Devices unavailable after using new app

Apps & Clients SmartThings (Samsung Connect)
1

Hello. A week ago I accidentally launched the new app instead of classic and poked around. It asked me to assign devices to a room so I created a room called garage and added a few devices. I didn’t think much about it then I noticed my devices show offline now. I think it is just the devices that I moved to garage.

Now I can’t get them online anymore. I tried rebooting them. I tried zwave repair and turning device health off. At first my mimolite gate opener continued to work even though it was offline but now it does not. I checked in the API web site and they are not in the garage group that I created. I wish I never opened the other app now.

Is there a way to fix this?

2

You can try powering down your hub (remove batteries if v2) for a few minutes, then power it back on.

3

Do your devices work fine in the Classic app? If so, then you’re experiencing typical behavior with the new app, but if your devices also don’t work with the Classic app, then there are other things to try.

4

The device no longer works in either the classic or new app. I will try powering the hub down and report if I have success.

5

I tried powering it down completely and removing the batteries. I was able to get the unavailable device to work but it doesn’t work right. It’s a mimolite connected to my ramset gate opener. It can sense when the gate is open or closed but because it doesn’t communicate anymore it doesn’t know if the status is open or closed so it just says it’s open all the time. But if I click on it in the app it will work.

However, this is less than ideal. The unit used to communicate prior to me using the new Smartthings app. And it doesn’t work now with IFTTT, I have my employees text me a phrase to open the gate so they can park their cars. But now IFTTT doesn’t work with it.

6

The app can’t cause your devices to go offline/unavailable. If the device is connected to a gate opener, it is probably on the edge of your Z-Wave network. Have you tried running a Z-Wave network repair? Do you have a Z-Wave outlet you could try moving between the gate and your hub to see if a repeater helps?

7

I guess it could have been a coincidence with the running the new app but things were rock solid for over a year until I ran that app by mistake.

Well I got things working again, but I am not sure why it works. Repairing zwave 3 times did nothing, I was getting messages that said could not update neighbors.

First thing I did to get the gate opener working again was turn off device health. Then I was able to see open/close status on my mimolite gate opener by closing the gate with the gate remote to get it in synch with what Smartthings was seeing. Because it was open and Smartthings saw it as closed, I could not get Smartthings to do anything with it. So once in synch, Smartthings was able to control it again. I tried to turn device health back on and it still showed offline. I thought I could live with it but discovered I had lost control of my GE smartswitches.

So I force removed the GE 14292 switch in Smartthings. But I couldn’t get it to pair up again. I tried everything from the reset procedure, 3 up then 3 down that didn’t work. I couldn’t exclude it. I couldn’t pair it, I nearly gave up until I decided to kill power to the breaker for a few seconds. After that, I was able to pair the switch again.

Then I decided to turn device health. The gate opener and a few other devices showed unavailable. So I went to each device and refreshed the status and they came back online. This didn’t work before. So it seems after repairing that one GE smart switch everything is working again. Seems kind of weird but that’s what happened.

Just happy that things are working again and I’m not going to touch the new Smartthings app.

8

I am glad to hear things are working again but “turning device health off” or using the new app in no way caused this. It sounds like the gate opener device was routing through the GE switch and once you resolved the issues with that, the gate opener began working again.

The app and the device health toggle cannot impact a device being online or offline.

The device health toggle you are referring to in the Classic is 100% cosmetic. It does not impact device connectivity in any way whatsoever and simply enables or disables visual indicators within the mobile app.

9

@Brad_ST
From my experience using Smartthings now for about 2 years, it seems that there are some MAJOR bugs in the Smartthings App, particularly in the NEW Smartthings App and also in the Device Health for the Classic App.

I agree with you that the “Turning device health off” is COSMETIC… BUT… I am thinking that the problem is with the coding of the App which is showing a device that is OFFLINE when in fact, it is ONLINE.

I have set up Smartthings Hubs in 5 of my multi-family buildings and am very frustrated to see almost ALL of my Smartthings Motion Sensors working FINE… in other words, when it detects motion, an automation turns on the lights for a few minutes… BUT the Smartthings APP reports the motion sensor as OFFLINE until it detects motion!

I’m mean, common! I’ve been a programmer for 30 years and am a partner in a Software firm.

These are major bugs in the Software.

So far, I am giving Samsung a “F” for very poor coding and QA. From all the complaints that I have found on the internet about devices being reported offline but yet they are working fine with the automation, Samsung will lose a lot of potential business.

I’m barely staying with Smartthings atm because I am hoping that whatever bug is in the new App will be fixed and the bug in the code for “Device Health” as well.

This is not a hardware problem, this is a software problem. I will also stress that this is a QA problem to have released such buggy apps.

The other issue I’m having is with Smartthings support. I reported my problems, even showing the rep while he was looking at my devices how they were labeled as “offline.” But then I walked to several of the Motion Sensors and magically, they came back online and the automation turned on bulbs, which lit up on the app as well.

Support was suppose to get back to me about this problem but never did.

I reasoned that Smartthings support WON’T get back to me because the bugs are buried so deep, that it will take either an entire re-write of the code or it will take a long time before they can fix the problem.

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10

Agree 100%. Like you I’ve been a developer for 30+ years. Have made the same observations regarding this software.

I too am beginning to think sensors are being reported “offline” when in fact they are “online” (this is with the new ST). Using the graph website just saving the sensor “preferences” without even editing causes the state to toggle from “offline” to “online”. How is this even possible? Nothing has changed so why is a state change being reported?? Clearly the online/offline state handling code is buggy.

@Brad_ST
@Llew

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