Announcement | Changes to our Legacy SmartThings Platform

Well I never got told this in the update notes!! If it hadn’t come up in this thread as a side-comment I’d have gone on believing it was impossible lol. Now I can get rid of some virtual switches.

Every now and then I think about going to hubitat but something is niggling at the back of my radar about it. I think I bristled when I learned that something so supposedly user-controllable didn’t allow you to give it a device-fixed lan IP. I know ST doesn’t either but we know that’s a bit proprietory and cloudy. But Hue does so it can be done! Basically I am thinking what other little details about Hubitat are likely to stymie someone who wants control over their smart home system?

That would be helpful, I think the ongoing cost (and not really knowing what it would be) will put people off.

Are there any free alternatives that you could host a smart app on? I think the idea of an ongoing cost will put people off (even if that cost is small)

Will externally hosted smartapps/dth still be able to control lan devices? (does the api bridge the internet / lan - e.g can i make web requests to a 192.* address from my own hosted smart app via the hub?)

Any examples would be useful, along with recommendations where to host for free (i’m thinking more of the community developed items)

You’re not the only one in this situation. I have been holding off developing my smarthome further for well over a year now. Much of my automation happens on webcore, but I don’t want to invest more time in creating further complex automations that will just have to be rebuilt when the new webcore goes live (whenever that is).

I’m getting frustrated and bored waiting for Samsung to sort this ‘migration’. In reality, it’s a mess.

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I will see how this goes, if it breaks anything or I lose functions or devices, I will jump ship but I feel if samsung pull this off it could be amazing so I’m holding off for now. Currently I have never used the new app.

Currently I’m at 228 devices but only 64 (28%) are local

I will, most likely, end up migrating all my 100+ devices to my Hubitat’s local processing hub before I have to upgrade my legacy ST hub (that is working just fine), all my custom SmartApps’ and DTH’s, WebCore terrific automations, Echo Speaks integration, and local Raspberry Pi proxy server add-ons…

I understand and appreciate SmartThings stated new platform direction even though issued without any dates… But, for me, this ‘significant upgrade’ with the possibility of having to purchase a new hub, migrate, struggle with missing integrations and capabilities, is a ‘Bridge Too Far’ for me to learn and follow Samsung’s complicated new developers path. I still remember the difficulty I and so many others encountered with ST’s platform frequent stability issues, and I cannot go through that again as thousands of users start their legacy platform forced migrations! Too painful…

I am/was a dedicated SmartThings developer and user from the very beginning of SmartThings. I purchased many of their branded zigbee devices to help provide revenue to their bottom line. But like other tech companies that offered massive changes before their eventual demise (e.g Blackberry, Palm, etc), I am not going down a one-way street if I can find a better alternative.

Hopefully, SmartThings can navigate this significant upgrade for their legacy users and provide a robust environment.

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Smartthings doesn’t generate any money, yet the cloud systems are costing the company a ridiculous amount of cash.

Looks like its been a nice way to learn a bit about HA, but it’s done.

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They could’ve saved a lot of hassle by having the documentation available beforehand before this announcement but I guess samsung isn’t that together.

If they’re scaling down hardware also does that mean promised products like the access, air, and cam 360 are all cancelled too?

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It was quite a nice little system, and I liked their neat buttons and sensors. Pity they were not proving a commercial success on the scale they wanted!

What about webCoRE? What about Alarm Server? I can deal with migrating over to the New App for the most part but there are certain Custom Apps and DTHs that I just can’t live without. It would be simple enough, I guess to just run those on Hubitat but… PLEASE DON’T FORCE ME TO USE THE NEW RULE ENGINE!!!

I promise I’ve tried and tried but it’s just a pain. I like being specific and keeping things all in one rule set. Here’s the latest rule set I tried using the “New App” but I gave up after testing and testing and things not working right. Works perfect in webCoRE.

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So there you have it @SmartThings, another developer gone. I understand you’re trying to improve the system but there’s got to be a better a better way to do this where you’re including and supporting more community development.

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So they stopping making plugs buttons multi sensors?

You can reserve an IP on most, if not all, modern routers. This effectively gives you a fixed IP for any device on your network. As a bonus, it’s much easier to manage your network IP allocations this way because they are all controlled in one location. For many of the integrations with HE like the Lightify Gateway, Hubconnect, Google Chromecast, etc. It’s recommended to reserve IP addresses in the router.

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We don’t know exactly the details

Not with my router it isn’t! It doesn’t allow you to free up a reserved IP unless that device has connected recently enough to show in its connection list. I had to completely reset it last time I forgot what IPs I had reserved and vowed never to do it again. Anyway I know it’s “recommended” but Hue gives you the choice. And why not?

What router are you using?

They discuss this news on the latest Stacey on IoT podcast with ST head of engineering @mark.benson as a guest. I’m listening now.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3G9kfWr7HEPBAcV41QSB4J?si=3g9WhXd1QyaKwfSo6QVhIA&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A5PnSF8EhThscOruuCiyYsG

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Don’t laugh - it’s a Hub One that came from our ISP. It’s pretty dumb but it’s just one box to find space for and it doesn’t hassle us if we don’t hassle it :slight_smile:

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Hi @ogiewon, I’m following Hubitat closely. My concerns about their Zigbee stability seem to have been addressed, and I absolutely don’t want multiple Hubitat hubs to address the large number of Zigbee devices I have. I need to see a better mobile app as well. I’ve also been seeing a lot of posts on rebooting the hub? Is that an issue with the hub, or isolated to certain users?

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I have personally found that the ST philosophy of having ONE large powerful hub, does not have to be followed. As a matter of fact, there are many benefits to having more than one hub.
One particular benefit is that certain devices don’t play well with others. For example, XIaomi sensors don’t interface well with most other Zigbee devices. Most brands of Zigbee lights (not Sengled) also don’t “play well” with others.
Spreading out the load among other machines is another common reason to have multiple hubs. In addition, for many active “diy’ers” having a “production” hub and a development hub is their approach.
This was all made possible by the community developed HubConnect.
Another key is that a Hub costs less than 2 switches!

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