Since the original poster was specific to SmartThings, I think we should leave this thread to that. There are already lots of threads on IOT adoption rates and the general future of IOT, so general discussions can go in one of those. 
Hereās a good one which is quite recent:
And another good one, although older. (And which you yourself started, btw. 
Why donāt you update that for 2019 with some new thoughts?)
Samsung is focusing on the platform in the short-term, and Bixby (AI) in the long term.
They expect Bixby AI to make smart home trivial for DIY consumers.
Then I shall expect that from them too. Because Samsung has such a wonderful track record of fulfilling expectations.
I have automated my securoty system and many lights, sprinklers, sonos etc.
The real winner in Home Automation is likely to be Amazon. They have 10,000 people working on Alexa. They have voice input, nice speech command structure. They ride on the back of all the zwave and wireless protocols and devices. They can make the next Alexa a home hub that runs locally amd they are the winner.
Alexa is in 100x more homes than smartthings. Samsung is being disrupted by Alexa.
More like make 1,000 new products every year, throw them at the wall and see what sticks (or doesnāt catch fire).
Very disillusioned customer here.
I agree. The latest version of the Alexa app has leapt in front of ST in terms of UI experience in my opinion.
ST/Samsung are just not delivering. How a company with such resources can screw up so bad would be comical if it did not impact so many paying customers.
They already have a hub that runs locally in the echo plus an echo showed second generation. For zigbee devices. And they are working on local voice controls, although it will be very limited initially.
Samsung has a record of screwing up, badly, from time to time; And yet they survive as one of the biggest and most successful appliance and tech companies in the world.
It is extremely likely that Samsung can acquire a substantial portion of the consumer smart home market; unless they decide to abandon the segment. But they wonāt: They know that the world of the āJetsonāsā is coming and that if Samsung want to retain their lead in TVs, Phones, and Appliances, then they must become a strong smart home player.
As has been said many times on this forum: They arenāt screwing it up - because they havenāt even started yet. SmartThings is an extended Beta product. Samsung is a patient company. They can win a significant or even the biggest segment when they decide they are ready to win the segment. Iām 100% certain that are fully and consciously aware that they are not yet ready. This is deliberate. They donāt need this product line to be profitable, as it will help continue their profitable leads in their other products.
They know that āCustomer Serviceā for DIY smart home at this moment in history is futile. Itās a waste of resources. SmartThings customers are just āmarket researchā (and AI research, and IoT Cloud research).
They know that Bixby isnāt ready. They know that the āfoldable screen phoneā isnāt ready.
Never rule out the tortoise. - Remember that Apple was floundering badly until they released the iPhone - knocking previous market leaders like Nokia and Motorola outta the field.
Itās not what Samsung can do, itās more whatās doing compared to what they could do.
If it were a small startup in some remote part of the world, Iād be super-enthusiastic about what theyāve achieved so far. But itās Samsung, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate. They can have an āAlexa-sizedā development team, if they want to.
My presumption is: They can WILL have an āAlexa-sizedā development team, if WHEN they want to.
Iāve recently moved from smartthings to āhome assistantā. I was not happy with the brains of my smarthome living in the cloudā¦ home assistant is totally self contained and its making rapid progress to being useful to the every day user rather than just I.T nerds. It seems to have a bright future so Iām giving it a go. Theyāre even working on a voice assistant system and the option to host the ābrainsā of it locally at your home.
Awesome! Itās really cool to have all of this running in your own IT environment.
Report back occasionally and let us know how things are going.
Oh Iāve not been clear on one thing, Iām not ditching smarthings, Iāll continue to run it for the more exotic of my IOT things, such as the tempest weather station Iām getting soon.
My very close friend finally made it to US from Samsung HQ, Korea. Well after 2 days of going back and forth with him (heās staying with me) I can guarantee few things will soon happen around Q2 of 2021.
Samsung looses money with SmartThings. They do not mind it 1 bit. The loss is so insignificant that it hardly pops up. In terms of engineering base they do put few good engineers but this whole platform is maintained by enthusiastic juniors starting off.
The reason Samsung will continue with this platform is because it offers them a toe into the whole world of home automation and from a marketing and engineering marketing perspective its a win-win. Next, it allows them to check pulse of where the world is going towards, the pace, the challenges.
In Q2 2021 and beyond Samsung will move its automation platform as a hybrid model. A cloud based model will be released allowing multitude of connectivity options. Priority will be given to Samsung products and their automation which will be free. However, for other brands there might be a subscription model to host automation in the cloud. An Eclipse based rich IDE will be provided for developer community. Like RING there will be a free cloud based platform but it will have restrictions. The hub will have a native storage mirroring the cloud automation locked out for consumers and will be used in case there is no Internet connectivity effectively allowing automation to continue functioning without internet. A 2-way TLS and host of other security enhancements will be rolled out. Development and developer services will continue to be free but no developers will henceforth be allowed to offer services for a price unless the person has an agreement with Samsung.
The big ticket items is AI and machine learning. They are currently toying with various aspects including facial recognition, predictive analysis of home/away and a lot of other details. They would also like to introduce thru SmartThings Alexa like voice services but triggered as a result of presence sensor identification. These are probably going to be packaged as premium services offered over cloud.
The hub itself will be substantially beefy to allow for localized processing of data up to an extent. AI/ML type of processing will not be available.
Q2 of 2021 is right around the cornerā¦As long as they have a migration tool ready to transfer all to the ābeefyā hub, Iām down.
It would be nice if they could just get the current app working properly first .
Their track record precedes them.
They may want to ask IFTTT how well charging companies for automation hosting is goingā¦
I wonderā¦I went on and paid the $2/month. Itās such a small fee and you get soooooo my from the services.
same, i think I put in $3/month since there are still certain integrations only available there. But thereās speculation the whole reason they are switching to charging users is that companies donāt find value in paying IFTTT to integrate when Alexa and Google home are free.
I think in the end all companies are looking for reoccurring revenue. In todayās tones, just buying a product & having it last a long time is.not good for the companyās bottom line. Im not just saying samsung, Iām talking about a lot of companies out there.