Samsung SmartThings Review: What it can do for you? Installation, Compatibility, Possibilities & Tips.
SmartThings Review
Who is SmartThings
SmartThings is a young Technology company founded in 2012. SmartThings Inc is headquartered in Palo Alto CA with a software development center in Minneapolis. SmartThings is building an open platform for smart homes and the consumer Internet of Things. (Wikipedia) Therefore they provide a high compatibility with different protocols and the products of a lot of other Home Automation Companies. In 2014 Samsung made a takeover, so today you often find Samsung SmartThings as claim as well.
If it is worth your time and Money ? Lets take a look and find out!
Smartthings Review
Samsung SmartThings
Home Automation
If you are looking for a home automation solution and do not want to stick to just one company, the Samsung SmartThings products can be one of your choices. They provide a solid base for your Smart Home projects and a variety of own products as well. SmartThings is designed as an open project that connects to a lot of other devices and protocols.
The SmartThings Hub – is the first thing you need. For those who are new to home automation, a hub is a kind of translator communicating with all your different SmartHome products. The first good thing we noticed about the SmartThings Hub is, that regardless of the wireless protocol your actual products use, the new hub can control the most of them. It really can be your main open hub and the central for nearly any planned future project! Well Done!
Installation – was a breeze. Just connect your SmartThings Hub with your router, attach the power cord and download the SmartThings App. Done! You can start to add your connected items within the App. The newest version of the App definitely has improved. It now has a better structure and overall more natural user experience. Important Note for users of the first version of the SmartThings Hub. Integration of your existing grid into the new hub is quite difficult, we strongly recommend installing them all in the App from scratch. At least you have to define a new location within the app and add each of your devices manually. If you had a lot of devices and IFTTT (If This Then That) integration you will need a while to rebuild your whole system.
Functionality / Possibilities / Product Overview. As described above the SmartThings Line is an open system connecting to a variety of different products. As it works with Z-Wave (like: one language) and ZigBee (like: can speak a second language) you can combine it with a lot of different home automation devices.
The Samsung SmartThings Line itself offers:
The Hub – is the central unit of your System. The Smartthings hub connects all your home automation items. You find a good basic setup in our SmartThings Smart Home Bundle at the end of this review.
The Multipurpose Sensor – To monitor whether doors, windows or your garage are open or closed. Not sure if you left your window open? Ease your mind and just take a look into your app. You also can monitor temperature and vibration with this devices as well.
The Motion-Sensor –Like the name says can detect movement in your home and send you alerts. You also can use it to trigger lights and other connected devices to turn on or of.
The Samsung SmartThings Water Leak Sensor. This device can detect water leakage and secure your home from water damage; sending you an early alert.
The SmartThings Outlet. It allows you to control lights, electronics and other connected appliances. You can manually or scheduled control them from wherever you are. If you want they can automatically respond to other activities in your home easily triggered by your smart home components.
The SmartThings Arrival Sensor. Is a cool, simple and new device. It can send you notifications when people, pets, or cars arrive or leave your home. During our SmartThings Review we tested various scenarios. If you for example place it in your child’s bag, or around your pet’s collar, you can ease your mind; always knowing they are safe at home. Attaching it to your key-chain, you can trigger a beeping noise if you want – no more searching for your keys.
The SmartThings Temp/Humidity sensor. Extreme temperatures and humidity levels can cause huge damage to your home. With this sensor you can monitor the temperature and humidity levels in any room. You can receive alerts or trigger an action, like activating a humidifier, to restore a good and healthy climate.
Compatibility – Overview
Compatibility. One of the greatest Pro-Features during our Samsung SmartThings Review was the compatibility. Devices work together naturally. You can also connect nearly any device using ZigBee or Z-Wave. From Schlage Deadbolts, the switches and outlets from GE to Honeywell thermostats (Review) all can be integrated in your home automation. Just add a new device to your home grid, start the App and search for new devices. When the app finds it you can take control and start integration. If you want to know if one of your existing devices would fit with the SmartThings Home Automation; you can click the compatibility overview to check which products will work seamless with the SmartThings series. One of the best facts about SmartThings is it is fully compatible with IFTTT. This gives you complete new and additional possibilities to connect any IFTTT-friendly Home Tech device. For example Philips Hue or the Belkin WeMo Switch or thousands of others. You nearly can automate and connect to anything you can imagine. If you want to know more about IFTTT just go to our IFTTT-Guide.
Conclusion/our own experience during our SmartThings Review. We even included some customer Feedback from our community. Anybody with an interest in home automation can build a solid SmartHome-Grid with the SmartThings devices. To get a good start we have put together a Smartthings Smart Home Starter Bundle at the bottom of this page for you. You can fully customize the bundle to fit your needs. After clicking the button the software will automatically start to search for the best price for you. Especially when you are new to home automation and build your first system, you will love the overall good connectivity of the devices. More experienced users will perhaps experiment with the IFTTT compatibility. This makes it easy to fit these devices to your needs, nearly perfect.
The Downside – The integration and upgrade from the SmartThings Hub 1 could and should be much easier. In my opinion you have to install everything from scratch to make sure that it works 100% fine. The App has clearly improved since the last generation. Sometimes it still looks too crowded with different details and could be reworked or simplified again. As a competitor, the Wink Hub, with a similar open setup (ZigBee, Z-Wave) has a quite better App experience. Overall we would prefer the SmartThings solution. Samsung is improving the app permanently and we are curious for the next version.
Can I recommend SmartThings? – Overall, we loved what we saw from Samsung SmartThings. I would not hesitate to recommend these products. There are a lot of home automation solutions out there, but the Samsung SmartThings – Series surely belongs to the top of its market.
SmartThings Review
Frustration Free – Easy to Start Bundle
* you can customize your personal Bundle after a Click on the button.
** Daily accurate, best price from Amazon!
Your comments are welcome – If you have any experience with the Samsung SmartThings, or ideas you want to share or discuss, I would love if you leave a comment below and I will answer as soon as possible. Looking forward to our exchange of experience.
Thanks for stopping by
Greg
.
Samsung SmartThings
Pros
- Plug & Play
- ZigBee, Z-Wave, WiFi, IFTTT
- Variety of Products
Cons
- Upgrade from old System
- App could be improved
3 comments
You really make it appear so easy along with your presentation however I find
this topic to be actually one thing which I think I
would never understand. It kind of feels too complicated and extremely large
for me. I am taking a look ahead on your next post,
I will try to get the dangle of it!
It’s a little hard to trust that your review is unbiased when your article is self-sponsored with an Amazon.com kickback purchase link. I’m sure you have good intentions, but if you concluded that SmartThings was a poor choice, then your sales link would be worthless to you.
Hi Terry,
first thanks for stopping by and taking such a close look at our reviews.
Yes we are 100% unbiased but we have another direction with this website for our visitors.
We ONLY publish Reviews on items we already tested and we can fully recommend for our customers and readers. You find this on our ‘Smarthome – simplified’ page in the top menu under “Awesome Reviews-“.
To be honest, of course we want to earn money with our site, BUT the idea is that we create a space, where people who love home automation (smart homes) can search through Good Items, read something about THESE in detail and easily make a decision to purchase or not.
WITHOUT READING THROUGH TONS OF REVIEWS – only saying “you wasted a lot of time reading this – this is not what you should buy!
Our bundles (which you will find underneath every review) is to bring you a convenient way to purchase the right items, put together for you – without searching for each item. As we clearly state under each bundle you get the daily best price from amazon and even can fully customize the bundle to make it fit your needs perfectly.
HELP US: As we always want to improve customer experience – how would you like us to state this moreclearly!
Would love to hear your ideas! Thanks in advance – have a great weekend!
Greg
You will find our statement how we review on our About page.