The documentation needs to be significantly improved. For example, I have have seen many cases, including my own, where access to devices & routines suddenly becomes lost. Sometimes it is due to a hub change, sometimes when locations are added or deleted, and sometimes when a member is deleted. There is also the dreaded “back end” issue that never seems to be resolved.
I want to know where devices ( cloud or hub ); routines; locations; and members are resident. In the hub? In the app? in the SnartThings cloud? under your pillow to be stolen be the evil elf? or what.
And while I am expressing frustration, whats up with SmartThings and Ios not always being able to work together, ie. when trying to put a hub into hub mode with the slide switch where the screen grays over.
The source of the problem seems to be Samsung arrogantly removing the ability to exclude devices from the latest version of the app. The reasoning seems to be that newer devices can be made to exclude themselves without helo from the app. This effectively obsoletes older devices meaning that new replacement devices have to be purchased to replace perfectly fine devices - a money grab for sure. If anyone has a workaround please chime in.
I don’t need to see how to develop code. I just need to know why devices and routines suddenly disappear - what actions cause this. I also need to bloody know how to exclude devices and thereby save the expense of replacing them. I want practical information. I am tech savvy enough to follow a logically presented set of instructions but not enough to develop applications - nor do I need to be. Again, part of the problem is arrogance on the part of Samsung as they obsolete older, yet functioning devices. This also seems to be an attempt to NARROW the field of compatible devices, not expand it as claimed.
You asked where things reside (hub, cloud or app) and that’s the answer. Everything depends on the cloud for the configuration. The app changes the configuration in the cloud and the hub gets the configuration from the cloud. The app doesn’t even talk to the hub.
The behaviours you mention of devices or routines disappearing sound like bugs, not a feature that should be documented. Maybe there’s a problem in the data of your account that doesn’t sync correctly, who knows, cloud services sometimes have weird behaviours.
If so, any certified Z wave controller can issue a “general exclude“ and you can reset the device that way. I’m not sure if you can still issue one from a SmartThings hub, I don’t use smartthings for Z wave anymore so the only hub we have operational is the station, which doesn’t have a zwave radio. But someone else should know.
If you’re talking about doing a Z wave “replace“ utility, smartthings dropped that a while back, which is really annoying. I didn’t even know a certified Z wave hub was allowed to do that. So without that, you can’t drop a new device in to the network with the same ID as an old device, so you have to rebuild all your automations. But it wasn’t clear to me if that’s what you were talking about.
If you meant something other than the standard Z wave “replace“ utility and I’m just confused, let us know.
