We bought a new home last November and I dediced to make it a connected home.
The idea was to start small, do a lot of testing to make sure that I get it right (wife acceptance factor) and eventually add things/automation as we needed them.
It was pretty fun, at first. Now, even with only something like 15 connected things, it is more a pain than anything due to the fact that this is so unreliable.
Here is a list of said pain:
- Logitech Harmony Home Hub integration went down around last January, never worked since. A fix is supposed to be available “soon” (been hearing that from support for the last 2 month). The idea was to add lighting adjustment to activities on the Harmony setup. It broke before I had a chance to even try it
- Netatmo integration went down something like 2 month ago. No one knows when (or even if) a fix will be available. This was the only device I found that could actually support or canadian winter. All the Z-Wave sensor I found don’t go below -4C. On the coldest day around here we can get below -30C. Worked well with our bi-energy setup and thermostat last winter. Now I’m getting the external temperature from an Aoen Lab multi motion sensor but I know for a fact that it won’t work outside during the winter.
- Wemo integration is awfully unreliable. ST just doesn’t know in what state the device is most of the time, have to remove the switch (and all associated smart apps) and re-add them again
- The Android app is a mess since 2 or 3 updates. Keeps giving “Sorry, an unexpected error has occurred” or just crashing. Considering that SmartThings was bought by Samsung, I would have expected the Android app to get better but it doesn’t seem to be the case. Don’t know if the iOS app is getting better or worse
The first three problems might not be totally ST’s fault, but they are still advertising the platform as being compatible with these devices. I chose ST because they were saying they were compatible with things I already had or was planning on buying.
As you can guess, all of this was reported to the support. All they had to offer was poor excuse and ask for patience.
For now, I’m awfully happy I didn’t go all in right at first and spend thousands of dollar on SmartThings “things” as I might just switch platform and go with something else entirely.