The SmartThings V2 Hub (UK) is retailing for £99.99 (S$176) on Amazon UK.
Because I am shipping to Singapore, I get VAT exemption of 20% and hence the price before VAT is £83.33 (S$147).
Shipping to Singapore is expensive but fast. I paid £15.18 (S$27) for direct UPS shipping from Amazon UK. I ordered it on 12th August 2017, and I received it on 16th August 2017.
Overall, I paid £83.33 + £15.18 = £98.51 (S$174), which is about the same as the retail price with VAT included.
In case you are not aware, I am already using Samsung SmartThings in my home, but it is based on US Z-Wave frequency of 908.42MHz which is not compatible with Z-Wave devices being sold in Singapore as those uses UK frequency of 868.42MHz.
Both the SmartThings Hub are V2 which was launched almost 2 years ago on September 2015.
It has been more than a year since the start of my smart home journey and I find that my Z-Wave Hub, Fibaro Home Center Lite, is very unstable.
I have about 65 Z-Wave devices connected to the hub. Home Center Lite is the cheaper hub from Fibaro as compared with Home Center 2. Hence, the processor is slower and RAM is lesser. You will experience lagginess when using the UI.
Also, sometimes the firmware upgrades are so unstable and buggy that I have to restart it every day in order not to get a 503 Gateway error. It happens a few times. So to me, updating the firmware on the hub is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.
The Fibaro Community Forums are not much of a help anyway.
The last straw came when the hub faces some communication problems with my MCO Home Touch Switches in the living room. Both the hub and the switches are located in the living room and within visible sight of each other. There should not be any communication issues at all. To make matter worse, it is erratic. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It is very frustrating.
So I thought of eventually changing the hub to SmartThings since my US one was working very well for me.
Most if not all of my Z-Wave devices are on UK frequency, I would need to get a SmartThings V2 Hub from the UK. Amazon UK came to my mind.
As a bonus, SmartThings accessories like the Multipurpose Sensor, Motion Sensor, and Arrival Sensor are based on Zigbee instead of Z-Wave, so they will be able to work with the UK hub as well. I just need to unpair them from my US hub and pair them again to my UK hub.
Zigbee frequency is standard worldwide as they are using 2.4GHz.
Hi, I am embarking into my home automation journey and I am deciding on which hub to purchase.
Smartthings looks good to me as it supports Goggle Home directly.
Can I find out from you what is your opinion of Smartthings vs Vera or Fibaro.
I don’t use Vera, so I can’t comment on it.
The good thing about Fibaro is that it supports a lot of Z-Wave devices out of the box and the web UI is pretty good (though the app UI is quite shitty).
I make the mistake of getting HomeCenter Lite (HCL) instead of HomeCenter 2 (HC2) because I wanted it cheap to play around. HCL has much lesser RAM and slower process and my experience, it tends to hang often and laggy. I often have to restart it.
SmartThings doesn’t have a web UI (it does have a developer web UI) but the mobile app is pretty good. They only support a handful of devices which is extremely limited. You need to be a developer or you have to use the community Custom Device Handler if you want to add a Z-Wave device that is not support. I find those custom device handler from the community is not very well supported.
The one thing I like about SmartThings is that it supports WiFi, Z-Wave and ZigBee devices. So I can link my Logitech Harmony Hub and Sonos to it. There is a also a lot of third party support like Amazon Alexa and Google Home
I bridge my Fibaro HCL to SmartThings using habridge (you can google for it), so I can have the best of both worlds! So far so good!
hello! im actually debating between the new samsung connect home pro and the homey. plus would these be able to work with the broadlink TC2 wall switches?
I am not sure, I don’t use Broadlink wall switches.
how about samsung connect home pro vs homey?
Homey. Without a doubt. My review will be out on Monday for Homey.
awesome! will look out for it!
Hi. This model in the picture (R3Y-STH-ETH200) is for US users and operates at 908.42MHz frequency.
Why is it presented as the UK version (868.42MHz)?
Robert
This operates at UK frequency, that I can confirm. As I am in Singapore and Singapore follows Europe/UK frequency. I have paired successfully with Z-Wave devices from Singapore.
This is my US one https://lesterchan.net/blog/2016/05/30/samsung-smartthings/. Now that you mentioned it, I am surprised both model numbers are identical.
I bought this UK one as I can’t paired it with my SG Z-Wave devices when I am using the US one.
Thank you for the information 🙂
I was fooled by the z-wave chip designation:
ZM5304AU for US 908MHz
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sigma-designs-inc/ZM5304AU-CME3R/703-1075-1-ND/4135432
ZM5304AE for UK 868MHz
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sigma-designs-inc/ZM5304AE-CME3R/703-1074-1-ND/4135431
Only in one place the model R3Y-STH-ETH200 is on the UK market with ZM5304AE:
but you have ZM5304AU chipset on label. Samsung has a wrong designation on the label.
Thank you for the information 🙂
I was fooled by the z-wave chip designation:
ZM5304AU for US 908MHz:
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sigma-designs-inc/ZM5304AU-CME3R/703-1075-1-ND/4135432
ZM5304AE for UK 868MHz:
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sigma-designs-inc/ZM5304AE-CME3R/703-1074-1-ND/4135431
Only in one place the model R3Y-STH-ETH200 is on the UK market with ZM5304AE:
http://www.fccid.io/png.php?id=2570588&page=1
…but you have ZM5304AU chipset on label. Samsung has a wrong designation on the label.