Only 28 days left!

💬 Lounge
#18

Totally, and I do hope many people are telling ST how dissatisfied they are with the decision to retire the classic app and groovy IDE.

I don’t consider myself a ST user anymore and decided a while back to stop participating on their forum, so I don’t know one way or the other what the recent discussions over there have been like (though I can take a guess).

But poking fun and encouraging potentially dissatisfied users to switch to a competitor’s product is trolling. I believe both communities are better off if we don’t do that.

9 Likes
#19

I don't agree. People recommend all types of things, Unifi on Netgear forums, 3rd party firmware for Netgear's mess. People praise Deconz and HA here, on many occasions.
If we don't express our dissatisfaction, then ST will happily collect their millions, unaware of how they've upset their customers.
They're just being overly sensitive because they know they messed up, and can't deal with the reality.
Remember " we choose truth over facts" :crazy_face:

4 Likes
#20

I am not familiar with ST at all. What's classic app support and why is it bad that it's going away?

#21

Well to be honest hubitat most likely wouldn't be here without. st..They started the open groovey devices for zwave and zigbee with their hub.. All the founders here came from there. I recently jumped ship as well due to the debacle.. They are basically getting rid of the classic app which had all the power. worked well and was mature.. They are streamlining with the new app which is slow buggy and limited..(for me with 150 devices it most times woiuldn't even load the pages or did 5 minutes later). They are cataring to the people with 5 devices and a tv etc that don't use custom device handlers and don't care about the power and flexibility of the system etc.

This will make their support much easier but they aer basically punting upower users that have 100-200 devices custom code etc,

In addition, besides the classic app going away the groovey code base will also go away and all device handlers and apps written in it will cease to run. I believe if you host them on your own server or the writer of the apps or devices types does they may continue to work, but this is not confirmed.. They are very closed lip about. it,

Again, much easier to support a system with no custom code etc. and only casual users with few devcies. Unfortunately that is the nature of the beast and the majority of their users,

#22

Yeah, I guess I'm classed as a long-time 'power user' over there too, also finally sacked it all off and came here for my first c7. Amazing, BTW.

Samsung openly admitted that their servers were getting hammered by people like us who were using custom code, smartapps, webcore etc. Don't think they ever expected that kind of drain. At the end of the day I spend a few quid on a smartthings hub years ago and essentially didn't give them any more money after that. Purchased a load of non-Samsung smart devices, and continued to use their cheap hub to run it all by constantly battering their cloud servers.

Not suprised they pretty much disabled it - but instead of first getting a workable solution in place, they chose to (imo) deliberately ■■■■ up the current (well, classic) system by removing various features, and released an effectively-alpha product in its place. Might be great for seeing the status of one of your Samsung fridges or whatever, but is a big bag of wank for everything else.

Job done. Most of the techie users got sick and left. Hence the new faces here including mine! Not to say I'm particularly great at making anything in the way of software etc, but I do extensively make use of this gear to do cool things around my home (custom zoned central heating, propane powered hot tub, security system and the usual lights etc).

They really screwed up, intentionally. They didn't want us there. The product is currently worthless. Maybe things will change, but why wait. Hubitat is ace. Thoroughly amazed by it.

3 Likes
#23

Any platform can do something that upsets its users. I never burn a bridge if I can help it.

3 Likes
#24

Amazon just sent this email out on their platform integration and skill changes with SmartThings. One of my clients I setup a few years ago forwarded and can't figure out the new app and the Alexa integration.

To our valued Alexa customer,

We are writing because SmartThings has created a new skill. In order to continue using Alexa to control your devices linked to SmartThings, you will need to log into the new skill by September 21, 2020. Failing to do so will prevent Alexa from being able to access any devices linked to SmartThings.

You can log in following these steps:

  1. Enable the new SmartThings skill through any of the three options below:
    a. SmartThings app: ‘+’ icon (top right) > Voice assistant > Amazon Alexa > Allow
    b. Alexa app: More (bottom right) > Skills & Games > Search bar (top right) > Search “SmartThings” > Choose SmartThings skill > Enable to use
    c. Browser: Visit the SmartThings skill page and select “Enable”

  2. After you have enabled the new SmartThings skill, you will need to place Alexa in Discovery mode to link the skill with your device. There are two ways you can do this:
    a. Alexa app: Devices (bottom right) > ‘+’ icon (top right) > Add Device > Scroll down and select Other > Discover Devices
    b. Voice: Use your Echo device and say “Alexa, discover my devices”

Note – If you have previously set up Routines with the legacy SmartThings skill, you may need to recreate those Routines after you’ve enabled the new skill.

If you have any questions, please reach out to Amazon customer service.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.com

Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

#25

Again, I couldn't agree more.

But that's different from re-posting a photoshopped image, making inflammatory comments about another platform and encouraging their users to defect to a competitor, after the image was already flagged and prior thread removed by their mods.

That's trolling. If ST users did it here, it would be annoying, and their posts would rightfully be removed as well.

We may have to just agree to disagree on that. :v:.

8 Likes
#26

This bloggers post has some of the issues listed:

2 Likes
#27

If you go to someone's house and call it ugly (even if it is), they will usually kick you out. Same thing here in my opinion.

There is a difference from voicing concerns/complaints on the product versus promoting a competitor's product.

So yes, you have every right to go post whatever, and they have every right to ban you. :man_shrugging: Private forums have no right to 1st Amendment (if in the US) protections.

6 Likes
#28

As someone who started with Hubitat, I really enjoyed reading your post. I have had no experience with Smartthings but always wondered how it could possibly be a sustainable business model.

There are many reasons to admire Hubitat's local processing, automation speed and privacy are the first things that come to mind, but along with these I also admire Hubitat's local processing for the ability it provides Hubitat to stay in business. Hubitat has to maintain a cloud service for things like notifications to the app and a few other things I can't think of at the moment and this has a cost. Their only income stream appears to be sales of the hub. I can only imagine how the cost of their cloud services would go up exponentially if all user's automations ran on their cloud. Without charging a monthly subscription I don't see how it would work.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the situation Samsung has found themselves in. I think they only had two options:

  1. The first is to allow user's to run complex automations on their cloud and charge a monthly fee for it. (This is what IFTTT is now doing).
  2. Simplify the load on their cloud, make everything less customizable and more standardized with the objective of less server load and only charge for the hub.

I haven't been in this hobby for long, so I could be way off base, but it is how I see it. It is unfortunate for many st users but I wouldn't necessarily knock Samsung, they can't be expected to lose money when they sell a hub.

1 Like
#29

When I was a young whippersnapper and recommending SmartThings we were promised:

  • Local Control
  • Unmatched device support
  • Ability to self publish
  • Easy firmware and software updates
  • Cloud backup

Well the local control only applied to a small number of devices and SmartThings automations. Unmatched device support only worked if you worked with the developer console to add drivers and apps but it did bring in self publishing.

Easy firmware and software was debatable. If it was firmware embedded devices sure but all the custom device codes always had the risk of failing after a firmware update. And the consumer had no control when updates were pushed.

As for cloud backup, never came to life, if you have a SmartThings device there was no easy way to restore to a replacement hub device. I spent 4 hours on a support call to replace a failed v2 hub for an experimental migration that worked on 95% of the devices and routines but was never launched to the public.

The strain of all these custom device drivers and apps was showing it age 2 years ago with all the outages of services and Samsung was scrambling to add infrastructure and at the same time working on reducing the cost of the infrastructure with their new development platform that very few were adopting. The only way to force the switch was the set a date of shutdown so at least some key device makers could make the switch. Independents will suffer in their new model since they will now have to stand up services to drive the platform and make it impossible to disconnect from the cloud.

As for revenue the sales of hubs didn't pay for the backing services, and neither did the fees for licensing. Lets just say that the platform will follow Wink and others. As for Hubitat I agree they need a consistent revenue stream, backup services is one way.

4 Likes
#30

My migration to HE from ST is almost complete. Waiting on a driver for the IKEA remote that comes with the blinds. Right now that is the only thing keeping my Samsung v2 hub from going offline.

1 Like
#31

I'm in the process of migrating from ST right now. Everything is going pretty smooth, just as I expected. I found out the Classic App was going away and decided to pull the plug on my ST v2 hub that has been running since October 2015. Oh well, I'm a Hubitat player now!

1 Like
#32

ST user here that just got a C7 yesterday. Not sure how I feel about it yet. I was under the impression that it would be a much easier transition because the DH's were somewhat compatible with ST. I just started transferring devices over and I'm super bummed that my IKEA 5 button remotes don't work and that there are no plans to make them work.

1 Like
#33

Compared to, say, Vera, Wink, Home Assistant (basically any system other than ST), that’s still true.

But because Hubitat’s device support doesn’t completely mirror that of ST, and community solutions for the two platforms are largely separate as well, you can ensure a smooth transition by taking a look at the list of compatible devices and community-supported drivers:

#34

Mine did not work on ST either. They did work with the Ikea bulbs directly as long as they were paired with the hub. But, they did not do anything other than occupy a slot on ST for me. (I got that part working on HE. It's just a change in the order of pairing from the way you did it in ST)

Or, are you saying you had a driver that worked for the 5 button remote on ST?

#35

I’ve had the 5 button working flawlessly directly connected to ST for over a year.
I don’t know enough about the technical reasons, but I read that Hubitat doesn’t support the type of messages the device sends out and that they don’t plan on fixing it.

#36

Interesting. Mine never did anything in ST. But, I never used the new app (part of the reason I am here now instead of over there) All I ever used mine for was to turn on/off/dim the lights I paired it to. That part works flawlessly on HE as well as long as you pair it in the correct order.

#37

The only things preventing me from powering off my smartthings hub is the ikea window shades/dimmer button and neato integration.

Looking forward to throwing it in the trash/regift :laughing:

2 Likes

Download the Hubitat app