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The culprit turned out to be SmartThings, the technology that was supposed to let her effortlessly control all of her smart appliances. Instead of making her life easier, SmartThings couldn't handle the more than 60 smart devices Powers connected in her house. She ended up disabling the SmartThings Smart Home Monitor so she wouldn't lose her sanity. "It's just not something you can rely on," said Powers, a writer and former software engineer who blogs about her smart home. SmartThings, the darling of Samsung's smart home push, isn't looking so cute right now. Users complain it's been glitchy, causing their security systems to sound alerts when nothing's happening or turning on lights when they're not supposed to. Devices disconnect themselves from the system or show they're working when they're not.

It's unclear how many users have been impacted by the issues, but one community blog floral beauty iphone case post about the "SmartThings user experience and platform performance" had nearly 27,000 views and 1,700 comments in one month, That makes it one of the most active threads on SmartThings' message board, The glitches are mostly affecting the system's power users who have dozens of connected devices, according to SmartThings, But it's also causing would-be SmartThings users to consider waiting for conditions to improve or opting for other systems, Most worriedly, the troubles raise concerns about whether the smart home is really ready for the mass market..

"SmartThings, when everything works, is really friendly for the average user," Powers said. "But for the average person coming into this [now]..they will run from [the Internet of Things] and smart home devices, all of them."Samsung has been making a big push to provide the hardware, software and services designed to make our homes smarter. The so-called Internet of Things -- which could hit a market value of $3.04 trillion in 2019, according to IDC -- involves the notion that everything around you should communicate and work together. Proponents say this will make life easier, letting you do things like close your garage door while you're away or get a heads-up from your refrigerator when you're out of milk.

SmartThings, a startup that Samsung bought in August 2014, lets you connect a hardware hub to a Wi-Fi router, fire up an app on Android, iOS floral beauty iphone case or Windows, and control all of your smart appliances from one place, It works with everything from Nest Thermostats to Philips' Hue LED bulbs, People dabbling with smart home technology like the simplicity of SmartThings, while power users like its flexibility, SmartThings is expected to play a key role next week at Samsung's developers conference, the company's venue for getting software makers excited about building apps for its various devices, from the smart home to virtual reality..

In the past year, the number of developers making apps that work with SmartThings has more than doubled to over 20,000. SmartThings says that number continues to rise. SmartTiles is one of those companies, and lead developer Alex Malikov says he's optimistic that SmartThings will fix its issues. "I hope that this is the bottom of the hill and that it will go up from here," he said. "I remain hopeful."But not every SmartThings developer or user shares Malikov's outlook. Powers is only one of many people who've complained on SmartThings community message boards or on Reddit about the problems they're having with their smart home systems. One user called it "fatally flawed," while another claiming to be a SmartThings employee "wouldn't recommend it for non-technical users."Developers and users rebelled last week after the creator of one well-liked app, Rule Machine, withdrew support for SmartThings. Rule Machine lets people set complex commands such as telling the system to turn on an electric blanket in the bedroom if "my presence or my wife's presence is home, there is motion in the bedroom, it's between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. and the temperature is below 65."Creator Bruce Ravenel stopped supporting Rule Machine on the SmartThings platform because of what he called "ongoing serious degradation of the SmartThings platform" that causes "random failure" of Rule Machine and makes it "function in unpredictable ways," according to his message board post. He did not respond to CNET's request for comment.