Users of Samsung’s SmartThings hub are reporting significant and lengthy outages, rendering many connected smart home appliances useless.
Some users in North America have taken to social media to report downtime stretching beyond 24 hours.
The firm confirmed the flaw on Twitter yesterday and today says it is continuing to work towards restoring full functionality.
Related: Samsung SmartThings review
In an announcement, the SmartThings division said (via The Verge): “The issues impacting North American users have been largely addressed and we are seeing improvements to app loading and device control.
“Our teams are continuing to work on restoring full functionality and will provide an update when available.”
Our teams are currently investigating the issues impacting users. We apologize for any inconvenience. In order to get the latest updates, check out our status page here: https://t.co/2oDiOZ3XFJ. If you have additional questions let us know at Support@SmartThings.com
— SmartThings (@smartthings) March 13, 2018
Samsung has been criticised by users for the lack of updates during the outage, with many accusing the company of ignoring the problems. In some cases the firm has advised users to check the status page, which hasn’t been updated often enough for their liking.
The problem has affected users in different ways, with some appliances requiring manual control and, in other cases, the Philips Hue bulbs failing to work.
Yes, #SmartThings is down, and it blows that it's down. But given the number of "ZOMG! #SmartThings is down! The world is ending!" tweets I just read trying to figure out what's going on, I would say too many smart-home owners forget we're all still early adopters. #GrowingPains
— Darth Stateworker (@DarthStateworkr) March 13, 2018
It is EVERYONE. THE ENTIRE system is down and has been for more than three hours and Samsung has refused to acknowledge it at all.
— Anthony Castanza (@ACastanza) March 13, 2018
The significant downtime highlights the potential risk in relying on platforms like SmartThings for home appliance control.
Outages in the home broadband connectivity and problems with platforms like SmartThings hinder users in ways only a powercut can bother unconnected appliances.
Do you have any smart home horror stories? Share them with us @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.