Hi John,
see
the following posts
Photo of the discontinued shield
Announcement of the discontinuation of the Shield
Others working on a replacement
Arduino ThingShield Schematic
Basic thoughts was a replacement shield, Arduino UNO form factor, but with a socketed Xbee radio, so that individuals who donot want the Arduino form factor could still use the Xbee radio in their Arduino project. This would still require the Smartthings Hub to work. Essentially we are replacing the Propeller CPU with an Arduino based CPU.
The original radio on the Arduino Thing Shield was a CEL chip, Model ZICM357SP2-1. The replacemet shield would use the Xbee XBP24CZ7UIS-004, and being socketable, the Xbee would be able to be programmed using the XCTU program to be able to connect to the Smartthings Hub.
I have no feeling as to the marketability ( I would expect several hundred pieces to be sold ), but I think this fits in with the components and Kits that Nuts and Volts sells.
Your knowledge, and experience would bring this to market very quickly.
I do not know the Samsung financial model for Smartthings, i.e how do they make money on a free cloud service?
Did they discontinue the Arduino Shield due to the desire not to support the DIY community? I would suspect they take a cut of any Smartthings sensor/plug/light that is sold, in order to maintain a free Cloud service.
Is a subscription model in the future? I do not know.
Thanks for your interest.
Ben