Hiya,
First time post so be gentle…lol
I see there is a offer of £99 for the starter kit and £49 for the hip only.
Is it really worth the extra £50 for the bits in the starter kit or should I just get a hub and then add my stuff as and when I need them?
Thanks
Plug… about £45
Presence Sensor… about £30
Door Contact … about £30
Motion sensor… about £30
So… if you have a need for these (although I personally wouldn’t trust the plug) then it’s better to get the full starter pack
But…
You can use a phone for presence
Plugs can be got for about £20 (Foxx Project work well)
Door Contact… about £15-£20 (Foxx again)
If you already have the bits you need and they are compatible with ST then just get the hub 
I used the plug as a ZigBee repeater 90% of the year and to turn the Christmas tree on/off using SmartLighting the other 10% so if you need to extend your ZigBee network or plan on adding ZigBee sensors that might be a little far from the hub it might be worth having around.
Here in the states the hub is on sale for $50 (~ £38) and the starter kit is $150 ( ~ £114). If ours was $100 for the starter kit I would have bought a second for the plug and motion alone and sold off the rest.
Agreed… I just use the plug as a repeater
If I knew then what I know now, I would just buy a hub and other sensors
I have 11 XIAOMI contact sensors of which none have dropped off
(I have had to reset the Samsung ones a few times)
I have a couple of ‘Sensative Strips’ which have been fit and forget
I would say it is worth the £99 package because Smartthings really is not that plug and play apart from the very basics. What you get in the kit then is some basic “things” that on the whole reliably connect, reliably work and that do pretty much plug and play. So, it is a good way to start understanding the Smartthings concept and thinking about what you might want to do with it. After that, you can start downloading privately written programme codes through the interface and adding non official “things”, which expands the possibilities enormously but at the beginning I found that it does require quite a few hours and alot of head scratching if you are non IT based !
So, this eases you in…if you struggle with these, I think you won’t get very far with the more advances stuff !!