SmartThings has allowed users to run their own custom groovy SmartApps and Device Handlers on the ST Cloud since the beginning. This is the legacy groovy IDE that is eventually going to be shut down.
The 'new ST platform' is more of a standard API to allow Applications you host on your own hardware/cloud platform to interact with your SmartThings account. How much direct integration via the ST Hub versus only the ST Cloud is yet to be determined. However, Samsung has been pretty clear that the cloud is their strategic direction for most integrations. The announcement mentions more 'local processing' - however, they have been promising that for 4-5 years now. To this day, only the ST Smart Lighting SmartApp, and some pieces of the original Smart Home Monitor SmartApp are eligible to run locally on a ST Hub. And even then, only if all of the devices used in those automations are running stock ST device handler code that is capable of running locally.
Local processing, data privacy, ability to choose if/when firmware is updated on my hub, ability to run my own code locally on my hub, and backup/restore are what instantly attracted me to Hubitat back in January 2018 when the first Hubitat hub was released to the public. That original C-3 hub is still faithfully 'elevating' my home automation!
As well, I believe that the original founders of Hubitat, can look at this ST announcement, and say a big "I told you so!".
This whole business of the ST announcement of hosting your own Device handlers, and groovy code is nothing more than a complete justification and vindication of the correctness of the Hubitat approach!
Ok makes sense and thanks for the dumbed down version. So looks like I made the right decision and we may get a heap more developers and users jumping ship.... if they can sort out their stock problem.
It's probably because their supplier hasn't given them any updates unfortunately. Based on interactions with staff if they knew I'm pretty sure we'd know. But with everything going on most of the supply chain for this kind of stuff unless they had huge stock piles (which most don't) is months behind and still playing catch up... Look at grocery stores... They are still getting their normal trucks... Heck most getting extra and they haven't recovered regular stock yet....
Because itās been packaged for startups and companies that want an easy entry to IoT products. Itās a B2B product for Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others. High profits without a care in the world how the B2C products perform.
And near zero admin/infrastructure maintenance. And scale up/out capability in seconds. And ability to have geographic separation on redundant workloads without owning multiple data centers. And ability to administrate and update software from a central location for hundreds or thousands of installs.
Etc. Etc. Many pluses. But not applicable to all needs, not the fix to all problems.
Yup. Not the solution for everything. But it is the solution for a lot of things!
I think of things like user management and auth. Why do I want to reinvent the wheel when something like Azure AD or Amazon Cognito does a better job than anything Iād build anyway?
