Hello,
I’m using a couple of Candeo Zigbee dimmer switches that work great, but the app doesn’t let me include them as lights in the status row. Any ideas why that may be or any workarounds?
Cheers.
Tagging @orangebucket
It is possibly to interrogate the Client API for the current values of the active tiles and for the configuration file.
If you just let the API version default the API will tell you that the eligibility criteria for lights includes ‘types’ of oid.d.light or oic.d.smartplug. In that case I am told that I have all three of my lights on.
If you set the API version to 2, the API uses the ‘category’ of ‘Light’ or ‘SmartPlug’ instead of the OCF device types. I have commented before how it was odd that ‘category’ was not being used but I was probably behind the times when I did (my excuse being that I am working with an undocumented API not really intended for public use and am still learning). In this case the API shows me lots more lights and that I have seven of them on.
I did try version 6 of the API, which I need for something else, but it rather appears that the version number is rather specific to endpoints and you can’t just pick the biggest number.
So what does the mobile app actually show for me? Well it doesn’t say ‘3 on’ or ‘7 on’, it says ‘6 on’. If I click on the summary tile I see about a dozen lights, and indeed there are six on. If, however, I click on the three dot menu to ‘Select devices’, I get just the three lights, and those also appear in the ‘summary-lighting-group’ that gets automatically created.
So the app may be more consistent with the API in this area than I have assumed in the past, but it is still hiding its secrets from me. Some of the above I only discovered yesterday. Some I discovered while typing this post.
The extra lights I get are actually all of category ‘Switch’ (or ‘oic.d.switch’ in old money) which have had their icon changed in the mobile app to one representing a light. This adds a ‘User’ category of ‘Light’ to the devices.
I am now going to see what the difference in opinion between six and seven lights being on is … The answer is that they are now consistent so I can’t support the earlier claim of inconsistency.
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All of which is to say that your device probably uses a “type” that smartthings doesn’t include in that status tile.
As a workaround, you could probably create a virtual bulb and have it mirror your switch, and then the virtual bulb would show up in the status tile, but that seems like a lot of work.
I note that I created a rather technical post. This was largely due to being better informed that when I created similar post. My current best guess at the bottom line is:
- Devices that were created to default to the category ‘Light’ or ‘SmartPlug’ are recognised as lights and are available for selection in the summary tile settings.
- When the icon for a device is changed in the mobile app an additional category gets added. If that is ‘Light’ (or, presumably, ‘SmartPlug’) the device is also included in the summary tile but it is not included in the settings so you get it whether you want it or not.
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Thank you. You’re right, it does seem like a lot of work. 
I do wish the type could be changed as easily as in Alexa. There you have the choice between switch and light. (I’m not sure now if I used it or whether it just defaulted to light in the first place.)
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Thank you. In Alexa I do have the option to change the type. I tried to do what you suggest in the ST app, i.e. change the icon, but that didn’t magically change the dimmer so it can be added to the lights status, nor did it include it regardless. The icon selection basically had no effect from what I can tell.
Actually in the end the virtual bulb was easy to set up from the web interface with a single routine to mirror the status of the dimmer switch (times 2 for the pair of dimmers). Only downside is that this is a cloud automation. But this does the job so thank you for that suggestion.
It’s a pity the Labs feature that let’s you create a virtual switch from the mobile app that runs locally doesn’t also support bulbs.
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Have you tried a virtual light that runs locally using the vEdge Creator Edge driver?
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You can make also local dimmer switch using virtual switch driver:
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Unless im missing the point!
I have loads of these installed and all show and work as lights i ST
Im using @Mariano_Colmenarejo edge driver - Zigbee Light Multifunction MC
gives me all dimming control, shows as a light in status, links to alexa as a light also
Hope this is helpful