Reviving an old thread here, since I can’t find any other progress or work that’s more recent. I’ve had success getting a cc2530 zigbee module to talk to smartthings. So far I can pair it, and blink an led, controlled by a device handler, from my phone. The good thing is, these things are small and just a few dollars!
The chip is very flexible and powerful, about like an arduino. I’m thinking it could be a thingshield replacement, and also could function on its own as a device doing simple things with the (16!) gpios and (8!) analog inputs.
Thoughts? Interested?