I’m pretty new to SmartThings but coming in fresh I feel like I was sold a shiny diamond and got given a lump of coal. The experience has painful but the underlying product seems to be good. People list the starter kits on Ebay citing they couldn’t figure it out, or make use of it so are selling. And I thought as someone technically savvy I thought it wouldn’t be an issue. But really they weren’t fibbing.
After a week of use I’ve had the following issues:
totally inconsistent design language throughout the app and especially the third party apps
bizarre information architecture
the core concepts are not clearly (devices, their handlers, smartapps) explained
mis-leading content (where this topic originated from)
no directory of devices and smart apps organised by ST, Vendor and 3rd Party with when they were last updated, tested and how often they are maintained and ratings
no easy way to update applications (evergreen would be ideal or option to be)
mis-leading messaging in the platform
generally a poor UI design (lots of things hidden, lots of concepts on the screen at one)
subjectively its not pretty either
no feature parity between regions
If you guys want to survive you need to scale, the early adopters will move on. I want it to work, technically it seems like a great platform but it needs a strong community and vendor backing to keep it up. I don’t need to spell out what happens if not, you’re product owners should know exactly what happens.
Don’t be mad I’ve slammed your product, Bill Gates once said:
“your unhappy customers are your biggest source of learning”
As others have said, unfortunately the frustrations you ran into have been around for a long time. But the community is great!