Using both Smartthings and Home Assistant?

Hi all,

Just set up my first home server and now I’m curious about the possibilities with Home Assistant.

Is there a primer anywhere which describes the integration between the two systems, or the options available?

Trying to understand the benefits of running both, if everything I currently use syncs with Smartthings already.

Is it additional integrations? More flexible automations? Do most just use the Smartthings hub as a pass-through for Zigbee and Zwave devices once connected to Home Assistant?

Thanks in advance!

Quite a few community members use both, so hopefully you’ll get some good replies.

I think the short answer is people generally see three benefits from adding home assistant to a SmartThings home:

  1. more stuff runs locally

  2. The possibility of creating more complex automations and schedules

  3. The option to use some additional devices that don’t typically work with SmartThings

(And then there’s a fourth benefit for some people, which is just that they feel they have more cred in some home automation discussion groups. :wink:)

But which benefits you specifically would get all comes down to the details of what devices you want to use and how you want to use them.

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From SmartThings to Home Assistant there’s an integration which is cloud based and, at the moment, is broken: SmartThings - Home Assistant

From Home Assistant to SmartThings there’s the so called Matter Hub for HA that bridges devices in HA to SmartThings and other platforms locally using Matter: Matter Hub simple setup to link Google Home, Alexa and Siri to Home Assistant - Voice Assistant - Home Assistant Community

It would be a waste of the local nature of Zigbee and ZWave, the integration would depend on the Internet.

However, using the SmartThings hub as Thread border router in Home Assistant would be possible and it would work locally, so you would not need a Thread “dongle” for the HA server.

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As mentioned, the HA integration to ST is broken. You can monitor any developments from the developer in the following link: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/133623

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I think the broken part is the token changing in ST.
Supposedly the time out is 24 hours, so you have to renew token every day. I just started using HA so I only just did get ST integration working and then it died the next day, token expired.
Bu do have my Tiles, cameras, and others already connected in HA. My biggest thing is I like that you can use a PC, iPad, iPhone or droid to view and control.

In addition to the main points that jdroberts mentioned and which I can confirm for my own reasons, I also use both systems simultaneously for redundancy purposes: the critical devices (lighting, thermostats, door locks) are registered in parallel in both systems.

Music players (e.g., Sonos) are much more conveniently controllable via Home Assistant, while (Samsung-branded) TVs and monitors are better controlled via SmartThings.

For controlling and displaying on larger wall tablets/dashboards, I find the customization options in Home Assistant to be much better and more flexible. However, SmartThings, in my perception, has a slightly better look and UX for less tech-savvy family members, aka smart home newbies on their mobile phones.
For me, energy management in Home Assistant is far superior and more accurate, while SmartThings offers more detailed and further options with Samsung’s own white goods in combination with other ST devices.

These are all very individual reasons, and building both systems took time and effort, but I no longer want to do without running both systems in parallel.

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