My “customer appreciation bundle” from SmartThings.

About a year ago I wrote about how we started our home automation project by buying a SmartThings hub. Samsung has just now released the new version of the of the hub, and we decided to pre-order. I just finished the migration process and thought I’d let you know how it went.

Why Upgrade?

To begin with, I should probably tell you why we decided to upgrade our SmartThings so quickly.

• Preorder discount. This is the number one reason we decided to upgrade. There was a special “customer appreciation bundle” available for pre-order for $99. The bundle included the new hub ($99), a motion sensor($49), and an open/closed sensor($45). I had been wanting to get an open/closed sensor anyway, which made spending the extra $50 seem worth it.
• Works without internet. This was the second biggest reason we decided to go to the new hub. I can communicate with Zigbee and Zwave devices without an internet connection. Our internet connection isn’t always stable, so having this option was a big deal for us.
• Other features. It’s not activated yet, but there is a Bluetooth radio in the new smart hub. It’ll run for 10 hours on a battery backup (our power also hasn’t been the most reliable). The new features are detailed here.

The Migration

For once, I’m very glad I’ve been dragging my feet on this home automation thing. Samsung did not make the migration easy. In fact, I’d say there is no migration at all. What there is instead, is uninstalling all your smart apps, disconnecting all your devices (a pain since you have to hard reset them), removing your location, and then reconnecting all your devices in the new hub. Here’s the support article from SmartThings on how to do this. I’m sorry, but this is simply unacceptable. I know the home automation market tends to be fairly techie at this point, but this isn’t helping automation become a mainstream consumer product.

With that in mind, I’m glad I went ahead and bought the new hub before I got many more devices attached to it. If I had gone through and used the developer program to find a way to connect my Nest or my OpenSprinkler, and I had to redo it, I would have been furious.

Disclaimer: I bought the SmartThings 2.0 hub on my own and get no compensation for this post. Amazon links are affiliate links.