Oh Yes Please!. I agree with you totally on this, the real problem is that they might not be willing to do a timeline yet. However if they can give us at least the expected steps to each major roll out. And update us on where they are with it, that would work for me as well.
I would also like to add, since many people are developers here with skin in the game. They would be wise to point out areas or issues that they are having, as we could work together to figure out a way to resolve these issues.
Far more valued companies have given roadmaps. SmartThings should be able to do something for us.
It would be amazing if they had a âAdvanced Developerâ forum, where they discussed issues. Specialists in the community could contribute to possible solutions, and strategies. Thatâs free easy to access information. Many of us have specialties. I was a programmer, was a data center architect/admin, and now am a DBA. That gives me a unique perspective, as many others will also have a unique perspective.
Heck, I would love to have actual community input in the design/interface!
We have this. You only see it if you are an advanced developer
Oh come on, thatâs all your going to reply too?
I have stated a number of times that we are going to share our roadmap on this site, soon.
Additionally for those who attend the Developer Discussions every other week we are quite candid about what we are working on and what is upcoming. Just because things are demanded doesnât mean we can provide them immediately .
So how do we get into that? I am not a good canister but others are from the community
Agreed the developer confines are great, but I think for those of us who cannot make the meetings or watch the videos it might be a good thing to summarize the info with text
LOL, advanced developer, sounds like the second stage of a diseaseâŠ
Guess Iâm not an advanced developer, I donât see that area either. Heck I donât even have one of those fancy SmartThings t-shirts⊠@Ben
You are so, in one of the corded off areas
But not having a shirt is a travesty that can be addressed.
As long as the room is paddedâŠ
I wanted to take a bit of time to respond to each of these points with my own views on them. Again, these are my (not SmartThings - unless specified) timeline estimates for each (now w/bullets):
- Android still doesnât have persistent image access, which means cameras are useless
It appears that some cameras behave differently with this and we will investigate the behavior â especially as we add new cameras to the platform. I think weâll be adding several more cameras before the end of the year.
- Canât send MMS or email with or without an attachment either
No timeline that I know.
- No user level support, so I have to annoy my wife with all my alerts
Before end of year we should be rolling this out.
- No official Nest support, I get 5-10 requests a week to make my device âOfficialâ
We have to change the way our platform handles data retention before can officially support Nest. This has also held u some unofficial releases that 3rd party developers have submitted as we didnât want to âblur the lineâ. Expected Q4.
- IDE is a mess⊠It has become a slow, annoying pile of lack of debug logging because the response is too big, it doesnât feel like it or somewhere my code is wrong, but it doesnât know whereâŠ
The Developer Tools project has kicked off in earnest and is getting greater visibility as it is clear that we need to improve in this area. Incremental changes should be seen throughout the next few months.
- Sure, promises for a better IDE are thrown around, but no timelines given.
See above.
- SmartAps that spawn child devices canât even be logged properly
This should be a part of the IDE and logging improvements mentioned above.
- Temp sensors are so random, Iâm not sure what climate I live in.
Need more data to go on. I am under the impression that these are much better now (especially with v2 devices) and of there are consistent variations they can be addressed with user over-riding offsets.
- Local IP support for devices / SmartApps is non-existent⊠The answer is write it yourselfâŠ
Not sure what this means. We have several LAN-based integrations. Additional sockets and communication options are available with latest and upcoming firmware updates. 3-6 weeks.
- The SmartApp UI sucks, no real way to get a users input unless they are configuring the App. Even then, its a mess of dynamic pages.
We are looking at ways of addressing SmartApp display though the use of âHTML Tilesâ where HTML, CSS, and even JavaScript can be used to get the appearance desired. Perhaps some of this will spill out into the configuration options available to developers. Q4
- Android presence is broken, every time I reboot it says Iâm gone then backâŠ
As we discussed on the call, I am not sure the behavior manifesting for you is a bug. We can certainly look at ways to cache last event state but that seems a bit like overkill. If you will, please write up the way you would prefer this behave and we can look into it.
- Andorid ChartTile doesnât work, but promised another method, no timelines
Still no timeline because I need more insight into this. @tonyc what say you?
- No way to dynamically create, modify or hide tiles in a device type
Perhaps this will be a part of the HTML tiles mentioned above. Please define your desired use cases?
- UI for the Things area constantly resets.
Need more info/screenshots/videos.
- No support for streaming video
Unlikely in Q3/Q4. I would expect it soon after.
- No UDP support for local hubaction
I lose track of this one as I have gone back and forth to developers on it a bunch. Maybe @doug-st knows something about the timeframe for this.
- No response from Raw socket sends
Ditto - @doug-st or @scottvlaminck
- Truncated responses from local hubactions, its a mystery as to how big a response can actually be.
Maybe we are getting out of my realm of comfort here. Unsure on scope/timeframe.
- Have to create a smartapp or device just to browse other sample apps/devices
This should get much better as a part of IDE improvements. Additionally, for me, a goal is to get addressable SmartApps and Device Types that can be shared by URL Likely 2015.
- No tablet version, iOS or Android
1st half of 2015
- No Windows mobile
Next week.
- No windows app
Before the end of 2014
- No web interface for end users
Near and dear to me but not likely to get built until first half of next year.
- No list view in devices for showing data in a response
- No scene support
I am not convinced that scenes are needed. I am NOT saying that they could not be valuable but I do think their advantages can be achieved with current methods without the need to add ANOTHER construct to the world of SmartThings. The more we add the more complicated it is. I would rather see Hello, Home actions have more context awareness, for example, and act as a traditional scene.
- No offline or cached mode if internet connection is downâŠ
Hub v2. Q1 2015.
- No ability to sort devices in IDE also in Apps, etc.
Hopefully in the next few weeks with the new Developer Tools-focused sprints.
Ok, I am going to bed.
Thanks @Ben! This is great to see and very much appreciated. Still a couple questions that werenât addressed, like the sharing/access control issues, that Iâm hoping youâll answer as well.
Sharing access contract l was addressed above in first couple questions. Will be rolled out this year.
Ack! Sorry about that. I even read your answers twice and missed it both times. Great news, thanks!
Ben - as I stated on the call my android phone does not put me away when I turn my phone off when Iâm home. It also does not put me away and back when I turn the phone back on (I made sure it wasnât just the presence timeout causing me to not see it). This is the preferred way for me since I prefer to turn my phone off sometimes!
By the way, if you have location history turned on, you can go to your account in google and see that history. Simple to compare that with what SmartThings thinks its seeing.
@pstuart During the developer call I noticed that you are using a nexus 5. Have you checked to see if you have one of the batch that does not make a good connection to the GPS antenna? Before the fix, my nexus 5 would randomly lose GPS lock and teleport me into town by the cell tower. Of course this triggered a presence event of me leaving and then returning once GPS lock was regained. I could see the teleporting on my google location history as well. I have since fixed that issue and while presence detection is better, itâs still not reliable enough to use for events in SmartThings. I settled on using the Life 360 app for presence, and that has helped somewhat. Once presence is more reliable, I will return to using actions based on it.