Do WebCore and SmartThings Connect Play Nice Together?

Like most everybody, I want our house to look realistically lived in while we are out for the evening or on vacation. Right now I am using SmartThings Connect Classic with a combination of SmartApps/Smart Lighting, modes, Routines, and Scenes (which is confusing enough to debug).

I would like to add some lighting randomization when we are out (nobody home) and am considering using WebCoRE for that.

Question: can I use both the Connect Classic app and WebCoRE simultaneously to add some randomization “overlay” on top of the SmartThings Connect automation? I’m trying to properly architect this before getting too far along.

When we are home, there actually are not a lot of random lighting changes. Our living room, dining room, kitchen, an dining front TV room all have fairly consistent patterns. But adding some additional on/off pseudorandom light cycles requires adding a lot of new Smart Lighting rules dedicated to an Away and/or Vacation mode (e.g., different patterns on MWF and TThSS). The number of discrete rules really explodes.

What’s the best approach?

  1. Stay completely in Connect Classic?
  2. Use a hybrid of Connect Classic and WebCoRE? Keep using Classic but add some randomization on top of the predictable patterns in Classic.
  3. Move entirely to WebCoRE and abandon Connect Classic?

Any insights would be appreciated.

First we Need to clarify something. There is no “connect classic” app.

There are two mobile apps:

One) “SmartThings classic”

Two) “SmartThings (Samsung Connect)”

You can tell which one you are using from the logos, which are different:

So we need to know which you are asking about. :sunglasses:

( And yes, it’s been confusing for everyone. :wink:)

1 Like

Oops! I’m using SmartThings Classic. I couldn’t find a place in the app that have me the actual name of the app. Not the icon name (just "SmartThings), not in the app itself, not in Setti gam (again, just "SmatThings). I see you had to get a screen cap from the App Store. Didn’t lccur to me to all the way back there.

2 Likes

Here is a piston I use

1 Like

I’m sorry, I’m not understanding your question. You can’t have WebCore without SmartThings (or Hubitat). When you say “move everything to WebCore” what do you mean?

Yes, no problem using an ST app like SmartLighting to do some things and Webcore to do others. I and many others do this all the time. All you need to be careful off is a conflict where one isn’t telling a light to turn off while the other is getting to turn on.

I tend to use SmartLighting for the simple stuff and Webcore for the more complicated automations.

1 Like

I have a SmartThings hub running SmartThings Classic to control lighting. I’ve installed WebCoRE and dabbled with it, but am not using it today.

I’m asking if I can use BOTH SmartThings Classic AND WebCoRE simultaneously to control lighting. Classic would handle regularly scheduled lighting tasks. WebCoRE would be used to turn a few lights on and off at random times.

The question is whether it makes sense to distribute lighting control across the two different rules engines like that. Or is that going to create an even harder to manage and maintain system? When should users depend 100% on Classic? When should they switch to WebCoRE? When should they consider using both simultaneously, each having tasks it is best suited for?

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks. That’s exactly what I thought. And I see the potential for havoc if they are both controlling the same light near the same time. That would be a debugging challenge.

Sure, lots of people do that.

The most common reason is that anything which is simple enough to do just with the official smart lighting feature and is eligible to run locally will often be used by people who want the advantage of local Execution. That way if the SmartThings cloud does become unavailable, the lighting still works.

And then anything which is too complex for the official feature get done in webcore.

There are other people who prefer to only use Webcore just because it simplifies the way they think about their setup, and because they like the fact that webcore has the ability to backup their rules, which the official feature does not.

So it’s just a matter of your own preferences and goals. As long as you don’t have two rules trying to do two different things to the same light at the same moment in time, like one setting it to 50% and the other setting it to 100%, it should be fine. :sunglasses:

You might also find the following FAQ of interest (this is a clickable link):

Thanks. I can see applying that to a few lights while most of them are operating under Classic.

What is the purpose of that mask {:xxxxx5:} ANDed to the AvailableDevices array? I see the array has five elements.

Perfect! Just the answer I was looking for. And just what I was figuring was the case. I’ll read that FAQ - thanks for the reference.

1 Like

It’s a device I removed and didn’t remove it from the piston

Question…when does this piston get executed?

You can tell by the little lightning bolt. This piston is triggered by the presence sensors changing to present. The top part of this piston won’t fire I don’t think.

Thanks, Simon, @JDRoberts & @BBoy486 . I set up a Vacation Piston that runs “on top” of basic lighting controls in ST Smart Lighting. I was testing it last night and the lights I had selected for randomization were coming on and off randomly during the specified time period. My last ST Smart Lighting turns off all the lights so I don’t have any rogue lights left on from the WC Piston randomization.

I set it up so that I have enough local control of lights so that, if I lose Internet service, the house still has lights coming on at dusk to look like someone is home; I just won’t get the handful of lights turning on and off randomly.

This is really slick! Thanks for your input and help.

@BBoy486 - I’ve seen several Vacation pistons by Brandon Pines. I used another one of his that hard-codes the devices that are controlled rather than iterating over an array of devices. His other piston also toggles the light for a random amount of time which works well with my ST Smart Lighting control. If a light is already on, it turns it off; if the light is off, it turns it on. To simplify things, I also omitted the presence sensor detection and automation. I am just using Mode = Vacation. I just have to remember to set the Mode to something other than Vacation when we get home.

1 Like

When the mode is set to vacation it will execute. I have other pistons that change the mode if I’m away for 4hours

That is the same person :grin:. I take no credit for them. I got them from the webcor community and modified it