10 location limit in the ST app

I have a lot of Samsung hubs in different airbnb properties and the app has always given me an error when I try to add any location beyond 10. I figured out that I could add more in the Groovy IDE website and thus they populate in the app just fine but the problem I’m running into is I need to share these 15 locations with my staff. I get no problems sharing on my end but when they try to accept an invitation beyond 10 the app won’t let them. I have no idea why Samsung would limit this anyway; you would think they would want us buying more hubs?! BTW, before you tell me the app is not built for that, don’t. The app works wonderfully well and I see no problem having dozens or properties in it. My problem is sharing those properties with my staff.

tagging @Brad_ST @garrett.kranz

:zipper_mouth_face:

I’m seriously glad to hear you like the App and Hub enough to use them in this manner and trust them with your business. I don’t have much sway in this discussion. But, I’ll tell you honestly that there are other limits on the platform (Ex: total device count) that would make more sense (IMO) to relax that have been unchanged for as long as I’ve been here.

Thoughts on what you could do while this limit exists:

  1. Multiple Hubs on a single Location dedicated to like a building/city/region/whatever makes sense for your business, I don’t really know.
  2. Design or have someone else design a simple App to interact with the Locations/devices through the documented and publicly available APIs.
  3. If you re-created these Locations to be owned by a single email/Samsung Account shared amongst your business, then all could access via the same level of access you have now.

@RBoy thoughts? I know you’re very in tune with how folks with rental properties interact with their Locations through SmartThings.

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We have a wide range of hosts managing from a few properties to over a hundred properties using Rental Lock Automater (RLA) or a custom integration like Lock Manager API (LMAPI).

This current 10 limit does seems a little arbitrary (I believe the IDE has a limit of up to 100 locations). As Garrett mentioned, here are the strategies that hosts use to get around this issue:

  1. Create additional locations from the IDE (they way you’re currently doing) and only invite staff who need access to specific properties using their staff accounts (keeping the total under 10 per staff member)
  2. Create a SmartThings account only for property management, create more than 10 locations using the IDE and share that account with all staff (keep in mind if your staff is using your phone as a mobile presence sensor in SmartThings, you may have some trouble with presence sensing here since the same account is being used on multiple phones, I think this issue was addressed in a recent update to the app where each phone on the same account shows up separately)
  3. Create multiple accounts and use multiple phones; this opens up options for you and your staff. For example if one staff member is handling 17 properties, (s)he can have 2 accounts/phones, with 10 locations one and 7 on the other. You can still have all the locations on your master account using the IDE workaround but have multiple phones for your staff who need more than 10 locations using separate individual accounts.
  4. If you’re using an app like LMAPI to integrate your SmartThings properties with your own systems then the limits don’t apply as LMAPI will interface directly with your own property management systems and you can manage them all from a single property management system (or custom app if you have one).

We don’t advise adding multiple hubs to a single location as we’ve seen it cause problems in the past and if you have a problem can multiple devices/hubs which means a lot more work redoing the entire setup again. It’s best to limit it to one hub per location (atleast for now).
You can always add repeaters to extend your mesh size if needed. Practically speaking I’ve seen hosts use a single hub to manage 10 properties in a single building using only repeaters with RLA.

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Figured I would update this as it may help someone in the future. Basically we played with both the IDE and the app using multiple iterations and by accident figured out that if you invite someone who already has 10 locations on their mobile device in the ST app and they DO NOT accept the invitation on the mobile device but instead accept it via their email account then it lets you add more than 10 locations. So anyway, thats great news and now totally solves my problem and now my entire team has access to all my locations with no work arounds or multiple accounts or logins!

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Hi Robert thanks for your post and the update it’s fascinating to learn of the capabilities of ST which is learnt mainly from user experience. Can you let me know how you have found your solution to work now that have implemented it and been using it in your business. Any further advice for those of us looking to do something similar? Any issues you came across.

Hi Wayne,

It’s working wonderfully thus far. We have about 30 locations now on our app. The key is just to add them in the Groovy IDE and then using your mobile app you share those locations with staff but they can ONLY accept the invitation via email and NOT through the app. I have actually gone in and added dozens of locations with "unused1, unused2, etc.) because I’m afraid when/if the IDE goes away even my work around may quit working. Hopefully, Samsung will fix this issue altogether since power users like us need multiple locations. If you need help, call or email me.

Hi Robert

Thanks for your prompt reply and the advice you give. I’ll follow your lead and create a number of locations in advance of needing to use them. If you don’t mind I’ll keep your contact in case I have future issues.

Thanks again.

Wayne

Hi All, having trouble adding locations in IDE, option seems to have vanished, have about 40 currently and need to add more, any suggestions?

The IDE is part of the old architecture and will be going away soon. And, as you noticed, multiple functions have already been removed from it.

you need to use one of the tools that works with the new architecture. See the following:

Life after the IDE: Questions and Answers

Thanks, looked through that and setup Browser+ but not seeing any way to add locations, any tips?

use CLI (10 characters)

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