Sometime after Nov 16, my double tap smartapp stopped working. I know Nov 16 was also the last firmware update, but I cannot be sure if that is the reason, because I went out of town that night and didn’t return for a week. It’s possible that it stopped working a few days after the firmware update. The other reason I mention the firmware update is because the email specifically mentioned “support for local execution of many types of directly connected Z-Wave lights and switches”. I use double tap on 2 GE smart switches.
After the previous firmware update, my double tap also stopped working and the solution was to change the device type to “Z-Wave Switch Generic”. So I thought maybe switching it back to “Z-Wave Switch” would do the trick, but no luck.
Everything else (devices and smartapps) is working fine. Any ideas?
August 2017[edit]
Several different kinds of problems reported with the hub V2 firmware update 18. 20. Also there were some plan changes which were not announced ahead of time, including no longer having the stock device type handler report physical vs digital events. This last change means that some double tap smartapps no longer work.
So the first thing to do would be to look at the device type handler to see if it is reporting physical events. If it’s not, the double taps won’t work.
In addition, if you follow the link there to the community discussion you’ll see that the explanation given by staff is that the Physical report had a number of problems. For one thing, if the message ended up going through a repeater, then it would not be counted asphysical. So depending on how your network is laid out, it could work on one day and not work on another just depending on the route chosen.
And all of that means that if you have added a new repeater recently, or even just done a zwave repair, you might find that a double tap app which worked previously no longer works just because of the route changes.
Thanks for the reply, and I am aware of the bug report you mentioned. However, my setup was working fine before and after August up until Nov 16, other than having to change the device type, so I don’t think that’s the issue.
I did confirm that the switch is reporting physical events. As far as the routing, the switch and hub are only about 10 ft from each other (1 interior wall separating), and no other zwave device in between, nor repeaters.
The switch still responds to commands from the app, so I haven’t done a z-wave repair yet. Do you think that would help?
Sorry, my point is that if the device type handler has changed, that would have the same effect. And smartthings changes the official device type handlers all the time without any notification. So the first thing is to look at the specific Device type handler you have been using and see if that has changed.
I did confirm that the switch is reporting physical events.
Again, just to be clear, it’s not a question of whether the device is reporting physical events. It’s whether those events are being reported as “type: physical.” That’s with the double tap apps will be looking for.
As far as the routing, the switch and hub are only about 10 ft from each other (1 interior wall separating), and no other zwave device in between, nor repeaters.
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The switch still responds to commands from the app, so I haven’t done a z-wave repair yet. Do you think that would help?
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I’m sorry, I just don’t know. Smartthings has decided to deprecate the use of type:physical Because it was just so inconsistent and so hard to troubleshoot. You might go back to the author thread for whatever smartapp you’re using and see if anyone else there has seen a recent change.
Thanks. I appreciate your help. I’ve heard the new zwave plus switches report “better” so I may get a couple of those and swap out these current switches to see if it works better. Thanks again.
The newest GE/Jasco models with the newest firmware have incorporated a double tap feature in the switch itself so that the switch will recognize the tap pattern and then it sends a code to the hub to say what tap pattern was used.
This will be much more reliable than the old way of trying to time individual taps in the cloud. You won’t need a special smartapp at all, just a device type handler which can send the codes from the switch.
typically the pattern code will get sent as a “button” number, like “button three was pressed” so then you can use the switch with the official smartlighting feature or with webcore and set up different rules for each different tap pattern.
So if you want a reliable double tap function, then either the newest GE models or the Homeseer model should give you that. The homeseer can also recognize double or triple taps, while the GE can only recognize double taps.
You can talk to people using these by using the quick browse lists in the community – created wiki, looking in the device type handler section, and looking on the list for “lighting.” There are threads about each of these devices.
So I emailed SmartThings support and they had me try a couple things. One was changing the device type of the switch. There are 3 options: Z-Wave Switch, Z-Wave Switch Generic, and Z-Wave Switch Secure. Oddly enough, Z-Wave Switch Secure actually makes double tap work again. However, it prevents the switch from working with other smartapps like webCoRE, IFTTT, or even from the SmartThings app. I’m still waiting for a response from support, but wanted to share the info in case anyone else is having a similar problem.
Does anyone here know the difference between the device types?
Found a solution with the help of SmartThings support. I installed a custom device handler and double tap is now functional again. For anyone else that may still use Double Tap, here you go. Link
Smartthings has decided to deprecate the use of type:physical Because it was just so inconsistent and so hard to troubleshoot. You might go back to the author thread for whatever smartapp you’re using and see if anyone else there has seen a recent change.