At the Samsung conference Alex was quoted as saying "Hawkinson said that developers have thus far built more than 11,000 smart apps for the SmartThings platform, and that the platform supports more than 7400 device types altogether."
I’m a big fan, don’t get me wrong, but with a little over 100 supported items in the official spreadsheet and a handful of apps to choose from when looking for solutions I am at a loss.
Why do we constantly ask the community for code/devices to do things when there is this massive library somewhere? With 7400 devices you would think we could go out and buy almost any Zigbee or Z-wave item in the world and have it running in minutes. Yes, there might be a littel sarcasm there. 
Marketing speak. I don’t consider myself a developer, but have created dozens of SmartApps for my own use. I have written a couple of device-types as well, due to many major devices not having officially supported drivers.
As for submissions for official publication, they just seem to go into the ether, and I’ve long since given up on it. And sharing apps within the IDE means you give up pretty much all rights to what you create, so I am not really a fan of that process, and there is nothing in place for folks writing things for the platform to be compensated for their time.
So while I am sure that the above quote will impress parties interested in the platform, it is mostly smoke and mirrors at this point.
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Yeah, I’ve got about three dozen smart apps… many of which I’m not using anymore. 
It’s kinda like saying there are 1 million Android apps out there… of course, 25K of them are flappy bird clones, 50K are solitare, 75K are different versions of Sudoku… etc. etc. I have no doubt that 11K SmartApps exist. How many are unique? Well, that’s a much bigger question.
Same with device types. For example: I created two device types that are just an exact clone of the standard Z-wave on/off switch. I just changed the background color when it’s on. Technically that’s a new device type… but really it’s not.
Just to clarify and echo what has been said here. Most SmartApps and device types are not published through to the community. There are some in our publishing backlog but most are used in people’s homes and will never be published.
Device types do not equal devices. It is not a one to one.
@Ben, this seems to be a “semantics” issue - as in what people translate those words to mean is not what they mean. Unfortunately, perception is reality to most people. For example, I saw 7400 device types and was wondering where they all were. You say that device type does not equal device. Now, step back and look at “device type” from a non-power user’s perspective. They mean the same thing. So, without some subtle changes to describe things in the ST universe, people are going to be confused.
Hell, I’m still confused why device type does not equal device.
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The context for those stats was that we were at a developer conference - SDC.
I saw a news article where a journalist confused the device type and devices. Was annoying, but like Ben said it was a developers conference so the language was geared that way.
Confused. I watched the video about the Smart Home from the conference (posted to the ST Blog) and Alex says “7,000 devices.” I’m not trying to nit-pick here, but that is fairly straightforward and confusing to many…especially when it is on the public blog and not buried in the forums that a new customer might not read.
Can someone actually explain what the 7,000 number is? I want to be sure I talk about ST properly when talking to friends and selling them on why they should get it.
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@brianlees ya the language wasn’t clear, need to start coming up with either new names or better clarity. Alex meant there are more than 7,000 custom device types people have added.
@urman - thanks for the clarification. One note, and this is the part of being “community based” that can be a problem…many versions of the same device! I would love to see some sort of version control and forking control website. It has been discussed in the past - better management of apps and devices from the community. Some great apps get buried here as time passes by. Then, someone makes another one that is basically a reinvention of the previous one. Sometimes better, sometimes worse…but it seems we could do a much better job at tracking all this in some central database. We SOOOOOO need this.
I also get worried flaunting a number like 7,000 around a lot. Eventually it will be looked at as a lot of copies of the same thing without anyway to determine which is reliable. Kind of like having 1000 games in an app store but 783 of them are Flappy Bird clones!
I created a whole bunch of device types just to aid my understanding of programming device types. Or took copies of device types created by others to test. I only have two device types running in “production”.
So I am still curious how the number was derived. Device types in the IDE? Or only those assigned devices?
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I’m guessing that, if you created a device type, its part of that 7000 (whether it’s currently assigned or not).
I’m guessing that, if you created a device type, its part of that 7000 (whether it’s currently assigned or not).
Correct
As part of the keynote Alex said that the average user doubles the number of connected devices within 30 days. Are you able to share what the average number of devices a user has?
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Bump, bump, bump! Just got a badge for sharing this?! I don’t know why or when I shared it. But boy, was November 2014 and the title of this thread is more current than ever…
And just to put it a little into perspective, @jody.albritton asked this question…
And also he answered it…2 years later
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That is per room , right ?
12 rooms and 143 devices , looks like I’m a little below average.
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