Build your own device for Hub 2.0? ESP8266, Particle Photons, Arduinos?

Devices & Integrations
1

I know SmartThings has an Arduino shield, but when I tried it last year, it was somewhat limiting. I can make a lot of buttons and sensors from cheap ESP8266 and Photons, and integrate them into something like OpenHAB. But I don’t have any good Zigbee capability for light bulbs and contact sensors, so I was hoping Hub 2.0 could fill in that gap.

Now that some people have had it in their hands, how’s the local control? Can I, for example, query the hub for the status of a zigbee contact sensor and bring that info to something on my Raspberry Pi (without cloud)? Even better if I can specify a script to run a MQTT post as a callback! Can I use a ESP8266 to make a button that talks to a Raspberry Pi, and then have the Pi turn on a zigbee light connected to Hub 2.0 without having to go out to the internet?

Is the Oauth scheme cloud only, or can I authenticate with the Hub on LAN?

2

There is a talk about local hub control and access, but there is no definite timeline. I wouldn’t count on that.

3

Thanks. Man, that kind of stinks. I’m so used to being able to build my own stuff. It seems like such a killer feature.

4

To be clear, you can create devices that are LAN (Ethernet / WiFi) connected to SmartThings Hub, but no telnet, UDP, or http streaming.

See the Developer Docs under LAN devices types.

The Hub processes some of the protocol locally and the rest in the cloud, until a future upgrade may allow the entire custom LAN device handler to run on Hub V2.

5

Thanks, I’ll have to look that up. Can you clarify - if I want a zigbee door contact sensor linked to Hub 2.0 to run a short script, is that processing done locally? Or does it depend on whether or not SmartThings allows an “app” to run locally vs. the cloud?

6

Among many other criteria, currently, the only SmartApps and Device Handlers that can possibly run locally are those which are submitted and accepted for publication.

So self-published stuff runs in the Cloud only, just like everything does for Hub V1 users.