Wholly crap… That’s what I have at work! I just got a gig fiber at home and I thought that was awesome.
I’m being pedantic, but assert that if we have local processing plus battery powered water valve (and sirens, perhaps) we can reach a great deal of reliability with no Internet redundancy.
That’s what I have where I work too 
Unfortunately, none of my connections are gigabit. Out here in rural Texas, I am lucky when I hit 20 megabits across both connections. I have LTE that can go to 60 megabits, but it’s insanely expensive to run as a regular internet connection.
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SmartThings has been an ongoing project and a learning experience. I have had plenty of problems, but the system seems to be functioning better. I only use lights at present, not wanting to get into door locks, garage door openers, etc. Problems I have experienced include: Delayed or missing signals from the internet, but this is better, failure of routines to work after app upgrade requiring some reworking of switches, and an erratically functioning plug at the limit of radio range. In fact, I got rid of all the old app switches and changed to the new routines section. I have found that setting up routines based on offsets from sunset is very convenient and minimizes the need to constantly change settings as the seasons change. I have asked STs staff to consider allowing the saving of sets of routines so one can have seasonal sets and to add the capability of inactivating a routine when you don’t need it so you don’t have to uncheck your devices and then add them back later. Two recommendations: Make a spreadsheet of your routines so you can easily see on a computer screen what your system does, and purchase Cree Smartbulbs where appropriate, as $14 gets you a 60 watt equivalent LED with built in STs capability.
Let’s see…
I’ve had ST a little over a year now.
Presence has been rock solid for me since day 1. The few times it hasn’t worked has been due to phone issues that I can recall. There has been internet down or power out issues obviously. I’m speaking solely about ST here.
As a result of presence I am very pleased with my Schlage touchpad deadbolts. These work 100% without fail. If this was all I had work with SmartThings it would still be worth the $100 many times over. Happier with this setup than I thought possible thanks to @Rboy & @ethayer for their contributions.
Lighting has been a little bit of a struggle. That’s because of sun state being broke for at least a month, G.E. bulb network issues, and power outage recovery (all smart bulbs turn on). As I transition to switches and dumb led’s I’ve been much happier. A backup power supply for my router and hub along with power is out app has gone a long way to my satisfaction with lighting. Lastly the smart lights app has been a deal maker for me. I was fed up trying to drive my lighting off of (then) home phrases prior to.
My Ecobee3 has been a great experience tying into smart things thanks to @yvesracine. Having the thermostat react more quickly to presence as well as full functionality to pretty much everything is very nice.
It’s nice knowing my fire / Carbon monoxide detectors are integrated. Once again…worth the $100 many times over!
Overall my peace of mind when not home is much greater and now that I have SmartThings I only think of ways I wish to add on. It’s been a bumpy road at times but overall I am extremely pleased.
I think we all forget about what does work and what contribution it does have or could have. When I leave home it’s locked up lights off and secure…and I’m in touch with it no matter where I am.
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This puts me at ease, I’m imagining that the one time someone breaks into my house the system will fail. Thank you for going in depth with individual “things”
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I look to SmartThings to keep my home safe from myself…meaning in case I forget to turn something off that should not be left on unattended…or if I forget to lock a door.
My Schlage locks have alarms on them. I’m good there.
I do not feel SmartThings is a comparable security system nor would I attempt to use it as such with a siren at this time.
Smart Home Monitor will be a great feature eventually but it isn’t anything you couldn’t have done yourself with SmartThings prior to. Not to mention there is a smart alarm app out there now that (as I understand) leaves SHM looking a little foolish.
It will get there.
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I like the system but if you need to rely on it to keep your doors locked, you better think twice.
We experience unexplained door unlocks under many situations. Be Careful!!!
Everyone has different experiences based off environment and product selection I suppose.
My locks have never missed a single lock event…at or home or away.
Every couple of weeks I make sure to test the locks when I leave the geofence to be certain.
I don’t blindly rely on them but I could.
This conversation is why I created this topic. I’m starting to believe that a strong internet connection is a key factor in order to have a good experience with ST.
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It’s just one factor. We have 50mbps service from fios but it’s irrelevant when ST breaks. And, often that breakage can be invisible. You have no knowledge things didn’t work unless you monitor your system vigilantly. And, to some degree that defeats the point of home automation (at least in my mind). In the bit over a year I’ve been a customer there have been issues with sunrise/sunset processing, adding hue bulbs, presence detection, scheduling, processing lag and timing windows for routines. Some of these have had multiple occurrences. These are just the issues that have affected me. Some of them have happened multiple times. Support’s response has generally been that they are working on it.
At this point in time I would never trust ST with mission critical processing like security. If a light doesn’t turn on it is annoying. If my house doesn’t lock then it’s much more serious.
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Being hard wired to a router and the cheapest of internet plans being enough to stream movies I cannot see where internet strength would be an issue.
I cannot find a common thread aside from back end issues as outlined by others. There are things I’ve done to make operations more successful, but ultimately things are jacked up for awhile then smooth out until the next platform update…then it’s a roller coaster ride until it smoothes out once again.
I’ve had very good results with everything but lighting. Most of that I attribute to bulbs vs. switches and G.E. firmware issues.
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I think I’ve found the common thing among all of the users… ST Users!
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Note, with HUB V2 there is no excuse for them to leave all bulbs in a ON state after power loss. the V2 hub can easily detect now that power is restored and can re-send bulb on/off states to every bulb in the network.
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Please see and contribute to the extensive discussion of this particular subject on this other Topic:
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Day 5 here and things not any better. Support contacted me once yesterday to ask permission to look at my account and that was the end. At least I isolated the problem. Is called Smart Lightning app as that’s pretty much all is left on my v2 hub. #hardtimes at Smartthings…
Update: 12 hours in, with no problems, here is why:
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+1 !
And beware that anything “active” (lawn sprinkler, heater starter, etc…) could at some point also be seen as “mission critical”… usually after it fails first and you discover the consequences of that failure 
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