SmartThings app for Blackberry 10

Hi folks,

Blackberry 10 has the ability to run your Android version of the SmartThings app on any Blackberry 10 device through a Android Runtime. However, the presence sensor options I hear don’t work because you’re using Google Play Services for your location base management.

Is there any plans for a native Blackberry 10 app to being developed, so that all aspects of SmartThings automation will work on Blackberry devices? If anyone is using a Blackberry 10 device to run your ST, I’d appreciate you feed back and how you’re using the setup.

Regards,

Carm

There are no plans at this point to officially support Blackberry or to modify our Android application to work better on Blackberry devices.

There hasn’t been any demand for it in terms of the requests we receive but we’d definitely appreciate people posting here if this is something they’d like to see.

Not having one I’m unsure, but can’t you just side load the android app? Our is it published to the Amazon store you could possible load it from their if available.

It’s not so much the appl as I have confirmation from a number of BlackBerry 10 community users that ST is working fine with the Android app that can be pulled from the Google Play Store directly. However, the only option at this time that doesn’t seem to be working and is common amongst all ST users with a BlackBerry device, is any option requiring location base services. ST from what I can tell uses Google Play Services and that service unfortunately can’t be utilized within BlackBerry’s android runtime.

I have the same problem, I loaded the app on my Z10 no issues other than presence does not work for the reason indicated above (looking for Google Play location services). It would be great if we could find a solution for this, in BlackBerry it shows location services as checked with BlackBerry App Settings. Other than this the app runs very well on the device.

Hey Graham,

I’ve been in contact with a number of BlackBerry 10 users over on the Crackberry forums who are up and running with ST system. Unfortunately due to security reasons I suspect, you probably won’t be seeing Google Play Services running within the android runtime for BB10 devices anytime soon. Myself and another CB members have tried to patch the ST app by removing the GP services however, there is probably some additional coding that will be required by the ST dev team in order for the app to become fully functional. That being said, everything else with the system and app I’m told, is working flawlessly and some CB members have just ordered more presence sensor keyfob’s to get around the Location based service issue with their BlackBerry devices.

Hope that helps!

Hi Zedzilla, thanks, yes I agree other than this it works nicely, so it will do, thanks for the response!

Good to hear that the app works - except for the proximity sensor.
Am thinking about getting the hub and building out the house. But not having an app for BB10 is a bit of a drawback…

Gerald

I’ve been using my Z10 with the Android app for a couple months now and it works great minus the proximity sensor, but I have most of my lights running on a schedule so it’s not a major set back for me. You can also run it in Chrome from your Mac if you have one, that lets you run within the browser, there are threads on that option too. Hopefully they’ll roll out a web based version like Nest has as that gets rid of a lot of these device specific set backs.

I’ve got Smartthings runnning on my BlackBerry Z30 running OS 10.3.1 and its been great so far just using the app downloaded directly from Google Play Store through the Snap app.

I’ve only got a open/close sensor and a GE smart switch so far and they work fine. I don’t seem to get any push notifications though even though I’ve set it up that way. Text notifications work fine for now though.

I gather from this thread that the presence sensor doesn’t work without Google Play services. I would would really like to get the presence sensor working as well as that would open the door to many solutions. There are more than just BlackBerry devices that would benefit from removing that dependency since not all Android-based phone have Google Play Services (even though most do).

I really hope Smartthings addresses this, and it might even be in their best interest too in the larger scheme. Samsung is looking to remove as many unecessary ties to Google so they are not subject to Google changing the terms on Android use. And guess what, Samsung owns Smartthings, so maybe the move away from Google Play Services is a good thing.

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No push notifications without pushbullet here (although just uninstalled as it was draining my battery). I echo the ask for working presence sensor that isn’t dependent on play services. Even tried patching the app for location services without success.

There is a workaround Google Play in form of patching it so app thinks Google Play Services are installed on BB10 device so that might help.

Porting Android app into BBWorld is an easy task and it should not require your developers much time to do it.

But I have a question for staff members here, if we can recruit few BB10 dev soldiers to develop native app for BlackBerry 10 would you be willing to support it by answering few questions as app develops?

Hey Cool_Sauce,

I’ve tried patching Smartthings android app and using Google services, but presence sensor still doesn’t work. I can set my geofence but that’s it. I’d pay for a blackberry app that has presence working. If someone else has patched successfully I’d love an .apk!

Brooke

Hi There:

Just found this thread – I have been running the SmartThings app on a BlackBerry 10 device for months now quite successfully (except for location services which I don’t care about). But this morning the app crashed on startup – no change to my mobile device or the ST app. I tried the latest ST update with no change in behaviour – then deleted the application and reinstalled: now it doesn’t start at all. Looks like something changed in the cloud last night. The IOS app works fine on our other phone so our controller is OK.

Any help appreciated (I did create a support ticket) – surprisingly there are still a lot of us BB users out there!

I am one of those that would love if there was a native app for the Blackberry. Has there been any progress or any development for an app to work.

Wow I’m surprised to see this thread is still going. I’m revisiting the notion of purchasing a SmartThings solution but it look as though not much as changed since I started this thread. That’s too bad really because it’s such a small request to the SmartThings team to port their Android app into BlackBerry 10 for use, with the potential to open up another segment of smartphone users.

It’s really a shame. The z10, and newer Blackberry’s for that matter, are great phones with an awesome O/S. There’s still so many of us that use Blackberry’s that you would think it would drive more app development.

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What is a Blackberry?

I would also like to have a native app for Blackberry 10 phones I use SmartThings on my Blackberry Z10 and it works very well I would like to be able to use the presents sensor as I have 4 family members with Blackberry 10 phones and switching to something else times 4 gets expensive. I would also like to see it be able to see my FosCam as a device I can work around the cam using the motion sensor as the alert and then user the FosCam app to view the camera. also need a good cold weather outdoor camera for my backyard. 30 below zero is not unusual in my area

In my experience, the presence functionality of the app is so unreliable that I wouldn’t depend on it for very much so getting it to work on BB10 would be an exercise in futility. This is especially true if the rest of the functions work fine in the sideloaded android app.

It’s not really the app’s fault, but if Android’s memory management drops ST from the background processes, presence doesn’t work since nothing is reporting back to the hub. Would BB10 not suffer from the same? I’m not familiar with how BB manages background processes.