Convert everything from Vera to Smartthing

Hello guys,

I purchased the V2 hub from ST. I installed it and it took me a while to get around the new concepts of Smart Apps, GitHub, etc.With that said I am having a hard time to find all the plugins/smart apps to support all my existing devices.

The great news is that Amazon Echo supports ST natively not requiring a bridge like Vera does. However, before I get my hopes too high I would like to ask the experts here if I could accomplish all my use cases with ST as I am missing things like Nest, FM-20 relay support, etc.

So rather than explaining all my most important use cases I would appreciate if you could watch this video and just tell me if all of that can be accomplished with ST e.g. voice control, voice TTS responses, light scenes, etc.

http://homeautomation.expert/smarthome2016

Thanks in advance.

You may want to read this almost 1-year old thread to get some perspective. Not much have changed since then, not in a positive way, anyway.

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My issue is not reliability. I have a second Vera which I could restore my backup to in case my current Vera would fail. This would be a question I would ask about ST too, but at the moment I am more after compatibility hence me posting this in this category.

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I’d recommend the search button
https://community.smartthings.com/search?q=Nest

Most of what you want to do is already covered in forum post.

That’s the first thing I did and there was no easy way to enable that. That’s not the only issue I am having. Here is a list I would like to use with ST and unless I can cover those I am not transferring my whole Z-wave network from Vera to ST.

List:
RFWC5AW, 2 x LFM-20 Relay, FS20Z Relay, 3 x YRD220ZW619KWKD Yale, 2 x FI9826W Cam, FI9828P Cam, 2 x NEST Gen2, EVL-3CG with Vista 20p Alarm system, 11 x BR30 Hue, 3 x A19 Hue, Media Srv, 18 x ZW4004 GE, 8 x ZW3003 GE, 12 x ZW2002 GE, IP2IR Cache, 2 x DSC24, ZWN-SC7 scene controller, 4 x PIR-ZWAVE2, DSB05-ZWUS, RS100-HC Door/Window, ECO-TILT-US, Ribu1C Relay, 3 x GE12721 GE, 2 x Echo Amazon, ZW078-A Aeonlabs, etc

I couldn’t find anything about integrating Vista20p with EVL-3 without having to install a Honey Alarm server or using Rasperry PI.
Video cams with ST are a mystery for me. As far as i understood it, I will not be able EVER to stream a live video stream in the ST app on my cell phone.
I am using PLEG within Vera heavily which is a great logic engine to drive many tasks. I am not finding that within ST to define dependencies while there are certain items.

Again, please bare with me as I just bought ST and I am trying to figure that out.

Thanks.

One thing is certain, your transition will not be trivial. SmartThings is easier to integrate with cloud services than Vera, but local integrations outside of what is officially supported suck. And to be honest, official integrations suck too.

Also, keep in mind that SmartThings is a cloud-based system, so if your Internet is down, you lose control of your devices via mobile app and unlike Vera, there’s no local UI in the hub. Somehow some folks miss that fact.

I am sorry but did I misunderstand the whole V2 update? One major improvement with the ST V2 hub is the ability to control your home even if your Internet is down.

Don’t be sorry, it’s a common mistake. :slight_smile:

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yeah, prepare to be disappointed by local processing. Only native devices and only SmartLighting and Smart Home Monitor run local. The good news is a lot of your Z-wave devices have native device types, so those will be fine if you are happy with the provided device type.

Foscams won’t integrate at all for live viewing video, so find another platform for those.

Do they support any cameras at all for live viewing with ST?

Camera support with in Smartthings:
https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/205380804-Video-integration-with-Hub-v2-FAQ
https://www.smartthings.com/compatible-products

Enhanced camera support with smarttiles:

So in a nutshell only these cameras are supported:

The Samsung SmartCam HD Pro SNH-P6410BN and D-Link models DCS-2132L, DCS-2310L, DCS-2330L, DCS-5222L, and DCS-5029L are compatible.

Looking at the supported devices list:

Product Type Protocol Notes

D-Link Cloud PTZ Camera (DCS-5222L) Camera Local Area Network
D-Link HD Outdoor Wi-Fi Camera (DCS-2330L) Camera Local Area Network
D-Link HD Pan & Tilt Wi-Fi Camera (DCS-5029L) Camera Local Area Network
D-Link HD Wi-Fi Camera (DCS-2132L) Camera Local Area Network
D-Link Outdoor HD PoE Day/Night Cloud Camera (DCS-2310L) Camera Local Area Network
Samsung SmartCam HD Pro Camera (SNH-P6410BN) Camera Local Area Network

With all respect but this list of supported cameras is hideous.

Let me ask a different question then… Is there a BlueIris plugin or smart app for ST? By streaming from that my list of supported cameras would be HUGE!

https://community.smartthings.com/search?q=blue%20iris

Yeah. I did that search too but it was very confusing as most post are pre release of the V2 hub while they are talking about smart tiles.

They are also talking about Jpeg push or mpg push or short clip and stopping after some time or redirection to a browser which would defeat the purpose.

So officially ST only supports that small list of cameras but it looks like there are workarounds to get cameras somehow working. Sounds non trivial.

Also, keep in mind than community-developed camera integrations only support still images, no streaming video. SmartTiles can display video feeds, but it bypasses SmartThings entirely and connects to the camera directly, i.e. it will only work locally (on the same LAN).