To be clear, it is SmartThings that is not ready for prime time. There are a number of systems that are not cloud dependent, work very reliably, and have been available for years. These include Indigo and Universal Devices isy series, as well as some Windows solutions. While not as “clever” as what SmartThings has thrown together, they work 24/7.
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Definitely no buyers remorse here
I joined around October in the UK. Bought a kit and tried it and to be fair it worked pretty much out of the box.
Since then I’ve gone on to add over 100 devices with more planned as ideas and projects develop
Sensors, lighting, switches, audio and remotes and pretty much everything has worked as expected with the notable exception of presence sensors.
It’s got to the stage that if I’m buying tech I primary consideration is whether it may now or in the future be able to interact with Smartthings.
(Zigbee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth 
, an open api or connection via IFTTT)
I’ve seen more than a few hiccups along the way
- Presence sensors are worthless both in terms of functionality and reliability.
- UK set-up is always lagging US capabiliies but ahead in terms of reliability
- Scheduled events used to be a lottery but is better now.
- Occasional (at least in the UK) outages sometimes with frustrating consequences.
- Supported devices not working after updates or new firmware.
But I’ve also found for me that most issues are not permanent or of any lasting consequence and when the community puts it’s mind to it they’ve expanded the systems capabilities in terms of both devices and interfaces far beyond what you can get in any comparable system.
My learning points in ST were.
- Don’t rely on it for security - It isn’t there yet
- Build in automatic redundancy (IFTTT)
- Keep manual redundancy in terms of real switches.
- Use smart apps to build in fail safes
- If you find something doesn’t work ask the community. If it’s known somebodies probably fixed it, if it’s not known somebody will (probably) know how to fix it.
- Trust in Murphy’s law.
- When Smartthings are having a crisis it’s time to get the pocorn
as support are about to have an emotional response
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Scheduled events can be run from Tasker using Sharptools etc, if you have an android phone or tablet that you can dedicate as part of your system. Tablets are fifty bucks
Simplified example:
Profile condition: 8pm happens
Action: turn on three lights
task1: turn on hallway light
task2: turn on porch light
task3: turn on foyer light
Alternatively, at 8pm Tasker could do a phrase, which would run a ST routine that does those three things.
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I had a great experience at first. But over time, with system and hub updates, the system has become unreliable.
As of right now, the routines do not work. I get alarms going off when I shouldn’t and I fail to get intrusion alarms when I should.
I have a very simple setup and the problems I am encountering are due, solely to the Hub and/or back end platform not executing transitions from Armed to Disarmed correctly. Really simple.
I strongly suggest that you do not purchase a Smartthings system. They are too unreliable and worse, unpredictable.
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Personally I love ST so this may come as a shock to some but I wouldn’t currently recommend it to others unless I knew they were technically savvy and had the right expectations of what is possible from the get go.
I’m sure there will be a time when I’d solidly recommend ST, but we’re not there yet.
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Overall, it works. Before the current status, I had almost 2 months of the system working for me without opening the ST app. My only piece of advice is, if you bite the bullet, keep in mind there is going to be some downtime and time from your end. It is not fully baked, so you will have some headaches. Always have a backup (as in, use switches not smart bulbs, and don’t bypass switches relying entirely on ST).
As you can tell from a lot of the comments, if you don’t mind tweaking, tinkering and finding backdoor ways to make things work (more often than not), then ST is not bad. If you want something that just works near-perfect and frustration-free out-of-the-box, probably not.
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