Are there plans for an ST Edge location API for coordinates & timezone?

[rossetyler (Ross Tyler)]

Location coordinates and timezone are known to SmartThings (SmartThings IDE, My Locations).
Are they known to a SmartThings hub?
Are there plans to share this knowledge with Edge drivers?

Coordinate information is necessary for determining Sunrise and Sunset – which SmartThings does already. I am writing a “Sundial” driver that can determine sunrise, sunset and more as long as it knows this information too.

st-edge/driver/sundial at master · rtyle/st-edge

Right now, I need to have the user configure such. I would prefer to default this information to what SmartThings already knows. Can it share?

Also, the timezone for my driver appears to be UTC even though SmartThings knows it is not.
Why?

[philh30]

Local time

Hi @philh30 @Mariano_Colmenarejo, right now this is expected. On several platforms including V2/V3 we do not have any timezeone/locale information directly available on target or cannot really be trusted. Our best bet for a consistent local time provider would be to use information from the location in which the hub belongs which adds a bit of complexity. For prioritizing any feature, do you have some specific examples of cases where local time is required for the correct operation of a driver? Many concerns that would normally require local time (e.g. turn on the lights at 7AM) are properly handled via automations rather than directly in drivers.

[rossetyler (Ross Tyler)]

@Local time

do you have some specific examples of cases where local time is required for the correct operation of a driver?

Operations of (calculations for) my Sundial switches actually require UTC (plus latitude and longitude). My logging of events attempts to use local time (because that’s what my watch says and what the position of the sun relative to mine implies) but I see UTC. I was considering presenting my switches with the time of the next event but gave up as soon as I saw that it would be in the wrong time zone.

[blueyetisoftware]

I would fallback to having the user enter a timezone offset. I am doing something similar and will likely take this same shortcut for the time being.