That’s the main question, isn’t it? I don’t think SmartThings has ever fully documented/explained what they mean by “hidden.“
On a number of Home Automation platforms, there’s an option for Hidden which is essentially the opposite of “favorite.“ The only thing it affects is whether the device appears on a specific screen. Not whether it’s accessible anywhere else in the app, including in the rules creator. It’s typically used to remove it from the screen which serves as the dashboard.
Doesn’t seem they use anything Android specific, assigning an action to a button in SmartThings is the same screen than when you create a routine and select the “Then”. But, somehow, if you chose to hide a light for instance, you won’t be able to create any routine from the button even if it should be the same as creating a new routine, just skipping the “If” part.
That’s why I don’t understand it. Assigning an action to a button is creating a routine, they could just show just the devices available for actions when you press a button, like they do when creating a routine using the button as starter. Unless internally routines created from the button view and routines created from the routine view have nothing to do.
Not for the controls on the device details page they aren’t. They just open up the usual routine creator without the ‘if’ section. The routine appears on the Routines page.
You can actually disable the Routine but that is not reflected on the device details page so maybe that is why they delete it when a device is removed.
I should acknowledge that I have spent an unhealthy amount of time looking around the API and so I tend to use the terms I see there. The mobile app seems to use a different lexicon to the API. I’m not really sure what it calls what I call the ‘hidden devices’. It would be tempting to describe them as unselected devices. I don’t do that because ‘unselected devices’ gets used in the API for the devices that have been deselected from use in the summary tiles.
I am still trying to work out what an ‘unseen device’ is.
@nayelyz any update to my above questions?
So another example/question. I have 3 Aqara hub in one account, so i cannot bring one of the Aqara hub connected devices in the same account to another location in smartthings and 2 aqara hub remains in the primary location right??? Or anything in the 2nd location i must have a separate account and hub for the 3rd party services so this separate location in smartthings can work?
smartthings said now when there is more than 300 devices and too many routines, i cannot even link the sharptools via the api due to the timeout issue im facing when connecting the sharptool services. Even the alternate secondary location that i setup with zero devices are not able to link the sharptools services via smartthings api when the primary location have more than 300devices. So regardless i move the devices to another location, it does not work as long as there are too many devices in total otherwise i dont see why my secondary location with zero devices are not working too
This is their reply - even trying to use sharptools to link both location devices is not workable since i am not able to connect to sharptool via smartthings api as smartthings said theres too many devices resulting in a timeout situation when connecting to the sharptool services
@nayelyz any update to the questions?
Seems like there is no other solution by smartthings except moving to other platforms?
To be fair, most single hub DIY residential systems have a limit of 200 devices or so.
That includes Home Assistant Sky Connect, Vera Plus, Homey Pro, HomeKit, Lutron Caseta and others. (IKEA dirigera is limited to 100.)
Zwave itself prior to series 800 had a hard limit of 232.
But most of the time, the issue is the amount of memory required. And the dollar cost that many consumers are willing to pay.
There are some exceptions. Hubitat doesn’t have a fixed limit, but there many users find they do have to go to multiple hubs once they get over around 200 devices. It does depend on the specific models being used, though.
Homeseer can handle thousands of devices, but only when it’s running on a powerful PC and at a price point much closer to $1000 than 100 for the base system.
Control4 Can also use its proprietary system to handle thousands, in a distributed network with multiple controllers. Again, though, that’s a much more expensive system.
And of course, Lutron offers different systems with different structures, some intended for commercial use, which can also handle thousands of devices, but again at a much higher cost.
(And again, I would note that the old Zigbee ZHA profile was much lighter in memory requirements than the current Zigbee 3.0, so if you find old Internet posts with people talking about Zigbee networks with 400 or 500 devices, look to see if you can identify the profile. It’s probably not Zigbee 3.0.)
So are there alternatives? Maybe, it depends on the exact devices that you have. But most of them will end up costing a lot more, and will probably require running either on much more powerful hardware or on multiple hubs.
speaking just for myself, it’s not the 200 or 300 device limit on SmartThings that I find objectionable, but rather the lack of documentation about it and the continual changing of the guardrails without notification.
@JDRoberts there are solutions to extend for other platform, now there is no solutions available for smarthings as all, even if i add on additional smartthings hub it does not work as the devices at different or same locations cannot be integrated, then its become very inflexible. I do not need sharptools to bring 2 locations of devices to work but i dont mind trying to use it to solve the limitation but tried and hit with not able to connect to the api due to devices over the limit.
As such smartthings hub is not going to be able to work as the main hub at all especially now when matters is introduced, it allows alot more integration than before but a limit like this defeat its purpose. There is no option when services are linked to smartthings, what devices can be selected to use and not count towards the limit (which i though the devices selection is a good start! , but nope….)
As for zigbee 3.0 , i dont think i have many devices with zigbee 3.0 too , majority of my devices are of philips hue lights and older aqara sensors and tuya switches and they are connected to their own hub and service through smartthings. And of course many virtual devices which is also counted to the limit beside cloud connected devices.
The limit on smartthings is too inflexible. As what some users mentioned here with 400+ devices, the connection works well and no issue so far. If users are willing to spend more $ to get more devices, how will the hub limit without a solution help?
I also do not have issues previously when connected to sharptools with more than 350++ devices (otherwise it wont be connected at first and now not able to connect due to time out issue caused by this limit) but recent changes in the background have cause alot more issues than bringing better user experience.
I will evaluate other platform and see how it goes, as there is no workable solution for smarthings as far i as i know, and as a user have to assess other platform due to the sudden change again. The devices are costing more than the hub so if users are willing to spend on devices, then putting a limit on a hub without workable extension solution is not going to sell. And yes the recent changes without documentation is really a problem, if the users already have more than 300+ devices and suddently the changes on the limit will definitely bring much more problem for users who is below 300 devices. Alot of work are spend to add and integrate devices and smartthings do not even bother with that when making changes along the way.
Yes hubitat and some other brands do not have a hard stop on devices limit as i read on the forum.
End of the day, the question is how to proceed if it hits the limit? Is there a solution?
I take the same view.
I do note that the SmartThings app seems to be regarded by those with influence as the centre of the SmartThings universe. So when the app starts saying there is a 200 or 300 device limit perhaps a little more notice needs to be taken of it. However that is hard when in the past it has seemed to keep coming and going and the limit was only being encountered on Android.
Perhaps if the app displayed the current Location device count and limit it would be given more credibility. However it needs still needs to be imposed everywhere.
I have little sympathy for those who deliberately looked for workarounds to bypass the limit knowing it existed. I do have sympathy for those who could breach the limit without ever being challenged.
Those who were already over the limit should have been notified individually and given higher limits to enable them to continue working.
I’ve always been an iOS user so built up over a two year period without issues. Even purchase a second hub and added to the same location to allow me to add additional devices. Then suddenly they enforced a 200 device limit on iOS. But changed this to 300 visible devices. The current rule is 300 devices full stop. My concern is if I now move 100 devices to a secondary location will they change the goalposts yet again.
OK, so I decided to do ask suggested by Samsung and I’ve deleted loads of devices that I now plan to add to another location with another hub. So I’m now below the 300 limit, and when I go to add another device it says still over 300 devices.
OK, now Samsung account is saying I’ve 293 devices, so a good bit below 300 and still cannot add devices. and to make matters worse, I’ve deleted my link to Google Home, and now when I try add the SmartThings service back to Google Home it’s responding that it could not reach smartthings, please try again.
When I got to 290 it started to allow additional items to be added. So I assume thinks that aren’t considered as devices still count towards the 300 limit. Things like lighting groups.
Lighting groups are devices of type GROUP and are listed in the Advanced Web App as such. I don’t know what number the app works with when imposing limits but there is a device count available in the Location object and, if you discount the extra devices outside the Location that are reported in the AWA, the count matches for me.
I don’t know if the AWA shows hidden devices (the ones you choose not to display in the app) or restricted devices (which I believe are things like Nest devices).
The limit in HA Sky Connect isn’t as significant as you make out:
After that it is the performance of the EFR32MG21 chip inside the SkyConnect that will set the limit, which is about 200 Zigbee 3.0 devices or thousands of older Zigbee Home Automation devices, (the higher security of Zigbee 3.0 devices have a larger overhead/footprint).
Anyway, 64 devices and more is not a problem is as long as you have enough Zigbee Router devices.
It’s not that they do to multiple hubs because they have 200 devices. It’s that they wisely divide up the processing, because Hubitat makes that easy to do.
I moved from ST to Hubitat and while I have two Hubitat C-7 hubs, it isn’t because I have over 250 Z-wave/Zigbee devices (*), since all those devices remain on a single hub. I initially had the 2nd hub as a spare/backup hub. But I’ve since tasked the 2nd hub to be dedicated to talking to other networked systems (polling my SolarEdge inverters, polling my PowerWalls, talking to my Tesla cars, receiving data from my Ambient Weather station, importing devices from an HA instance, etc). All of that processing was CPU intensive, and I wanted to off load that from my main hub incase it ever caused an issue, even though it never did. I wanted my main hub reserved for quickly processing automation rules.
And if I were getting into Hubitat today, I’d buy the C-8 Pro with double the CPU power and probably only use one hub.
(*) it has 350 devices once you include the ones imported from the 2nd hub via Hubitat’s Hub Mesh, which in turn includes the devices imported from HA (which I use as a HomeKit controller)
Correct. Also you can add separate Zigbee coordinators (yes a separate mesh) by setting the up on thier own docker host and connecting that to your install using an MQTT broker. There’s one guy pushing nearly 400 nodes between two meshes that way.
In HA size is rarely the problem you can come up with a way around most capacity limits which are usually just limitations of various technology stacks. Lack of planning however, is usually the problem because being more open and flexible allows end users to do bad things easierand faster when they don’t read the documentation and make bad assumption.
(person deployed three zigbee coordinators and 6 battery powered devices in approx 2000 sqft. and was complaining about how hard zigbee was to setup and how flaky it was. - hmmm I wonder why. Took two weeks to convince him his way was dead wrong. )
That guy must spend a fortune on batteries for all of his sensors. But if he’s pushing that many devices, I’m sure he can afford it. I get annoyed when I have to change a sensor battery at least once a month.
I use rechargeables for most of my sensors. RCR2s for the Iris v2 contact and motion (most of the motion sensors I keep on non-rechargables). I’m still deploying the RCR2s I got back then, as the sensors I got in 2020 are just now using up their original CR2s, after almost 4 years. I only get 18 months on the RCR2s.
I keep a spreadsheet of battery replacement dates. I’ve changed batteries in 31 devices so far this year.
I just added some of the RCR2 rechargeables to my Amazon shopping cart. Thanks for the tip.
The ridiculousness of all this is that I just got a new Samsung dryer and the app saw it and allowed to me to add it even though I’m a “non-typical and thus not important user” over the 300 limit. So you can’t add a device manually when over the ‘limit’ but you can if the app just discovers something new.
