Any comparison between SmartThings and Wattle (www.wattle.com) in general?
Pros, cons?
Can the devices interact both ways?
Never ever heard of Wattle before (nor āHome Control ASā), so thatās 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 thatās 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.
The parent company, Home Control AS, is a well-established automatic systems company from, I think, Norway. Theyāve 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 Groupās 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 āwattleā 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 weāve discussed some of the Develco products before, theyāre pretty standard ZHA sensors and plugs.
So I donāt see anything particular new in wattle although the app so far is scoring high in user reviews.
The āwattleā name and app are brand new, but the devices are rebranded Develco. And I know youāve heard of Develco, for example this from 2017:
They are very much like Centralite, but based in Europe.
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.
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.
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 ālightā model at Ā£250 pounds.
Yupā¦ Itās dangerous generalize, but it seems that European vendors have been focusing on the āmid-marketā than USA.
Though SmartThings is in many ways a āleague of its ownāā¦ so if drawing a price-spectrum diagram it would be difficult to decide what belongs on the āfeatureā axis.
Samsung has really focused on being the lowest-price, and yet still has a lot of features ā¦ and shortfalls.
We know itās an ongoing question as to how much higher of a price folks would be willing to pay for just āone 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. Iām just rambling. I guess I can rather conclude that āWattle vs. SmartThingsā arenāt really comparable. Or are they?
I think itās 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 didnāt buy SmartThings to make a profit on each hub. And wink always hoped to be bought by a bigger company. Itās just a different business model.
FYI: Wattle leak detector https://wattle.com/product/water-leak-detector/ works with SmartThings. It is found initially as a āThingā. By choosing āSmartSense Moisture Sensorā as device type in IDE, it works just fine (without temperature reporting).
Itās 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.
Have you tried the smoke sensors ?