Train Wreck - Constant platform issues

Apps & Clients Features & Feedback
#1

I’m very mad at Samsung. I spent almost $5,000 between 4 locations.
There is definitely some funny business going on when this app gets 4.4 stars. The only way I can figure is they tell there employees to sign on and give this horrible app 5 stars. This helps Samsung SmartThings buy making people think this is a wonderful app so then they download it and then they spend the money to buy their crappy devices (motions, multi sensors, plugs etc.).
I have the V3.0 hub and use idevices and I’ve been using SmartThings since Iris by Lowes shut down. I have been pleading with Samsung SmartThings since then to fix anything with their platform but they must think it’s perfect. They prefer not to perfect anything with their existing system and add more crap that doesn’t work with a crappy system already.
I’ve called in over 250 times to SmartThings and it’s basically my part time job dealing with this horrible company. I’m looking for a (different job) by the way if you know what I mean because I’ve had it with dealing with outages and slow responsive app and connected devices on all my systems. I’ve left feedback on the app site but I only get an irrelevant developer response - We regret the inconvenience; our team is constantly working on supporting many more use cases and devices. Could you send all the details of what you’re experiencing to our Customer Support by reporting a problem option from the app. What the hell do you think I’ve been doing for the past 2.5 year???Sickening!!!
See the list below of issues:

  1. Honeywell thermostat only shows what temperature and what state it’s in. You no longer have any control over changing the temperature or turning the fan on or off. Exception is if you have a WiFi thermostat then you have control over everything.
  2. The home monitor info line (above the arm buttons) indicate what sensors are open or what sensors have issues, tell me what sensors are having issues.
  3. You have to choose on and off times in smart lighting twice.
  4. First Alert smoke and carbon monoxide detector. I have it set up to send me a message when batteries are getting low say at 30% the batteries go dead at 79%.
  5. Filter setting for devices are not able to be set permanently. I think that’s why the batteries go dead so quickly after 5 months. This is a main reason I want to dump SmartThings.
  6. We want custom configurations. We don’t want to constantly fight with this app.
  7. This system has NO KEYPAD. Before you say well we do - the ADT one, you can’t have any more that that one keypad and it’s also your hub. This is the stupidest setup I have ever heard of. Who the hell designs a security system with no keypad no way to have multipal keypads you can have by any of your entry exit doors??? My mother uses a cane and can’t run from one end of the house to the other - if say an alarm is going off, she could fall…
  8. Multipurpose door sensors always update with temperatures battery goes dead every 5 months and cold makes the battery go dead even faster. Another reason I really need to get away from SmartThings batteries alone are costing me a fortune.
  9. Hassle to program anything, Lowes by Iris at least made a suggestion when it came time to save your automation.
  10. By the way, if you want to suspend one of your lighting automatons YOU CAN’T it’s have them all on or all off. Stupid!!
  11. No Smart-Care that was the reason I bought this in the first place but then Samsung go rid of Smart Care. My mother is elderly and I originally had it set up when it didn’t detect movement for 8 hours it would send me a text message. Of course this made sense so Samsung got rid of that also.
  12. Presents sensors battery only last 30 days. So these devises are worthless also, I’m not replacing $3.00 batteries every month. Stupid!
  13. Calling into support to explain any of these things is a waste of time. I might as well talk to my dog.
  14. Scenes - Home, night, away has limited function. You can’t even sent time limits to shut of what you have set to come on. Stupid!
    15.The app it’s self takes 28 seconds to fully load before you can navigate and start turning on or of anything. Stupid!
  15. This is only scratching the surface of problems that plaque this system but I have life and don’t want to deal with “dumbThings” anymore.
    I stayed with this SmartThings as long as did because I really thought they would get to fixing these in your face problems but your not sooooo, if anyone has a suggestion on how to move beyond Smartthings I’m all ears, I can’t take it anymore. Thanks!!!
#2
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#3

As @oldcomputerwiz suggested, check out the “alternative hubs“ section of the forum for discussion of other options. Different systems will work for different people, and there are a lot of choices these days.

With the exception of the now EOL ADT model, SmartThings itself is primarily a cloud-based system: it’s never going to work for security when compared to a UL listed product. Just as one example, you can neither arm nor disarm the system unless the Internet is available and smartthings cloud is up. You can also neither defer nor delay maintenance updates, which means your system can go off-line anytime. They usually try to give us a few days notice, but they don’t always. If you just want a low cost do it yourself security system, ring alarm is pretty good and ranks high on most independent reviews. Abode is also worth looking at.

  1. As far as a keypad, if you are willing to pay the one time license fee for access to @rboy’s library, he has a nice DTH for the Ring keypad to make it work with smartthings. It will still be cloud-based, though.

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  1. If you use webcore, you can re-create the functionality you had for the eight hour notification, but I understand you may not want to do that.

FAQ: What is WebCoRE? (And what was CoRE?)

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#4

I get your frustrations.

This bug was fixed some time ago but if you’re still seeing it you may need to flush your platform cache to show the controls (exclude and re-pair your device is one way to flush the cache). If you’re using a Z-Wave honeywell thermostat, check out this DTH which gives you access to advanced features of the thermostat including enabling the Automatic switch over feature in the thermostat (amongst others): [RELEASE] Enhanced Z-Wave Plus Thermostat Device Handler - Honeywell, GoControl, CT, Linear, Trane, MCO

This isn’t really a ST issue, it’s a mesh or device issue. Z-Wave device report the battery % to SmartThings directly (it’s part of the Z-Wave specs). Many devices don’t accurately report battery levels. ST just reports what it gets from the device. This can also happen for another reason, mesh problems. These are FLiRS devices, i.e. they need buffering devices in the mesh to capture the packets. If you have ghost devices or lack of buffering devices in our mesh, the battery update notifications may not be reaching your hub at all. See this post for more details about ghost and buffering devices: FAQ: why would I need another beaming repeater if my zwave lock is already close to my hub?
You can also use this app to manage your low battery notifications (assuming your devices are accurately reporting the information): [RELEASE] Low Battery Notification with Customizable Alert/Warning/Monitor, Configurable Thresholds and Device Monitoring Alerts

Can you elaborate on this, I don’t understand what you mean by filter settings for devices?
You may want to consider adding mains powered Z-Wave Plus devices. They act as buffering repeaters which not only help improve the quality of the mesh, it also reduces the power level requirements of battery devices and helps improve their battery life. We’ve got motion sensors and contact sensors here which have been running on the same battery for over 7 years now and still going strong. Do you have any specific devices you’re having trouble with?

Can you elaborate?

In addition to what @JDRoberts mentioned, you can also check out ZigBee keypads (they have different features from the Ring Z-Wave keypad, pro’s and con’s for each): [RELEASE] Enhanced ZigBee Keypad Device Handler - Centralite, UEI, IRIS, Xfinity, Scout
Again all this runs in the cloud for now. This may change in future as SmartThings start going more local.

The more sensors you have the faster the batteries will die. 4-6 months is about the typical life but you can extend them further with the right batteries and disabling unused sensors. For example with this device handler and a Monoprice 4 in 1 sensor, you can use Energizer Lithium AAA 1.5v batteries, reduce the sensitivity of unused sensors and you should get 1.5 to 2 years battery life from these devices: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15902
Alternatively if you don’t need so many sensors and say you need only a temperature and motion sensor, then use this sensor: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15271
Again, the fewer the sensors the longer the battery life.

The new app automation allows you to set a no motion rule for upto 1 hour. You could use WebCoRE to do this, alternatively you can send in a request to support@smartthings.com to add the ability to set a motionless duration of up to 24 hours (I think many folks may want this feature).

For same reason as above, I don’t think this has anything to do with the hub or platform. If these are SmartThings sensors, you may want to check out alternative devices, even mobile phones using the SmartThings mobile app as a presence sensor or Life360 as a presence sensor.

Try using the Smart Lightning app, it has the ability turn off switches after turning them on.

True, the app doesn’t work well on older devices with less than 2GB RAM. For example on the iPhone 6s or 7 it takes upto 30 seconds before devices are available to use. However on the iPhone 12 Pro, it’s ready in under 3 seconds. I think ST mentioned this somewhere, new app works faster with more RAM.

I totally understand your frustrations (I’ve been with ST for 7 years and gone through all kinds of pains), but every system has their own issues, nothing’s perfect or even close to it. The thing I personally like about ST is the community and alternative options available (e.g. if Scenes don’t work, you have Automations or Smart Lightning or WebCoRE or custom SmartApps). Hope you find this helpful.

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#5

I second @RBoy apps - well worth the onetime fee. the ring keypad is great and pair with QR S2 security.,

1 Like
#6

I’ve tried RBoy apps. There currently isn’t anything that helps my situation. Examples:

  1. Keypad will arm the “Classic” app but won’t arm the new replacement app.
  2. I set up if a window is open for a time, the thermostat shuts off. Doesn’t always work and I get a call saying there’s something wrong with the heating systems.
    This is why I labeled SmatThings a Train Wreak and RBoy app a waste of money.
#7

Thank you so much for suggesting Hubitat, I’ll check it out. I’m looking forward to getting rid of SmartThings as soon as possible.

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#8

Make sure your devices are compatible with Hubitat, most are. Hubitat has been a vast improvement for me, personally but, not without it’s challenges too. There would be lots of tinkering to get everything working they way you want it to.

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#9

It can, but because the new security.mode variable is hidden, you have to do it indirectly by turning on a virtual switch and using an automation to have that virtual switch trigger the change in security.mode.

It’s the same for any custom code now. ActionTiles has a blog article detailing the method on their site.

So I’m not saying it’s a good substitute for what we had in classic, but it is possible.

As for Rboyapps , It’s like most paid apps: it will be worth it for some people and not worth it for others. His code can’t fix the basic instability issues with smartthings, though, Or solve any of the issues caused by a cloud-based system. A lot of people look at other systems just to get more local operations And better reliability, I did myself.