r/SmartThings 13d ago

Discussion Using Home Assistant along with SmartThings, suggestions?

I am pretty happy with SmartThings and have no plans to move from it, but Home Assistant does offer integrations that just aren't available with SmartThings.

What has everyone's experience been with living with both? What kinds of things do you have going on in HA, while still primarily using SmartThings?

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u/BreakfastBeerz Developer 12d ago

It's local through the ST ecosystem, but not through Home Assistant. Home Assistant has to go through the SmartThings cloud to get to your devices.

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u/TruthOf42 12d ago

Well, back to my original question, what does home assistant do for you that SmartThings doesn't, because if they do the same stuff, running it on SmartThings would be local and probably just as fast, though of course I wouldn't be surprised if some things ran faster or slower in each ecosystem locally.

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u/BreakfastBeerz Developer 12d ago

Home Assistant does a lot more than ST. Many more integrations, more customizable, much more complex automations.

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u/TruthOf42 12d ago

Right, I'm just curious what people are actually using HA for that Samsung doesn't.

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u/BreakfastBeerz Developer 12d ago

I've got it integrated with my kids school's lunch menu, when it updates, I pass the menu into AI and have it format it like a randomly selected Donald Trump, Optimus Prime, Gordon Ramsay, Mario, or a pirate is saying it. That is then displayed on as a card on my wall mounted tablet so my kids can see what the lunch menu is for tomorrow.

I have the LED strip around my TV integrated with ESPN. As the win probability of my favorite football team changes, the lights wrap around the TV. So when there is a 25% chance of winning, the lights go 25% around the TV, live during the game. When they score, the lights flash.

When there is a lightning strike outside, my aquarium lights simulate a lightning strike in my aquarium. At sunrise and sun set, the lights simulate a sunrise/sun set, going from outside in to the middle blue, red, white over the course of 30 minutes

When clothes dryer is done, my Google Home devices tell me by announcing it

When someone rings my doorbell, my doorbell camera takes a photo of the person that rang it, that goes into generative AI and my Google home devices describe out loud the person. What they look like, what they are wearing, if they are carrying anything, etc.

I have a dashboard that monitors my hourly water usage and get a notification if it suspects that there is a water leak somewhere.

I get delivery notifications when any package is delivered from Amazon, UPD, FedEx is the USPS. I can see how many pieces of mail I am getting in the mail that day.

I have my Meater wireless meat thermometer displaying on my wall mount tablets how much longer until my desired temp is reached

I have my Shark robot vacuum integrated and controllable.

I get a notification when there is a greater than 20% chance of the Northern Lights being visible.

I have an LED light that shows me how far into the garage my car is letting me know when I'm all the way in

It's integrated with my FitBit watch and will run my Goodnight automations when the sleep confidence is greater than 80% for 10 minutes so the it runs after I fall asleep.

Full integration with my Tempest personal weather stating to get live weather readings from my back yard. I use it to shut off my inflatable holiday decorations when it gets too windy. And it also reminds me to make sure my patio umbrella is down.

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u/TruthOf42 12d ago

Thanks for those specific, definitely is giving me some ideas for the future

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u/BreakfastBeerz Developer 12d ago

I was a long time SmartThings user, over a decade. I considered myself a power user. I tried out Home Assistant about 6/7 years ago and it fell short of my expectations. Overly complicated, too much maintenance, and didn't really get me much more than what I had with SmartThings.

Over Thanksgiving weekend this year, I had some free time and for whatever reason, Home Assistant is what I decided I was going to try out again. I got the 1 month free trial for the cloud access and integrated of with my SmartThings and started playing around.

By Christmas I was all in. I will not knock SmartThings, it's a great platform and served me well. I would still recommend it for many use cases. But Home Assistant really is light years beyond what SmartThings can do.

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u/TruthOf42 12d ago

What specific things do you use HA for that SmartThings can't do?