“Unfortunately I did not purchase from Vesternet as it was not available at the time but this company has been very helpful to me in the past so I thought I would return the favour and add a review of this product.
This is my 4th gateway I have purchased over the years and I would say it's great value for money and performs very well. I've had LightwaveRF, Vera Edge and Vera Plus. This product integrates with Alexa extremely well and response time is much faster than any of my previous gateways. i.e. I ask Alexa to turn a light off and most cases (with a few exceptions) is responds almost straight away. If I was to ask Alexa to do that same with the Vera Plus it would often take 4 or 5 seconds before it would actually take action. The other thing is that Alexa finds new devices almost straight away were with the Vera Plus I would need to take extra steps. Also Alexa understand the devices better and so without any configuration I can tell lights to change colour without any additional programming. Vera Plus I would need to create a scene to even get that to work correctly.
Overall I'm very happy with my purchase. But there is things to consider:
1: There is now web interface. Everything is managed via the mobile phone app. There is actually 2 apps which I find you may need to switch between the two (more about that later) to get everything to work the way I want it
2: There is a programming language called Groovy so that you can write your one device handlers and applications. This is very flexible but you need to write a lot of code even if you want to do something really basic. Vera Plug was used Lua which had it's limitations but I could do basic actions with just a few lines of code. This is not at all possible on Smartthings. I ended up grabbing other peoples code similar to what I wanted and then modify it slightly to get things to work but even then it takes a while
3: Creating code IS via a web interface only. They have a simulator so you can test your code when writing it but the simulator is unreliable so you end up switching between you PC and your phone all the time to test your code and make alterations.
4: Changing configuration on Z-Wave devices does not exist in the interface. Instead individuals have written device handlers that allow you to configure the Z-Wave devices which you can switch in then use your phone to adjust the settings and then switch your device back to it's original handler. All a bit messy if you ask me but it does work
5: There is a lot of unsupported Z-Wave devices out there which will connect to SmartThings but may not function well. This is where you either need to cross check what you are purchasing or know how to write your own handlers. There is a lot of great people out there that offer their code however I found that some have gaps and so ended up making a few minor changes.
6: Device handles are really designed for the SmartThings Classic App and from what I can tell you can get some things to work in their latest app but it's limited. i.e. If you want to play safe only purchase devices you know are supported otherwise expect to use the Classic App a lot and write your own code... (Little tip... You can setup virtual switches that work fine in the modern app interface that connects back to your own code.
7: Support web cam list is very limited right now. I use Foscam which in the end I was able to get it to get snapshots but no live feed. I'm also having problems getting it to get a snapshot when motion is triggered from any of my z-wave devices. But with a bit more research I think I might get it to work better. However I know the modern app will potentially never work with this camera and I can only play from the SmartThings Classic app.
Overall - There is quite a lot of potential with this product but it does require some improvements from Samsung but there is a lot of limitations in the solution and with complex workarounds.
But there is a lot of other things that work very well in the solution and also a lot of cool features. i.e. Not that I have Ring but if you do and you also have a modem Samsung TV then you can easily get it to trigger showing the camera on your TV when the doorbell is pressed.
Samsung are very close to a great winner here and it only requires a few key software updates. But even still I am happy with what I get out of it so far.”
