Wattle vs. SmartThings?

Any comparison between SmartThings and Wattle (www.wattle.com) in general?
Pros, cons?
Can the devices interact both ways?

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Never ever heard of Wattle before (nor ā€œHome Control ASā€), so thatā€™s not a great sign. But is it a more popular product than I think???

Wattle seems to only be in Europe (whereas SmartThings is barely in Europe) ā€¦ so thatā€™s a plus for now, if you are in Europeā€¦


You might have luck finding folks in the various Smart Home or SmartThings Europe, etc. Group(s) on Facebook, because this is such a rare question. Really - I read everything and never heard of it.

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The parent company, Home Control AS, is a well-established automatic systems company from, I think, Norway. Theyā€™ve done a bunch of big office buildings. Like many companies with that skillset they wanted to get into the home automation sector. (Like the Nice Groupā€™s recent purchase of a 75% stake in Fibaro.) so they went to develco, which is a white label producer of Home automation systems in Denmark, and licensed their basic multiprotocol hub, which does zigbee home automation, zigbee green energy, zwave, and WiFi, and rebranded it as ā€œwattleā€ with a new app.

At this point, there are quite a few low cost multiprotocol home automation systems that handle both ZHA and Z wave, including SmartThings, Wink, Vera, Zipato, Iris, Toshiba Symbio, Abode, Develco, Homey, Almond Securifi, and about half a dozen more.

The devices will mostly be interchangeable except that many of the hubs limit the specific zigbee devices that can be linked.

I know weā€™ve discussed some of the Develco products before, theyā€™re pretty standard ZHA sensors and plugs.

So I donā€™t see anything particular new in wattle although the app so far is scoring high in user reviews.

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The ā€œwattleā€ name and app are brand new, but the devices are rebranded Develco. And I know youā€™ve heard of Develco, for example this from 2017:

They are very much like Centralite, but based in Europe.

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The devices that are made to the third-party standards could likely be used with either hub, but not with both at the same time. Wattle and smartthings are competitors to each other.

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300 euros for the hub? I think they may have a tough time getting into the home consumer market, especially if Samsung brings the ST hub to the European market at anything close to the price point in the US.

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Home automation has generally been more expensive in Europe. Fibaro, which looks like their closest comparable, offers two hub models: the regular model at Ā£450 pounds and the ā€œlightā€ model at Ā£250 pounds.

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Yupā€¦ Itā€™s dangerous generalize, but it seems that European vendors have been focusing on the ā€œmid-marketā€ than USA.

Though SmartThings is in many ways a ā€œleague of its ownā€ā€¦ so if drawing a price-spectrum diagram it would be difficult to decide what belongs on the ā€œfeatureā€ axis.

Samsung has really focused on being the lowest-price, and yet still has a lot of features ā€¦ and shortfalls.

We know itā€™s an ongoing question as to how much higher of a price folks would be willing to pay for just ā€œone level upā€. I doubt that $500 Hubs would or do gain much of a footing here. Still find it odd that companies are willing to cut their margins so slim ($60 Hubs from SmartThings, $20 cameras from Wyze Labsā€¦). Maybe different cultural expectations? Europeans would rather pay $300 to $500 and assume that has the basic level of quality they general expect from household appliance purchases?

Hmph. Iā€™m just rambling. I guess I can rather conclude that ā€œWattle vs. SmartThingsā€ arenā€™t really comparable. Or are they?

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I think itā€™s more that with the exception of vera, the home automation systems in Europe have been from standalone companies that are expecting to make a profit. So they are much more similar to homeseer, whose flagship hub costs $900, with an economy version for $400.

Samsung didnā€™t buy SmartThings to make a profit on each hub. And wink always hoped to be bought by a bigger company. Itā€™s just a different business model.

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FYI: Wattle leak detector https://wattle.com/product/water-leak-detector/ works with SmartThings. It is found initially as a ā€˜Thingā€™. By choosing ā€˜SmartSense Moisture Sensorā€™ as device type in IDE, it works just fine (without temperature reporting).
Itā€™s a bit cheaper than ST leak sensor, uses dirt cheap AAA batteries and the actual sensor is wired (1.2m cable) so the positioning and future battery changes should be easy.

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Have you tried the smoke sensors ?