I’m wondering how others are handling the lack of access controls in ST and managing multiple hubs/locations given that the only method of “sharing” available is to grant another account full control over a hub? The specific use case I’m trying to find a solution to is this: I installed a hub and 24 sensors at my parents’ house. This is primarily to provide perimeter security, but also automation. I need to be able to configure and manage the hub at their house, check on the state of things, get alerts, etc., while giving them the ability to get alerts, check on the state of things, change modes, and turn lights on/off.
Originally I had the hub installed on my account, but then discovered that the only option for sharing was to give my parents full control over my house in addition to theirs. After a thread with ST Support, I removed the parents’ hub from my account, created an account for my Dad, and then added all the devices back, only to discover that I misunderstood what Support had said as it’s not possible to share a hub to an existing account. According to them, my only choices, apparently, are to put the hub back on my account, thus giving my parents’ full control over my house as well as theirs, or I have to use two accounts on my phone, constantly signing in/out. Given that my parents have already mangled things up a couple times, giving them full control over my hub is a non-starter, but equally problematic is having to sign in/out of multiple accounts on my phone since I lose alerts on the other. Using SMS for alerts is a non-starter too.
I love ST as a platform, but It’s mind-boggling to me that ST has this problem to begin with and I can’t imagine anyone being willing to do what support is suggesting. Support says their “working” on this, but the lack of firm statement on what they’re “working” on and on what timeline, I’m left trying to find a better solution.
How are others handling this? Any suggestions from ST veterans?
Do you have two mobile devices? Like a phone and a tablet? If so, you could put an account on each of them. Not the most ideal, but it might help you out.
I do agree that controlling someone else’s system may start to become more common and ST should look into addressing that need. This could also be solved with user account controls as well, limiting the type of access or the hub a user can control.
Note that it’s possible to modify the apps on your Dad’s hub to also send notifications to your hub/phone. So if the notification aspect of maintaining two separate accounts is the main deal breaker, you can work around it.
But if you need to regularly check states of numerous things, and using a notification for those would be too annoying or otherwise insufficient, I don’t really think there is an answer for that at this point.
Do your parents need to be able to control the account, or would it be sufficient for them just to have presence sensors & have things turn on and off with those? Just curious.
Status isn’t sufficient, unfortunately. I need to be able to fully control their hub and devices, I need my parents to interact with their devices, and I need notifications to go to all three of our devices (and actually a couple other people).
“There’s work being done”, “We’re working on it”, “Stay tuned”, etc. are all tired refrains. I hate to be that guy, but absent a timeline, it’s vaporware. ST could set itself apart from the growing crowd of companies by sharing its roadmap and timeline, and of course actually delivering on that roadmap.
They need to interact with their account and devices - turn lights on/off, change mode, see status, get notifications, etc. They don’t need to change settings or configurations or add/remove devices.
Well, it appears for the moment that the best way is the separate accounts, have you considered using a password manager that would auto fill in the Account and PW as you logout and in to the app?
On this same idea, I want to have 1 presence FOB work in 2 locations ( like the Smartthings hub at my home and the Smartthings hub at my office ). Using my iPhone as a presence trigger never seems to work reliably.
I talked to tech support and they tell me a fob can only connect to one hub even though they are both on the same account.
SOUNDS LIKE AN APPLICATION CHANGE IS NEEDED in the Smartthings cloud !
The SmartSense Presence Sensor is a ZigBee device and can only be paired to one hub at a time. There is no change that we can make that would allow you to use one with two hubs simultaneously.
I have the same exact situation as JamesM. It seems ridiculous that ST has not taken this kind of situation into account. At minimum a very quick solution would be to at least allow multiple accounts in the App, so that the user could change with a simple selection from a drop down, instead of having to log in/out. That should be step one, and could be added to the App with minimal development effort. Multiple users/locations support should be delivered next.
Seriously ST support. What is the timeline for delivering some kind of multi-account/multi-user support? This needs to be answered.
Tyler, some kind of multiple account or users and roles support is critical for ST to be successful. You can not possibly expect people to keep login in/out of the App for multiple locations that they want to keep separate. The situation where people will want to monitor/control their aging parents’ homes is pretty common, and the current App is bordering on useless for this.
What is the timeline for some kind of multiple account/user support? Or do we have to yet again, look for a different solution that is not ST?
To be clear, multiple locations and multiple users are supported. You can add additional hubs and locations to an existing account in the left menu by clicking the dropdown arrow at the top. You can add additional users under “My Account”.
What’s not currently supported is inviting a user who already has a SmartThings account. I don’t know what the timeline for that is but it’s a big priority for us.
Yes while multiple users/locations are supported, it is a all or nothing proposition, as there are no user roles/restrictions available in the App. So as a person with a ST hub at home and my own account, and another ST hub at my parents house with their own account, in order for me to be able to have my parents have control of their hub, and me have control of both hubs, the only solution currently is to keep login in/out in the App into two separate accounts, in process of which I lose notifications from the account I am not logged into (or have multiple Android/iOS devices one for each account). Obviously pretty awkward.
So, I am a newbie to ST, but have it installed in my primary residence, and my secondary residence. I wanted to chime in that the ability to allow users to interact with other homes that are not their primary account is very important, as we too were considering a ST setup for my aging MIL who will not consider a Life Alert and does not check in with us regularly.
Another (highly common) use case is my two teenage boys, who share their time between my homes and their father’s homes…they are on my ST account…so if/ when their dad gets one, he would want them to be able to interact with his system as well. I would also like user roles/ responsibilities to be configurable…I want my kids to be able to unlock doors and turn on/ off lights, but I sure don’t want them dorking up my home schedules and other configurations I have spent time figuring how to set up and optimize…ditto for houseguests who will enjoy my home temporarily.
We have several homes and each have a manager to look after them. Like others we would like the ability to have SmartThings in the various properties without the various managers having any control over the other properties, but we want control over all of them without logging in and out.