Hello, I’m quite new to Smartthings and hope someone could help with the following. I have an Aeotec hub (AEOHUBV3EU) and some Aeotec Water Leak Sensors which also measure temperature.
When I open the device in ST app, I can access the temperature history by clicking on a small icon. Where is this data stored (app, sensor, hub, cloud) and how long backwards does the data go?
How can I download the data to use it in Excel, for example?
How can I know if my setup is already using edge or something else (groovy)? The ST app only allows me to see the driver (or handler?) versions of the sensors.
Data is stored in the cloud for access via the API and mobile apps. I believe the event data goes back 7 days that we can access.
There’s no user facing utility provided by Smatthings to export the data. You’d need to write something (using the API in the language of your choice) to fetch your data and do whatever you want with it.
We’re still in the transition period towards Edge drivers. If you haven’t subscribed to the Edge beta (by installing the drivers yourself) then you’re not using Edge. An Edge driver for a device has a “Driver” option on the mobile app device details 3 bar/hamburger.
You can also check the IDE (while its still available, it will be retired once Edge takes over) to see what driver your device is using. If it says “placeholder”, its using Edge for a Zwave/Zigbee device.
There has been a history endpoint in the API for a long time, though it is not documented in the API reference yet. I am sure it will be soon as it is now used in the CLI, so there is now a user facing utility.
@Roller You’ll find the end user tools, as represented best by the mobile apps, only take you so far. You then have to make a jump to the developer tools. A command line tool might perhaps seem a bit old hat but it fits in nicely with established developer environments.
When emitting events, developers can flag them as not archivable, meaning they are limited to the 7 day ‘recent’ event history. This, and the obvious use of one month’s worth of data in the temperature/humidity graph, means there is, or can be, more data out there. We just haven’t been told anything much about it.
@csstup and @orangebucket thank you very much for your responses! And sorry for the delay in my response.
I understand now that the data is in the cloud and history covers 7 days (perhaps more).
Apparently I don’t have anything Edge-related yet, as I haven’t enrolled to any beta programme. Also, when I go to IDE, I don’t seem to have any device handlers there. Or does that mean that I actually AM already fully using Edge and its local handlers? I setup my hub and the sensors at some point in the summer, and I guess something about Edge was available already then or what?
This about not being able to access or download history data with user-friendly means is something unfathomable. Using APIs or developer tools or command-line approach is something I simply cannot do and I don’t have time to learn that. And I am someone with decades’ of experience with computers and basic interest into understanding such things. What about an average user who just wants to “plug things in”? It really sounds as if Samsung and ST didn’t want to make this work for the masses but just for those familiar with coding and tweaking.
I went for ST since Home Assistant seemed too complicated. But it seems to be that ST is not much better, which is a pity.
Sorry about this complaining, I know it is not your fault. But perhaps you can convince me that it gets better.
Seriously ST… how difficult would it be to allow download of data as CSV file, or even better, Excel?
If you didn’t enroll in Edge Beta and you didn’t install any custom DTH’s, you’re just using the stock DTH’s and “local” drivers already part of the pre Edge framework. If you add a new simple device today, it will get a local generic driver (for instance, Zigbee Switch) that does do local processing but technically isn’t part of the “new” Edge framework. Confusing, I know. There have been many phases to them going from full cloud to full local processing of device handling.
Its not that its difficult per se, its a whole host of reasons:
any time you add a UI with user downloadable anything, you make a development + support mess. For instance, what fields do you want, are those selectable? do you make the downloadable sheet 1:1 or 1 : many, etc).
Aside from that, SmartThings is NOT a data collection system. Its home automation that does have some history aspects, but its not designed on front or back end to provide history of data. Storing (and then later retrieving) large quantities of data is expensive. The yearly costs for ST users was $0. Who pays for all that?
99.9% smart home users don’t need a years worth of their refrigerator opening and closing timestamps. Or even of the freezer temperatures. If you do, you need to use another system designed to efficiently store data, using aggregate aging as needed (30 days of 1 minute samples, 1 year of 1 hour samples, 10 years of 1 day samples, etc).
If you need consistent data for actual analysis you don’t use a bunch of wireless sensors that may or may not actually do collections on the period needed. Data collection/storage in HA isn’t remotely guaranteed, so why build tools for data uses that tend to want fairly accurate collection (reasonable clock skew, reasonable loss of samples).
All that being said, some HA platforms do provide some data exporting (or automatic uploading to other platforms, like google sheets) with the tools to filter and process as needed. Hubitat has some pretty fancy community addons that people use for these purposes tuned to each data set. Hubigraph was one, although its marked as working, no longer maintained.
If you are looking in the IDE and there is a named device type handler (anything other than “placeholder“), then the device is not using an edge driver.
If you open the SmartThings app, go to the Device’s detail page, tap the 3 horizontal dots “more” icon, and you see the word “driver“ on the drop-down, then it is using an edge driver.
If it says “placeholder” in the IDE but it doesn’t say “driver“ in the app, then it’s using some other kind of integration, probably linked services.
When I go to IDE, I see the title “[myname]'s Device Handlers” and text “You don’t have any device handlers yet. Add one now.”
In ST app, when I open a device and click on the menu, one option is “Information”. Opening that gives a screen with the device name and driver version.
In the IDE, look in the “Devices” tab. See your list of devices. That is where the device type would say “placeholder” if it is cloud-to-cloud or Edge.
Thanks for trying to explain. But just having the option of downloading the data I’m already seeing in the app would be sufficient. If only for one week. So there would not need to be any more storage organized. I would also understand that unless I pay for it, there would not be any support. But this policy of needing to do everything by yourself is going to cost ST many customers. It does not appear as a friendly and easy-to-approach environment.
Example: I have two temperature sensors and I would just want to compare their data side by side using two line charts. 7 days would be enough. But now it is quite difficult to do.
Perhaps IFTTT would help. Create rules for on each temperature update, insert data into many data collection/visualization options supported by IFTTT. Google Sheets even.
I may have misspoke, IFTTT doesn’t have an event like “on temperature update”, it only has things like “if temperature is above a certain amount”. But there are likely other options to collect your temperature data over a 7 day rolling period.
Now we are getting somewhere. I went to locations and selected my location and now the 2 devices are visible. They indicate as type: SmartSense Moisture Sensor.
They use JSON. That is everywhere and Excel certainly understands it.
I’m afraid downloading historical data is likely to be far beyond the needs of an ‘average user’ of SmartThings. I suspect the actual percentage of SmartThings users who would want to do that is much nearer to 0% than 1%.
pre Edge driver, either running Local or Cloud (see the Execution Location column) Most (if not all) of those base drivers were converted to Local sometime last year as part of the get-ready-for-the-magic-that-is-Edge conversion.
BTW the “My Device Handlers” tab in the IDE is where you would have installed your own custom Device Type Handlers (DTH, built in Groovy, part of the environment being replaced by Edge).
The problem is that I don’t really understand what the suggested solution entails. And even if I would watch the avilable tutorial, I don’t know if the method is still valid now (2 years have passed) and whether it is safe to use. I would just like a download menu option, provided by the software producer itself, as I do with all other data, in all other software and services.
I guess it also depends on the setting. I live in an area where winters are cold and energy is now expensive. I know many people who would like to have a means to follow-up temperatures in different parts of their house, so as to optimize heating solutions. ST could be helpful here, but is not.
yep !