So it turns out smart things aren’t so smart as I thought. The reason my light wouldn’t switch off was eventually discovered to be because I hadn’t set times during which the trigger should be active. This is because I wanted it active at all times – no movement, turn off the light! Simple, right? After dutifully adding the times to the “routine” it started working.
It’s just as well it started working because my partner has discovered he is unable to work with the devices. While I can use my smartphone to turn off the light at will, he is powerless to do anything but turn off the light so it won’t be activated, or unplug it – again meaning it can’t be activated.
The app has a section where it invites me to add other people. When I fill in an email address for another person all that happens is that I get a popup saying that feature is not yet implemented. This is strange behaviour – I would have expected the option to be unavailable until it does something. We also can’t connect afresh to the hub – there’s a one time code to connect the hub and a single app instance and I used it up. This seems like an oversight – I have inadvertently become a dictatorship in which I alone control the light. I can’t imagine many people want their family to be led by one sole bastion of smartness while they remain powerless.
So to date the items show some real promise but it feels very much like they’re in beta. The app reviews on the google play store contain many people aghast that a company like Samsung should have put the app out in the state it’s currently in. Personally I’m using the iPhone version and it seems nice and clean and it is functional if you know what you’re looking for but it’s quite a learning curve and I would expect it to see some major revisions.
At some point I’ll try to figure out what I’d like to do with the presence sensor. I wonder if I’m supposed to report back that the other item doesn’t want to talk to me…?