They really need to work on V3 Hub ASAP and get rid of the cloud based processing completely. I imagine if everything was done locally rather than in the cloud, we all would have much less problems.
I think I am doing the same thing as you describe. I ignore modes completely and have the day parts divided up into four flags set by virtual switches. They drive when some rules run and when they don’t. The problem is at least once a day, I have a rule fail to merely turn a virtual switch on or off.
I have been tracking my daily rule pass/fail for a while and still have not had a 24 hour period without a virtual switch fail.
I wholeheartedly agree and look forward to paying for my V3 with a dollar for dollar exchange credit for our V2 hubs.
What are you using fur rules? Rule Machine?
I’m using the basic SmartThings app with a simple time based rule. I thought that since it was the native app and I was just flipping a virtual switch at a set time, it would be reasonably robust. I have SmartRules but not for the virtual switches. I wanted to have a simple reliable set-up before I tried else.
Funny I should see this post, just as I have also decided to SCRAP Smart Things. I have had many, many issues over the last year and the last one was the straw that broke the camels back. I woke up to my ST’s Siren going off in the AM. When I tried to disarm the system, I couldn’t. Each time I set ST to disarm, it reset back to armed. Nothing I tried worked with the exception of disconnecting the Siren. Resetting the ST Hub didn’t work either. After contacting ST support I was basically told that I should delete or reset everything back to default and re-configure my security programs. They told me this is a known issue and they are working on a resolution. Honestly, I cannot put my trust in a security system that isn’t reliable and that I need to maintain, reconfigure and tweak, This is just too much work!! Anyone interested, please see my Smart Things listing on Ebay. The “Smartest Thing” I’ve done is dump Smart Things!
I use smart lighting for things like door opens and turns on light… That way it is local control. I use RM for everything else.
I have about 13 rules in smart lighting and 75+ in rule machine.
I’ve just started bank to using modes, but I change modes via rules in RM.
Every time I use a routine I get nothing but failure.
Once I get the modes working the way I want I’m going to try out the security aspect, but I’m going to use smart alarm and RM fit that as well.
Absolutely no stock ST routines. I honestly believe that to be the cause of moody problems on my system.
SHM and/or using ST as an alarm system is premature. Integrating with an existing alarm system works.
I’m not facing the challenges JD is facing, but I do have arthritis, especially in hands. The problem with solutions such as “reset” the device means having to pry open small devices, push tiny buttons, etc. I can’t even begin to describe how much that hurts, at times.
Right now, I have several devices that have gone wonky at once. I’ll have someone blithely tell me, well all I need to do is just reset the devices!
They won’t understand why I want to slap them silly.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I am, I hope, patient, but things like today…I just want to give up on ST, walk away.
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[quote=“SmartFan, post:22, topic:36620, full:true”]
I imagine if everything was done locally rather than in the cloud, we all would have much less problems.
[/quote]Except we’d not be able to control our homes from our phones easily, if at all. That’s why the V2 hub was supposed to do a lot of the processing local, but still maintain the metadata of the state of the home in the cloud - and support updates to metadata in the cloud to mirror back to the home.
I am sorry that’s a complete fallacy.
Phone control does not require cloud AT ALL. It can be made simpler by using the cloud as a available proxy point for said control, but it is not required - and cloud processing certainly isn’t required.
The cloud is nothing but computers connected to a network. Homes with internet are computers connected to a network.
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True, but it is required for the current implementation of ST and Hub v2. I think it was once mentioned that it was a future possibility, but so was a migration tool, and a billion other things.
Oh, crap, I’d better hurry and send this info to Apple engineers to let them know they’re doing it all wrong with the Home Kit and it’s not going to work. 
[quote=“schettj, post:31, topic:36620, full:true”]
It’s fairly easy to have a phone/tablet interface that doesn’t require a cloud. Staples Connect has one, Apple’s HomeKit will be another. Control4 has one. Oomi is designed around one. It’s just a LAN connection. SmartThings hasn’t yet designed one that way, but that’s a design decision, not a technical requirement.
Anything that works randomly only about 80% of the time doesn’t work. I’ve spent way more time debugging this POS than I would have turning switches on and off manually. At least when I do that, I know whether they’re on or off.
It’s gone.
Naw… He just understands that in the grand scheme of things, home automation is still relatively new technology. Lets face it, we all are early adopter. All systems have their problems at this point. We are just hashing out the bugs to the masses to come.
No, not complete. At a minimum, you’d need proxy access as many home internet computers are behind ISP firewalls. And that proxy? Yeah, it’s in the cloud.
Even for Apple. There’s not any way to reliably allow INBOUND access to every home network.
Sneer away @geko , but when you’re “logging into iCloud” to access your Home Kit when you’re not connected to the local network, just remember this day.
No one argues with that. The whole point was that cloud connection should be required only for remote access. Apple gets it, but others no so much. They insist that I send a TCP packet containing two bytes of useful data 5,000 miles across the continent and back to flip a switch every single time, even if I sit 10 feet away from the switch.
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[quote=“geko, post:39, topic:36620”]
No one argues with that. The whole point was that cloud connection should be required only for remote access.
[/quote]Yep. Exactly what I said… That was the VISION for V2, recall. If you think about it, the only way remote access can work is if the cloud has a current view of the state of the home metadata, which means the home metadata is always updated in the cloud when it changes at home - that’s gonna be true for Home Kit, unless you’re going to query the home every time the remote device hits the cloud (fine if you have 3 devices, not great if there’s 50-200)
So, all that’s left to do for ST is to actually enable local processing. Which they are (slower than hell) doing.
In this model you throw a switch, the hub processes it, and the 5000 mile trip for the TCP packet just updates the metadata in the cloud view of your home. Which is what the lighting stuff does now: motion -> light on -> tcp packet sent to update the cloud metadata.
Edit: And recall that cool stuff like using Alexa is essentially REMOTE access - since Alexa’s brains are also in the cloud, you’ll be manipulating “cloud to cloud” to turn those lights on/off.
Well, then we agree in principle. As for whether SmartThings doing that, it remains to be seen. Recall that V2 was released 5 month behind the schedule, and we’re now another 5 month past the release. So, 10 month after initially planned release date, “local processing” is still largely experimental. I can only think of two reasons. They either run into a brick wall, i.e. Architectural limitations that are not easily solved. Or this is not their priority, as directed by their overlords. In either case, local processing will likely remain very limited for years.