I’ve recently purchased a VeraPlus to upgrade from my Vera Lite, but I’ve had nothing but trouble with UI7. None of my GE Link lights (I have over 30 of them) are recognized by Vera and most of my window/door sensors no longer work.
Have any of you switched from Vera to ST and found it more reliable, or am I better off sticking with VeraPlus and waiting for a patch for my GE Link lights to work?
My devices are:
Yale Lock
30 GE Link bulbs
10 Hue light strips and bulbs
4 Harmony hubs
5 GE zwave fan switches
1 WEMO outlet
1 GE outlet
2 My Q garage openers
3 Nest Protects
3 Honeywell Thermostats
2 Aeon plugs with energy monitors (for washer and dryer)
several zwave door/window sensors
4 Echos
Every system has pluses and minuses. SmartThings certainly has a much wider zigbee implementation. That said, the dependence on the cloud introduces a lot of instability. People move in both directions, it just depends on your own particular needs and priorities.
We should also note that the GE link bulbs have a known firmware problem that can cause them to become disconnected from the network from time to time. For this reason, they are not on the official “works with SmartThings” list, although other brands like Cree and Osram are. Many people who are otherwise very happy with SmartThings have made the decision to switch from GE links to Hue whites or other brands. So if your only reason for switching is GE bulbs, I’m not sure you’ll end up with a happy result.
Yes, the GE Links will frequently lose connection to the bridge and randomly turn on, but at least I could still see them on my Vera Lite. In Vera Plus, it doesn’t recognize any of the bulbs anymore - even the ones active in the Hue app.
You can no longer get them to even appear on the dashboard. I feel like the majority of the functionality in my home automation is “on hold” because the dashboard only recognizes about half the devices.
I have been using 4 GE Links for about a year now on ST. I really like the bulbs light pattern (side and top focused) and they are brighter in a fixture that has a shade.
3 of my bulbs are on manual switches, which is not the best application, constant power is required for status. Early on I had a couple disconnects, but overall reliability. I never had the constant disconnect problems others have reported, it may depend on one’s RF environment. The switched ones will always show “On” as the status as the hub never gets the off command when power is cut. When switched on they are nearly instantly controllable and dimmable from ST.
I started with the Links paired to ST, over time tried them paired to Hue hub. Hue hub worked reliable as well and seemed to report better. Recently the Hue hub has updated and just reports them as “Unreachable” all the time and although the bulbs react to Hue commands the status is not reported back. I have now paired them back to the ST hub and if the switch is on, the correct status is displayed.
When the new Hue white bulbs came out at the same price, I started adding these. But they are not as bright, regardless of the spec because of the softer focus.
Conclusion, I would buy more Links if they were less expensive than the Hue whites (which after a very recent ST update report almost instantly back to the ST hub) for certain fixtures, outside lamps come to mind since they radiate away from the house better.
I hope that helps, my ST relationship is a love/hate one, but natively supports everything important to me, Hue & Echo.