Automations using sensors stopped working except in smart lighting

Scheduled automations work at the correct times. Any automation that involves a sensor won’t trigger except if it’s in smart lighting. I have recreated some of the automations in smart lighting and they worked as expected. Unfortunately, I have experienced this behaviour several months ago and it seemed to rectify itself so I slowly migrated the smart lighting automations back into the main app but here we are again. It’s like staying in a bad marriage, at some point you have to call it a day. Over the many years I’ve stuck with ST it has never worked 100% as there is always some work around required. It’s what I would consider a schoolboy project.

it’s not fire and forget. If you don’t want a hobby then mechanical switches are almost 100%.

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For some of us, mechanical switches are 0%. :disappointed_relieved:

As I’ve mentioned before, my personal requirement for critical use cases is an MFOP (maintenance free operating period) of at least six months and preferably 12. Home automation is definitely not a hobby in my home: it’s essential infrastructure.

I’ve had no problem getting that MFOP with multiple home automation systems, including Phillips Hue Bridge, Lutron Caseta, apple’s HomeKit, Alexa, and some others.

SmartThings, however, is another story. I’m lucky to go two weeks without something requiring attention. So I just don’t use it for critical use cases anymore.

I am hopeful that Matter support will improve this, and that SmartThings Will be able to provide feature and reliability parity with Apple for Matter implementations. That would be really good for everybody, since the more people using Matter The more devices will be put on the market with Matter-compatibility.

We will see. But as for now… Those of us who need very good reliability from home automation in a low-cost DIY set up can get it, just not right now from SmartThings, unfortunately.

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4+ years ago stability was not an issue and users concentrated on fantastic amateur integrations with code that even I could tinker with… Samsungs desire to evolve Smartthings has without doubt lost users, market share and trust

It’s been a long and ugly road to where we are today and I am hopeful things will get better, one day soon.

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I, too, hope things will get better, but I first started using SmartThings in 2014 and stability has always been an issue. Search for threads on “reliability” in 2015: there were lots.

in fact it was so bad in 2016 that the then CEO regularly posted in the forum with promises that it would improve.

They have yet to deliver an MFOP (maintenance free operating period) of 6 months, and that’s been true from the beginning. Lots of features, lots of changes, lots of glitches. :thinking:

Not all glitches affect all members in all regions, and if you’ve been able to get long runs of good reliability I’m happy for you. But historically reliability has not been smartthings’ strong point.

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My use case has always been non critical and since the demise of the ability to find automations linked to devices easily I rarely rely on them

So in my case I find it relatively reliable, the app however, stinks, I have said that since the first successor to classic

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