint system additional hardware and the monthly fees I must pay for the 3 year contract is a fraction of what I lost. Long story but even though I had a full replacement value policy with my insurance company much of what was stolen (jewelry, cash, items that I could not find the receipts for,) I only recovered about half of te value of the stolen items. It could have been much worse ā identity theft, extra car and home keys etc.
Remember that one can never prevent a burglary, but the object is to slow them down as much as possible and alert you and the police as soon as possible if an intrusion occurs. The outside perimeter of your home or business should both alert you if suspicious activity is occurring before they breach your building.and record that activity both for evidence and for being able to monitor what is happening. Having lights turn on inside and outside the house will enhance the night vision of your cameras and alert the burglars that someone might be home and their presence has been detected.
Next harden your doors and windows. A good solid wood or metal door is important. Most people donāt realize that their door jambs are not mounted to the frame of their houses and would be shocked if they realized that the jamb is only held on by a few 1/2" screws to a very thin pine frame. Replace all the screws with 3ā plated ones to secure the jamb to the 2x4 frame of the house.This will make much harder to kick in the door. Use plenty of screws. Even if the door is not kicked in a chisel can pry away the wood around the locks and bolts in a couple of minutes. Most hardware stores sel kits made of metal that you secure to the edge of the door and on the door jamb to help prevent this. Locks should be bump resistant.There are many devices to make it difficult for the thief to open your windows even if he breaks the glass. Will your security system still send alerts if your internet and/or power lines have been cut from the outside? Have your outdoor videos already been sent to the cloud for safe storage. All of this before your home or business has been breached.
In another post I will discuss what I have learned once the home has been breached.
Once your home has been breached, a true security system must be able to RELIABLY and QUICKLY send out notifications. The system must arm and disarm immediately. What has driven me crazy over the past year is why does ST work perfectly and quickly at times and at other times extremely unreliably. Could it be the fault of the internet itself? I know that, depending on the time of day the internet can be very fast and at other times it can slow down to a crawl. When I am at home and my iPhone is connected to my personal wifi everything seems to work well, (although arming and disarming can be extremely slow at times). If that is the case that the reliability is related to the internet then cellular backup is a must although there will be a monthly charge.