smartthings lcd panel free sample

I’m using SmartThings Favorites page, SmartThings widget, SmartThings Devices and Media add-on, Alexa Favorites, SharpTools wigets, Google Home app since I can organize my device in rooms differently than I do in SmartThings, Tasker, and Nova Launcher. And because I’m using Nova Launcher, I have other apps displaying things like weather forecast widgets. And an app displaying a website in a widget for other data like air quality.

The Rules API enables the developer to create automations, both simple and complex, that can operate on the SmartThings cloud. In a future release of the API, local execution of rules on the SmartThings hub will be supported, making Rules API a great choice for those looking to create fast, stable, and secure automations.

Next, get a personal access token for calling the SmartThings API. You will use this as a bearer token in the Postman app. Go to the personal access tokens page and click on the Generate new token on the top right.

To see the rules that you have created via the Rules API, again using Postman, send a GET request to https://api.smartthings.com/rules?locationId=C955F1C2-CE6B-49CA-99B7-B28B7FC493C6.

To execute the Rule you created via the Rules API get it"s ID by sending a GET request to https://api.smartthings.com/rules?locationId=C955F1C2-CE6B-49CA-99B7-B28B7FC493C6

In the Postman window, select POST and type in the SmartThings API url: https://api.smartthings.com/rules/execute/:ruleId?locationId=C955F1C2-CE6B-49CA-99B7-B28B7FC493C6.

Samsung SmartThings is one of the oldest smart home platforms still actively supported, as it was originally founded in 2012 before being acquired by Samsung in 2014. SmartThings isn"t just the management/setup tool for Samsung"s own connected products — it can connect to thousands of other platforms, just like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Managing everything you"ve connected to SmartThings is currently only possible through the Android and iOS mobile apps, but now Samsung is finally building a way to access SmartThings devices through a web browser.

Samsung started development on a web panel for SmartThings in May 2019, though the closed alpha was shut down in October of that same year while Samsung prepared "for a much larger test leading to a full release." According to later forum posts from a SmartThings developer, the web app was still in development, but the project was "running into shifting requirements from legal and security teams." The panel appears to have gone live for anyone with a Samsung account earlier this week, accessible from my.smartthings.com, though the developer noted that it"s still not finished and no official support is available.

Once you log in to the SmartThings web dashboard with your Samsung account, you"re greeted with the main screen that lists your favorite devices — these don"t sync with the mobile app yet, but they will at some point. There"s also a tab that displays all your rooms and the devices in each one, as well as an "Automations" page that shows your smart home scenes and active third-party connections.

It would be great to see Samsung continue to develop the SmartThings web panel to have as much functionality as the mobile apps. The panel works well on both desktop and mobile, and unlike many other modern web apps, it isn"t slow to open. Google and Amazon don"t have a similar web panel for their smart home ecosystems (except the basic Alexa web app for connecting/disconnecting third-party services), so Samsung is alone in expanding access to the web.

Samsung previously offered a Windows application for managing SmartThings, but it was deprecated in 2019. The company is now working on an updated desktop application, primarily designed for its new Galaxy Book Pro laptops.

Samsung has unveiled the Bespoke Refrigerator Family Hub Plus, a fancy name for its latest fridge with a built-in touchscreen display. At 32 inches, it features a much larger display than the 21.5-inch screen found on previous generations of the Samsung Family Hub refrigerators, which can be used to control SmartThings-compatible smart home devices, display Google Photos images, make digital shopping lists for Amazon delivery, and watch videos.

The Bespoke Refrigerator Family Hub Plus also supports the Amazon Your Essentials service, allowing users to order frequently purchased products and groceries through a widget on its touchscreen display. The built-in SmartThings hub can be used to control and monitor multiple SmartThings devices, and supports six SmartThings Home Life services: Air Care, Home Care, Pet Care, Clothing Care, Energy, and Cooking. There’s no mention of Matter smart home support, however.

This integration requires an internet accessible incoming webhook to receive push updates from SmartThings. The preferred approach is to subscribe to Home Assistant Cloud (Nabu Casa) and the integration will configure and use a cloudhook automatically. Alternatively, you will have to configure and setup an internet accessible webhook in Home Assistant as described below:

To remove the integration from Home Assistant, select the instance from the Home Assistant Integrations page and click the trash icon on the upper right corner. Alternatively, you can remove the SmartApp from the location within the SmartThings application. If the Home Assistant instance that setup the integration is no longer running or functioning, you will need to use this utility to remove the orphaned SmartApps in your SmartThings account.

Describes which integration of the device triggered the event. main represents the parent device. For devices with child-devices, this attribute identifies the child that raised the event. For multi-button devices, the current SmartThings API will no longer pass the ButtonNumber but use a child component_id for each button. The device handler installed on SmartThings must be able to create those child components.

SmartThings represents devices as a set of capabilities and the SmartThings integration maps those to entity platforms in Home Assistant. A single device may be represented by one or more platforms.

The SmartThings Binary Sensor platform lets you view devices that have binary sensor-related capabilities. A Binary Sensor entity will be created for each attribute (below) supported by the device.

The SmartThings Cover platform lets you control devices that have open/close related capabilities. For a device to be represented by the cover platform, it must have one of the capabilities from “set a” below.

The SmartThings Fan platform lets you control devices that have fan-related capabilities. For a SmartThings device to be represented by the fan platform, it must have one or more of the capabilities below in addition to the switch capability.

The SmartThings Light platform lets you control devices that have light-related capabilities. For a SmartThings device to be represented by the light platform, it must have one or more of the capabilities below in addition to the switch capability.

The SmartThings Lock platform lets you control devices that have the lock capability, showing current lock status and supporting lock and unlock commands.

The SmartThings Sensor platform lets your view devices that have sensor-related capabilities. A Sensor entity is created for each attribute (below) supported by the device.

The SmartThings Scene platform lets you activate scenes defined in SmartThings with a scene entity representing each SmartThings scenes within the location.

The SmartThings Switch platform lets you control devices that have the switch capability that are not already represented by a more specific platform. The following optional capabilities will provide energy and power utilization information:

SmartThings was unable to reach your Home Assistant instance using the webhook URL. Enable debug logging to see the specific issue and follow the webhook troubleshooting checklist below.

This error message occurs when all of the SmartThings locations under the account linked to the personal access token are already setup in Home Assistant. Ensure you are using the correct personal access token or create an additional location in SmartThings to integrate and try again.

Ensure external URL is properly set to the external address that Home Assistant is available to the internet. SmartThings must be able to reach this address.

Some reverse proxy configuration settings can interfere with communication from SmartThings. For example, TLSv1.3 is not supported. Setting the supported cipher suite too restrictly will prevent handshaking. The following NGINX SSL configuration is known to work:

Where {EXTERNAL_URL} is your external address and {WEBHOOK_ID} is the value of webhook_id from .storage/smartthings in your Home Assistant configuration directory.

If you have completed the checklist above and are still unable to setup the platform, activate debug logging for the SmartThings integration and include the log messages up until the point of failure in a new issue.

The SmartThings integration will log additional information about push updates received, events fired, and other messages when the log level is set to debug. Add the relevant line below to the configuration.yaml:

Since I originally published this article, I’ve switched from using SmartThings to using HomeAssistant & stopped using ActionTiles. While I’m leaving this post up, I don’t have much experience troubleshooting this setup, so while I’d like to help, you’re probably best to ask someone else questions about this setup.

I recently replaced my traditional home security system with a more modern setup. The old system was your typical box with multiple wired sensors hooked up to doors, windows, motion detectors & smoke/carbon monoxide detectors. The new setup takes all these existing sensors and exposes them as things in SmartThings where you can use the SmartThings

To interact with the old security system, you typically use bulky keypads with the back-lit LCD screen. These won’t work for the new setup… I wanted something much more modern. The solution: smart touchscreens!

This panel is actually much bigger… I can stroll down to control our smart thermostats, view the cameras we have on our house and a lot more. Some of the tiles are interactive while others aren’t. For instance, the sensors from the old security system aren’t interactive such as doors, windows & motion detectors.

ActionTiles rocks as I can configure panels as much as I like in a browser experience from my desk and wherever they are being consumed, they automatically get updated.

We like it so much, we’re considering getting the larger 10" Kindle Fire for the kitchen. That one’s ActionTiles panel will use a larger tile theme to see it from across the room. It’s also great for displaying recipes via the Plan to Eat app we use for meal planning.

The existing security system had a wire that ran to the main security system. This wire provided 12V power & data to the keypad. Because the Kindle tablets are using my existing wireless network to show the ActionTiles panel, I only needed to supply power, but just 5V of power.

One thing I want to call out though was that I added a SmartThings plug that cycles power on/off every few hours to the tablets. Driving constant power for an extended period of time to a tablet isn’t safe as the batteries aren’t designed for that. This way, the tablets charge for 3 hours, then run off battery discharging themselves for 3 hours which is more what they were designed to do.

SmartThings is compatible with 100s of smart home brands. So, you can control all of your smart home gadgets in one place, including your Samsung Smart TV and smart home appliances.

With SmartThings, you can connect, monitor and control multiple smart home devices quicker and easier. Connect your Samsung smart TVs, smart appliances, smart speakers and brands like Ring, Nest and Philips Hue - all from one app.

- Track, monitor and save money on energy with SmartThings Energy. See how much your home and compatible Samsung devices cost to run, and try various energy saving features, such as AI saving mode, or schedule devices to run during off peak hours.

Matter is picking up steam. Samsung has announced a Partner Early Access Program for its SmartThings smart home platform, allowing companies such as Eve Systems and Aqara to start testing their Matter-compatible devices.

Samsung SmartThings announced it’s working with Aeotec, Aqara, Eve Systems, Leedarson, Nanoleaf, Netatmo, Sengled, Wemo, WiZ, and Yale. Between them, these companies make lightbulbs, light switches, contact and motion sensors, and door locks, so we now have a clearer idea of which devices will be ready to go on day one when Matter launches this fall.

Matter is the new smart home standard that promises to make connected devices more interoperable, flexible, and private. Along with Apple, Google, and Amazon, Samsung is a founding member of the standard. A key element of Matter is Multi-Admin control, a feature that will allow every Matter device to connect to and be controlled by one or more smart home platform — i.e., SmartThings, Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s HomeKit, and Google Home. So, it’s important that manufacturers know their devices do work with all these platforms when Matter launches.

Samsung says this new testing program allows manufacturers the opportunity to test their devices and Matter interoperability with Samsung’s SmartThings hub-enabled devices and through the SmartThings app. This includes Samsung’s Galaxy devices and new Samsung TVs and Samsung Family Hub refrigerators. Samsung has previously announced that these devices will have SmartThings hub functionality built in and will get updates to become Matter controllers when the standard launches.

However, Samsung’s move seems partly geared toward maintaining momentum since Matter has been delayed. (It was originally scheduled to launch next month.) “While the launch of Matter later this year remains a significant milestone for SmartThings and the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the Partner Early Access Program has created tremendous near-term excitement for SmartThings and select companies,” said Samantha Fein of Samsung SmartThings. She also told The Verge that the program will be rolling out to more partners soon.

While many of the “select companies” in the early-access program are already able to connect to SmartThings, neither Eve nor Aqara previously had official compatibility with the platform. This is another indication that Matter is on track to deliver what it promised: a smart home where the question of whether your new lightbulb works with Alexa, HomeKit, or SmartThings is one you need never ask again.

Sensors need to be set up using a smartphone app, and there are several software ecosystems—often called platforms—you can use with them that in turn are compatible with a whole bunch of devices made by a whole bunch of different companies. (The most popular platforms include Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings; IFTTT is another service that allows you to automate devices from different companies, which we explain in This App Turns Any Smart Device Into a Multitasker.) These platforms are great because they allow you to consolidate the controls of all (or most of) your smart devices into a single app, and they also bring perks like voice control when used with smartphones, smart speakers, smart displays, and tablets. They also let you configure your sensors to trigger other devices, using what are called Routines, Scenes, and Automations. The choice of smart platform is up to you, however if you already use an Amazon Alexa device or an Apple HomePod speaker, you might consider sticking with the platform they support. In addition to discussing sensors that work with smart-home platforms, we included in this guide a few sensors that work with their own app, as well as some that work with multiple platforms, so you don’t have to be locked into just one.

For maximum convenience we prioritized sensors that were compatible with at least one of the three largest smart-home ecosystems: Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and Samsung SmartThings. We also restricted our search to devices that had strong user and professional reviews, as well as any we had selected in the past in the three existing guides to smart sensors (this guide is a consolidation of those previous guides).

Centralite: The hub"s interface is usually accessible via apps for Android or iOS, and sometimes through a web-based UI. Some offer two-factor authentication, some don"t. It varies by company. SmartThings uses it, and Fibaro does not, to give you examples.

The Centralite Micro Motion Sensor is also inexpensive and a good option if you are already using Samsung’s SmartThings platform; it can also pair directly to any Zigbee-enabled Alexa smart speaker in lieu of using a hub (see FAQs for a deeper explanation). In our testing it is larger and more expensive than the Aqara and had fractionally slower response times; it also doesn’t work with HomeKit.Smart contact sensor

Slightly larger and more expensive than our pick, but compatible with SmartThings as well as Alexa, this sensor works with Zigbee speakers (like the latest Echo) and works reliably with excellent range.

If you don’t want to use a separate hub or are looking for a SmartThings-compatible device, the Centralite Micro Door Sensor is also inexpensive and small (although bigger than the Aqara sensor). In our tests it had an excellent response time and good range. It has to be paired with a compatible Amazon Echo or Zigbee hub for connectivity and will need that device’s app for setup and configuration.Smart temperature sensor

The Centralite Temperature and Humidity Sensor is an inexpensive, reliable device that has three mounting options (including an option to mount it with screws as opposed to the double-sided tape most sensors rely on), making it easy to install securely. To use it you have to pair directly to a Zigbee-based smart-home hub, such as SmartThings or some Amazon Echo devices, and from there you can set up Automations.

During testing it worked consistently in an Automation we created in both Alexa and SmartThings to lower a set of smart shades in a dining room any time the temperature climbed above 78 degrees. It uses a standard CR2450 coin cell battery that we haven’t had to replace in more than two years of testing.

If you need a sensor to work with a Z-Wave thermostat or sun-blocking smart blinds, consider the Aeotec Multisensor 6. It’s a 6-in-1 Z-Wave sensor that monitors light, motion, humidity, UV, and vibration. Its versatile design means you can mount it in the ceiling, power it with a battery or a USB cable and an AC adapter, place it on a flat surface, or use one of two mounting options, but you pay a lot for all these functions and features. Also, in our testing with SmartThings the reaction time was very slow—6 to 8 seconds. The Aeotec TriSensor is a less expensive option if you just want light, motion, and temperature monitoring and don’t need the ability to plug into power (it’s battery only). But it uses an expensive CR123A battery and had just as slow a response time in our testing.What to look forward to

Aeotec will release a SmartThings Multipurpose Sensor and SmartThings Motion Sensor—previously they had been picks and were discontinued by Samsung (Aeotec will also release a SmartThings-certified hub). We loved these Zigbee-based sensors for their ease of use, low price, and ability to pair directly with Zigbee-enabled Echo devices. We will test them when they are available.

In our most recent testing we found that any sensor connected through SmartThings had significantly slower response times than those connected through Alexa or HomeKit. It seems changes to the SmartThings platform are causing this delay. We plan to retest previous sensor picks from Aeotec and Fibaro, along with other Z-Wave and Zigbee sensors when the new Aeotec SmartThings hub is available, as well as with a different Z-Wave hub. In the meantime, if you have a Z-Wave–based smart home we recommend considering sensors from these companies as they worked well in previous testing.

The Onvis Motion Sensor is a motion sensor that also measures temperature and humidity. At under $25 it is the least expensive HomeKit-compatible motion sensor available without a hub, and because it’s a Bluetooth 5.0 device it responds really quickly, even at a distance. But it was not reliable in our testing, we had to reconnect it multiple times, and its app verges on useless. It is also very large and doesn’t work with Alexa or SmartThings.

The downside of using sensors with Alexa is that the Alexa app offers no direct access to a sensor’s controls, so you can’t adjust motion sensitivity, nor can you find logs of the temperature over a time period or of activities, such as when a door is accessed. These features are standard in competing smart-home ecosystems such as SmartThings and HomeKit.

SmartThings is compatible with a wide range of Z-Wave and Zigbee sensors (see a list here). To pair a sensor with a SmartThings-certified hub, first check if it’s compatible, select “Add a device” in your SmartThings app, follow the steps to include it in your network, and then install it and check that it’s responding correctly. Initially, devices may need to be closer to the hub, but the more devices you add, the farther your network will extend, as both Zigbee and Z-Wave devices can act as repeaters, creating what’s called a mesh network in your home—each device ensures other devices stay online. Choose from pre-set automations such as Smart Lighting, which uses motion sensors to activate smart lighting, or create custom automations using “if then” commands: If this sensor detects something, then make this happen.

There are several Google Home-compatible sensors, including Z-Wave and Zigbee sensors from Aeotec and Fibaro (paired through a SmartThings hub), and those you can pair through security systems—Abode and Simplisafe for example. But no third-party sensor has any functionality with Google Home beyond voice queries.

Sometimes. If you own a smart-home hub such as one from SmartThings, or have a smart home security system from Abode, Honeywell, Ring, or Scout, then yes, their smart sensors may be able to be added to the HomeKit, Alexa, and Google Home apps (check compatibility to ensure before you buy). However, in testing, we found a slightly longer delay in Routines that were triggered by sensors that are also connected to a security system. But if you already have these installed, it’s definitely worth trying them out before spending any more on new sensors.

The web Community"s own Rule Engine (or for short, webCoRE) is a general rule engine for SmartThings. It works by allowing users to create scripts that are interpreted and executed by the SmartThings SmartApp, allowing for complex decisions. webCoRE is currently a work in progress. webCoRE reached the first Beta milestone on April 29, 2017.

A few steps need to be completed before you can use webCoRE. First, webCoRE needs to be installed in your SmartThings account, then automations need to be configured. These are called pistons and will be detailed later. So let"s start by installing webCoRE, please follow the steps below.

Please be sure to read through all the instructions. If you are still getting stuck then check the troubleshooting sections. Should you still have problems then please feel free to ask for some help on the SmartThings Forums. Be sure to find the latest webCoRE help post.

Scroll through the list and select all of the devices you want webCoRE to have access to. If you do not do this, you will not be able to use those devices in webCoRE. This must also be done again when adding new devices to your SmartThings Account. webCoRE will not automatically import them.

When you see the alert that there is a new version available or that your smartapps are not the same version then you will need to update the webCoRE code. This has a few benefits besides being on the latest and greatest version. It is best to keep webCoRE up to date because bugs are constantly getting squashed and new features added with each version. This will make troubleshooting easier when you are running into issues and seeking help. Lastly SmartThings keeps the most used SmartApps in their cache which means quicker response times on your pistons.

I stumbled across a young startup: SmartThings. A home automation platform built for developers from the ground up. They have a cloud-based development environment that allows you to create smart apps and custom device types to talk to, and ... wait for it ... yes, microcontroller-based devices over ZigBee!! They even have an Arduino shield you can use to hack together a prototype.

It was the perfect storm. I had an open platform (SmartThings), an open protocol to talk to it (ZigBee), and years’ worth of awesome Propeller-based devices that could take advantage of it. So, last April, I created a standards-based ZigBee object for the Parallax Propeller that allows my devices to communicate based on the ZigBee HA public profile. It opened a huge door of opportunity for my devices. Now, I can make a device, connect it to the SmartThings hub over ZigBee, and control it with my iPhone. All this and I don’t have to write one line of code that runs on the iPhone!! My device identifies itself to the SmartThings hub, tells it what it is capable of, and the SmartThings hub then determines how to control it.

One of my ZigBee HA projects — the CoopBoss (Chicken Coop Door controller) — won Best in Show at SmartThings. They did a nice write-up on the CoopBoss; if you’re interested, you can check it out at

J - ZigBee Radio: The ZigBee radio is from Digi International; the part number is XBP24CZ7UIS-004. This radio securely communicates with the SmartThings hub that connects to the SmartThings cloud on the Internet. A smartphone app (SmartThings Custom Device Type) allows secure control of the CoopBoss over the Internet.

This project and several others like it have been very rewarding. I would like to share my experiences with focus on the ZigBee communications. The real story here is not the circuit, but how you can take a simple circuit and make it into a full blown solution by connecting it to the IoT. To accomplish this, I have laid out a simple “hello world” test circuit in “The Controlling a Custom Device with SmartThings” section of this article. It’s an LED tied to a Propeller and a ZigBee radio. We will gradually add complexity to the circuit as we go deeper into the protocol.

Why is this important to a device maker? Let’s say you want to make a device that has an LED, and you want to turn the LED on or off remotely. If your device follows the guidelines detailed by the On/Off Cluster, then your device can be controlled by the exact same ZigBee enabled wall switch discussed above. Let’s take that one step further. Replace the ZigBee enabled wall switch with a smartphone application. Say you have an existing home automation solution with a smartphone application that controls your ZigBee enabled lights (like SmartThings). Since your LED device adheres to the ZigBee On/Off cluster commands, it is now possible to control the LED by that same smartphone app! Your device just joined the Internet of Things!

This project is going to focus on the radio hardware setup and communications required to talk to a ZigBee HA network hub (SmartThings) over ZigBee standard Clusters. We will use a Propeller microcontroller connected to a Digi XBee ZB radio to communicate with the hub. The circuit is simple and you can use any number of existing Propeller prototype boards.

Each ZigBee profile has stringent security requirements that must be met before a device is allowed to join a network. Your SmartThings hub uses the ZigBee Home Automation profile security model, so we will need to configure our radio to meet those specs. To make a ZigBee network secure, each network generates its own unique network encryption key used to encrypt network packets. Your device must have this key to communicate, and that is all taken care of during the network “join” process.

The ZigBee coordinator’s (SmartThings hub) primary role during a join is to give your radio the network key and allow it to join the network. To get the network encryption key from the coordinator, our radio must be configured with the proper trust center link key. Think of it as a password you must give the coordinator before it will give you the network encryption key.

Once this step is complete, your radio is programmed to join any ZigBee HA network; you won’t have to do this again. As soon as you reset your radio, it will start looking for an open ZigBee HA network to join. To allow it to join the network, you will need to tell SmartThings to open the network and allow a new device to join. (More on this later. For now, you can unplug your radio and move on to the next step.)

On pin 13 of the Propeller Mini, we connect a 10K ohm pull-up resistor and pushbutton to ground. This button will also be used to control the LED and send commands to SmartThings.

The XBee radio will look for a network to join that matches its security settings. Every time you see “FF” displayed on the screen, it is searching on a new channel; “23” means it found a valid coordinator but it is not allowing it to join at this time. To allow our device to join, we have to open the network for joining. Proceed to the next step to join the SmartThings network.

From your smartphone, open the SmartThings app (Figure 11) and go to the Marketplace; scroll until you see “Connect New Device” as shown in Figure 12. Tap on “Connect New Device” to tell SmartThings to open the network and let new devices join. After a few minutes, you should see the WeMo Bulb pop up on the bottom part of your smartphone’s screen (Figure 12). We are impersonating that device and you can tap to configure it and change its name to “My LED” or just tap “Done” to accept the defaults.

Back on your Parallax Serial Terminal screen, you will notice that ZigBee packets are starting to flow as shown in Figure 13. Your device has joined the SmartThings Home Automation network and now can be controlled with your smartphone.

Bang! Your LED will turn on and off as you push the button (Figures 14 and 15). Since SmartThings is cloud-based, you will be able to take your smartphone anywhere you have cell phone or Wi-Fi signal and control your LED.

In a follow-up article, we will walk through the code details of what’s going on behind the scenes and add more functionality to our device by adding support for the Level Cluster that will allow us to dim the LED, and ZigBee binding that will allow us to push the button and change the status of our LED in SmartThings in real time. NV

Suddenly, SmartThings looks like the most comprehensive smart home platform, at least at a glance. Both Google and Amazon are rapidly expanding the number of first-party devices that work with their Alexa and Google Assistant services, but neither has their own TV or refrigerator yet, outside of products from other manufacturers. Samsung SmartThings has both of those things, as well as

It"s been awhile since we took a close look at SmartThings, so I decided to spend some time with it -- on my phone, and in the Samsung fridge and television installed in the CNET Smart Home. What is it like to have a home wholly operated by SmartThings (and Samsung) in 2019, you ask? Spoiler alert: not great. Read on to find out why.

SmartThings pressed on. There"s still a SmartThings hub (now third-gen) and an updated app. And SmartThings still has an open platform with tons of compatible third-party partners

It was almost as if no time had passed, and I don"t mean that in a good way. SmartThings gave me a lot of trouble in 2015 when I tested the second-generation hub, along with tons of SmartThings sensors and third-party devices.

But knowing how much SmartThings has grown over the years, it felt only fair to see if it had also matured into the platform I"ve always wanted it to be. Unfortunately, SmartThings was as temperamental as ever, just on a larger scale.

There are also a variety of devices installed at the CNET Smart Home that are compatible with the SmartThings platform and already paired to it on the app.

Let"s move on to the specifics of testing out SmartThings on the app, the fridge and on the TV.The updated app is my preferred way to interact with SmartThings -- although it"s still glitchy and tough to navigate.Tyler Lizenby/CNET

All that said, the app -- even with the latest app version -- crashed inexplicably at least four to six times during my testing. It still takes a lot of clicks and different screens to reach the settings you want and it"s easier to view the Arlo Pro 2 live feed in the Arlo app than on the SmartThings app.

The SmartThings connection on the Family Hub fridge performed significantly worse than the app. The fridge itself is a solid product with tons of apps and clever features.

SmartThings was another story. I connected the exact same SmartThings account on my app to the fridge. Instead of getting a list of all of the connected devices like the Play Light Bar and the Pro 2 camera, I got... crickets. It didn"t list a single device.

The fridge"s giant built-in LCD screen instead said, "After you connect devices in the SmartThings app on your phone, you"ll be able to monitor and control them on your Family Hub." Hrm.Where are all of my SmartThings devices? Who knows.Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The Q6 Series TV fortunately worked better than the fridge. Login via the SmartThings app on the TVs home screen and use the Samsung TV remote to scroll through -- and control -- your SmartThings devices. I was able to turn my Philips Hue light bar on and view my Arlo Pro 2 camera.Viewing the Arlo Pro 2 camera connected through SmartThings on the TV screen.Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Annoyingly, my SmartThings devices didn"t always show up when I opened the TV app. I"d log out and back in and they"d usually appear, but once or twice I had to log out twice before they loaded.

While SmartThings has clearly grown up, I still wouldn"t recommend it as a whole-home setup today. I experienced similar glitches in 2015 as I did testing the updated system in 2019. The app crashes, for instance, shouldn"t still be happening.

There"s also a question of value. If you want SmartThings in your home today in a major way, you"ll have to dish out thousands of dollars for a Samsung fridge and TV -- and that doesn"t include the other investments in third-party devices like lights and cameras.

Relatedly, even if the fridge integration had worked better, I wouldn"t ever think to head over to the fridge to turn on a light or adjust my SmartThings settings.

The idea of the fridge as the "hub of the home" makes sense in many ways -- I particularly enjoyed the TV mirroring feature, but I don"t want (or need) my fridge to be an access point with all of my smart home devices. I do like the idea of being able to view a security camera feed on the fridge, but, again, that specific SmartThings integration didn"t work for me.

That feeling isn"t specific to Samsung, SmartThings or Bixby. I wouldn"t want an Alexa-, Google Assistant- or Siri-platform-enabled LCD fridge display either. Voice sans screens is the simplest way for a whole family to interact with smart home devices -- no phone, no fridge, no TV needed.

It will be interesting to see if and how the Galaxy Home changes things for Samsung and SmartThings. Samsung is way behind the voice assistant curve, which seriously hurts its appeal today.  But once the smart speaker hits stores, I have to ask -- what"s the point of the SmartThings hub? Does the Galaxy Home even need a SmartThings hub?

All of this speaks to the diminished role of hubs in homes -- I feel similarly about Wink. Samsung"s clunky execution of SmartThings hasn"t helped things either.

This certainly sounds like it could make Bixby better, but that won"t mean much if I can"t manage to connect my SmartThings devices to the fridge. We"ll see.