Annoyed with Smart Things Support's lack of interest that polling doesn't work

I too use pollster to get things moving where device handlers fall short. My z-wave devices seem pretty darn snappy even with it running, all of this being said I only have one instance of Pollster running and 4 z-wave devices…

From what I understand there might be a licensing issue in the way of faster update rates? That could be true for a couple of devices or I could be completely wrong.

@Tyler Thanks for the added info, very cool of you to chime in. If Chris’s reply had stated “We are aware of issues with polling and our developers are looking to make improvements in the future …” I would have been ok with the reply. But his reply didn’t indicate in any way that polling was known to have any issues. It seemed to imply that my device code was the issue but saying talk to the developer who wrote your device code.

I don’t think these is anything wrong with my device or my hub/zwave network. I honestly think the server is not issuing these polls. Will pollster installed everything is working perfectly. I didn’t install pollster until after finding these issues so I can assure you that pollster is not causing my polling issues.

Anyway good to know you guys are working on it. I will continue to use pollster to fix my issue until I see a release that says polling has been improved.

I am another frustrated user. How do you open a ticket to begin with. Only way that I know to contact is to send email. Last email to support took a week to get a reply. Their Support Chat don’t seems to work, and no phone number to call. Very disappointing…

I also tried to use Pollster, and do not seems to Poll most of the time, I get a poll occationally. I need to refresh my thermostats and weather tiles. Don’t know how to do them without pollster.

I have tired to use pollster for months but no version has every worked correctly for me. Currently I have 1.4.1 but it still doesn’t work.

I gave given up hope on Smart Things every fixing their issues. I am hoping a new hub comes along soon.

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A new hub? Like another company? I think ST is leaving the market open for anyone’s taking unfortunately. The only thing keeping me is the customization possibilities.

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Exactly, first to have customization and actually work wins ! :smile:

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I had issues with nothing updating and SmartApps not firing for a while until 2 days ago. I finally wrote in for support, and had something pushed to my hub, and at this point, things are working better (thermostat apps work again so far), but temp updates are still very sporadic. I reported this back, saying how I had previously tried using a polling app (was Pollster, but I didn’t mention by name), and the response was if I needed more precise temp updates, I should use that app. I thought that was verboten, so… I am confused and frustrated. I tried using Pollster again, though, and it didn’t work, so I guess that is a moot point anyway.

I decided a little while ago that I think I jumped on board this tech before it was fully cooked - something unusual for me. At this point, though, if this isn’t fixed, I will definitely have to search for alternatives, as hopefully someone out there has flushed things out a bit better.

I have given up hope that ST will every fix polling. However there is a solution.

@robklemm If you have a reliable device in you mesh that reports some status, I use a Aeon Smart Switch 6 (Gen5) you can get fancy and Install Rule Manager, add poll() to the “Expert Features” and the set a rule that when the device reports poll should be issued on the devices you need polled.

So in my example I have 5 ZXT-120 IR senders which run my AC units and monitor temperature. However the temp monitors don’t send data then need to be polled.

So I have a Rule Manager setup which does the following

  1. Trigger: Energy Level reports > 0 (make sure something is plugged in that always uses power in my case I have a wifi camera plugged in)
  2. poll LivingRoom AC,Bedroom AC, … etc

It’s a little tricky to set up but working 100% now. The good part is if one poll fails Rule Manager doesn’t decide to just stop polling like the built in ST polling does.

That sounds workable - how do I find Rule Manager? I find this site hard to navigate, but even googling didn’t give me the direction.

Funny (although not in a laughing sense) thing is the one device that seems to report in with reliable frequency is my little EverSpring ST814 battery operated thermometer. Seems like an odd choice to hang my hat on, but if it works, I’ll take it.

Sorry “Rule Machine” not manager. But manger still works if you search for it :slightly_smiling:

Enter “Rule Manager” into the site search

Wow SmartThings can’t do anything right…Searching correctly doesn’t find it LOL That’s crazy !!!

If you search for “Rule Machine” it doesn’t find it as well as “Rule Manager”

Wow, no idea how I didn’t find that. I think my previous frustration with searching caused me to give up too soon. Anyway, thanks for that. I will see how that goes.

Has anything been resovled regarding Refresh or Polling capabilities from inside a Device Handler?

Currently this is the only way that Multichannel devices can be queried for endpoint data on Z-Wave devices. Until ST fixes their useless MulriChannel Association implementation (it’s missing endpoints which is the POINT of MultiChannel Associations) polling specific endpoints is the only workaround.

But seeing as the poll function in my device handler never actually executes automatically i don’t see a solution. After years this should’ve been fixed hands down. I expected mroe from SmartThings and Samsung to be honest, right now it’s in a state worse than 80% of the other z-wave controllers out there.

I have been with Smart Things for over 2 years and complaining about polling the whole time. They couldn’t care less. Don’t bother trying to make polling work. There are some tricks and hacks that work but I found them annoying to setup and keep working. I was using Rule Machine at one time to tie the reports from my Power Meter to a poll of my device that need polling. It worked pretty well but of course RM was pulled. I bet core would do it but I have grown tired of trying to fix ST issues with complicated hacks.

Thanks for the information, you just saved me from another day of figurring out what the hell is going on.

It’s sad really, ST seems to be the worst z-wave controller on the market, no matter if the Samsung name is behind it. Now all i’m waiting for is for the ST’s battery compartment to randomly explode. Way to go guys.

Looks like there is a way to actually set Multichannel Associations on endpoints via using raw Z-Wave byte frames. See my topic here:

This seems a bit harsh but only because there aren’t really any other zwave controllers on the market that do what ST does. It’s integration with Amazon Echo, It’s zwave and zigbee combination, it’s list of devices that work, and it’s dedicated team of “community developers” including myself that are making work arounds to fix it’s deficiencies. All of these things make ST one of the better controllers on the market. I left Vera to come to ST. I am investigation some new coming devices such as Animus Heart but it’s not even out yet. So at this time if is the only player in the game for the most part at it’s price point.

What does this have to do with this polling issue ? I don’t really understand what “Multichannel Associations” are and how they would replace polling. I for example have a device I have written the handler for which is a thermostat IR blaster for controlling split AC/Heat systems. It has the ability to report temperature but for some reason they didn’t implement it as a reporting device. You have to poll the device to request the current temp. This make the Temp reading capability useless on ST. I mitigate this in my home by using Fibaro motion sensors which report temperature very well and just let the ZXT-120 be my IR sender. This is an expensive solution since I have 5 ZXT-120 devices. I only have 2 fibaro sensors so my other ZXT-120’s are simply not managed using temperature. I would love to get polling working on these devices.

I might’ve been a bit harsh in calling it the worst Z-Wave controller out there (trying to get stuff to work via workarounds does that to you) but to be honest, Z-Wave already supports numerous device capability discovery commands, that could be used on any included Z-Wave device, in order to find out exactly what control commands and data could be supported by the device. This would result in no need for specialized device handlers or community developer support (assuming the device itself is structured correctly and has no bugs) to fully support a device’s functionality. In regards to MultiChannel supported Z-Wave devices this isn’t currently so. Though i do sympathize with you since i’ve got experience with multiple Vera versions also.

In regards to what MultiChannel Associations have to do with polling, you’r partially correct. In a badly structured singlechannel Z-Wave device it wouldn’t help with much as a replacement for polling (especially in your case with Remotec’s IR transceiver’s less than ideal product design, where temperature isn’t sent in unsolicited reports), but it is very important when it comes to well structured MultiChannel Z-Wave devices.

These aren’t allowed to send unsolicited MultiChannel Encapsulated frames (from specific endpoints) until a MultiChannel Lifeline group Association is set up (similar to the group 1 Association that ST sets, but instead needs to associate node 1 and endpoint 1 in a device’s group 1 association group (Lifeline group)). When this Multichannel Lifeline is set the device is allowed to report data via MultiChannel Encapsulated frames on it’s own after state changes, resulting in significantly less Z-Wave network congestion, since polling isn’t needed anymore (this is useful since it allows integrators to bypass the faulty polling system on ST and get a device working better than it would with a polling system; no need to send Get commands which effectively cuts the network traffic in half).

But ST instead lists MultiChannel Association V2 command class in the reference docs as supported, but the ability to associate endpoints (the whole point of this command class) isn’t present unless you use raw hubAction() commands to set these up.

I guess i’m just a bit disappointed since the developer docs look amazingly well structured with examples and all, but when you dive under the hood stuff just seems to stop working without knowing a clear reason why. Then again, i’ve only spent about a week researching ST’s capabilities.

The title of this topic relates to polling not working. To which I have a comment below, below.

The last couple of posts in this topic, stray a little and talk about multi-channel something which I cannot comment on.

However; I have seen questions from time to time on the message boards about polling in general; and to help with people who do not know, setting up device push is better than polling.

While polling not being reliable is an issue when I first started using smartthings, I try and only use devices that push their status, which lessens the need to poll.

The secret! Most devices can be set to report so that polling is not necessary.

For example: aeon outlets by default do not send power readings, they must be configured to report power readings. Then polling is not needed.

For example, by making sure any metering outlet I use pushes power readings, having a notification when the washer completes is 100% reliable.

When I first started using smartthings the outlet I used did not push power readings and washer done notifications was not reliable, even with pollster.

Using smartthings outlet or Iris outlet, washing done notifications are 100% reliable.

If I use an aeon outlet, I have to make sure to set reporting settings, otherwise the aeon outlet does NOT send settings.

No I think you nailed it. That is pretty much my experience over the last two years.

I don’t get your point. The discussion is that devices that don’t report and need to be polled don’t work because ST has had broken polling since it’s inception. Pointing out that some devices report doesn’t really address the fact that some don’t. I have provided the example of the ZXT-120 which I rely on in my home for Split System temperature control but it needs to be polled for temperature readings to work. ST falls short with this device. I also have written device code for WIFI devices I have in my home which need to reach out via http get requests, they need polling. Polling should be a feature of the hub! It’s is ridiculous to have polling driven from the cloud. If ST did a better job of making the V2 run locally as they promised this and many other issues would not exist.

I don’t know if it’s the worst, that might be a bit of a stretch, but it’s definitely flawed. It could just be the stack or ST’s implementation. I do know that on any given day there is 2-3 instances of “Z-Wave module not responding” in my hubs event log, often for no apparent reason.

Yesterday had a GE wall switch disappear completely, nothing in the even log, no record of the device. Something is flawed here for sure.