Uproar? Really?

General Discussion
21

Maybe this?

https://twitter.com/PrivacyFanatic?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

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Yup.

Still don’t get it
 Particularly because this has nothing to do with privacy.

###NB: The word “privacy” is not event mentioned once in the article.

Perhaps she should write this type of article under a different nom de plume that’s less shady.

Anyhow
 as I admitted, it is good to see “mainstream” press about SmartThings. I just don’t feel this is “mainstream”. This is a tech blog that is focused on a particular issue without any balance.

To me
 It mostly reads as gossip; not like a professional journalist’s report on the state of SmartThings. The situation is a mess; and it’s a darn shame it’s come to this. I don’t think it was necessary, and I definitely think there is more risk of harm than good.

Of course, “bad” product reviews aren’t good either, but at least that doesn’t reflect poorly on the Community.

Anyhow
 I’m tired. :weary:.

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**

What did I do??

**

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The last time I heard about Ms. Smith she was trying to kill Mr. Smith.

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IMO this is embarrassing and makes the community look really bad.

Just my opinion

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Well I am angry that there isn’t enough feedback and info from ST regarding fixing their problems. The last update was on the 8th. It would be nice if they would help put out the fire. As far as Bruce removing Rule Machine I don’t blame him, and yes I use it, and Bruce was very helpful getting two of my rules running. Bruce did submit his work for review and yes it was ignored. That is the sad thing. Bruce has put a lot of work into his app and if it isn’t running as it should on a degraded system he pulled it as he should. Don’t blame Bruce for doing what he did to protect his work. When ST comes clean or lets us know what is really going on maybe then there won’t be so many angry customers. ST management has to be upfront and keep the community up to date on what is getting done and what isn’t. There were things broken in the last IOS update that have still not been fixed effecting many of us. So let’s see what the next update from ST tells us, that is if there is one.

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Oh, c’mon Terry, chill. This is just a tech blog, not 60 Minutes or NY Times. Besides, you’re the first one who regretted lack of negative reviews in tech media. There you have it. Your wish is granted. :sunglasses:

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Yup
 I already gave @SBDOBRESCU a “touchĂ©â€ for his recognition of that already Uproar? Really? - #14 by tgauchat

In reality, I have very mixed feelings. Indeed, it’s “just a blog”, but it’s apparently a relatively high-profile blog on the website of a respected industry journal (Network World). So it probably has more impact than an average blog, and it could perhaps have been written more professionally, 
 on the other hand, it is what it is. There are no comments on the article, I haven’t searched to see if it was reblogged, etc


So is this really a significant thing? Dunno; but I’ll repeat: I’d rather see an impartial (but in-depth) review of the product and platform, than a exposĂ© of problems in the Community.

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exposĂ©? This is a public forum, searchable on Google. There’s nothing to expose. The Rule Machine thread is by far the most active thread on the forum, 4,300 posts, so it’s not surprising it drew some attention. And the article is pretty much factual with plenty of quotes and references to ST staffers. Nothing to complain about. And most importantly, this is exactly what Bruce was trying to accomplish, to draw some attention to the continuing meltdown of the platform. I’d call it mission accomplished.

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They will drop the ban hammer soon enough in any event. We’ll just move elsewhere.

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Tell me which other thread has energized the community as Rule did? Hmmm, let me give you a hint :slight_smile:

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It may be 384 people but some of us felt it wasn’t necessary to repeat what was said. Our silence doesn’t mean we’re not frustrated. Worse yet when the one app I thought would let me cruise by most of the issues is now gone. Huge amount of damage done, months of work to restore confidence will be needed and some of the developers many not come back.

They say 1 ‘Oh $#!7 wipes out 10 at-a-boys’. This was a series of related outages that last 27+ days with no clear indication of the issue(s) or that the problem is truly resolved. This is a ‘pants down in the supermarket spanking’.

I’ve had to tell some folks to hold off on SmartThings. I can tell you this will be used as an example of why you can’t let the cloud be the central point of control.

Sorry @tgauchat, my frustration is not pointed at you and I did need a bit of a rant. Right now my SmartThings HA is on hold. I’m handling most of it with custom scripts, Misterhouse and Node/Node-Red.

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I think we do need to be careful not to assign too much credit to the affect withdrawing RM had on forcing this recent round of platform stability improvements. (Assuming they are improvements
 we’ll have to wait and see, I guess). I’m willing to believe Ben and others from ST when they say they have been focusing 100% of their available resources on this problem since they acknowledged that it was a problem. However:

I think we all agree that it took far too long to identify that the problem existed, and that it took far too long to push a fix. I give Bruce a ton of credit for showing how dire that was. If we see improvement in those two areas in the future, then maybe all of this community “uproar” was a success. There will always be software bugs
 the measure is how quickly you identify and fix them.

If ST bleeds users and can’t recover
 I guess I wouldn’t call that a success.

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39

I’ve submitted at least 5 of my device types or smartapps for review and they also were all ignored although some of the changes trickled into the official device types.

Anyway, support has done the same thing to me blaming my code when a user complained about issues and the issues are due to bugs in the ios version of the app not working correctly 
 I put a special ios version up. It pisses me off also they way they work it instead of admitting bugs blaming the app and pointing the finger at the developer
 Not very developer friendly.

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There’s clearly a breakdown between the general user support (support@smartthings.com) and the developer advocates. That has been enumerated a number of times, including in the most recent developer call, and I believe the developer advocates when they say they’re working on improving this system.

It’s unreasonable to expect SmartThings front-line support to cover every community-developed SmartApp, but they shouldn’t pass all of the blame back to the developer either. It’s a tenuous balance that has existed as long as SmartThings has. This is all brought on by the fact that (what I consider, at least) significant, basic functionality (a rules engine, dashboard, functional alarm system, many common device handlers, etc.) is only provided by the community.

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Larry I feel for you, but maybe an email to support telling them how you feel might help. Tell them the truth how the developers are making things better for them and not hindering them so give them the respect they deserve. I think if enough developers complain it might get through to them that without the community they wouldn’t have what they have now. There recent problems prove that fact.

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maybe I will 
 but I am not that pissed. and not really venting , I just let It roll off me because as someone says the first line support is not that technical and really doesn’t know what every device type or smartapp is
 In fact, most of my bug reports come back with useless banter.

Anyway, I was just pointing out my case, and the fact that I can see where bravenel is coming from.