So there have been a ton of messages about the new SmartThings Edge platform rolling out and just as many about a “replacement” for WebCore. In order to not have top read them all has there been any updates about a replacement or other options for making complex automations once Edge rolls out? I would hate to leave ST due to the lack of automation flexibility.
The way forward for automations is supposed to be Rules, often referred to as the Rules API. They first entered preview in January 2020 and at the beginning of this year Routines (then called Automations of course) and Scenes were reimplemented to use Rules.
The expressed intent is for Rules to eventually be able to handle complex automations that webCoRE is currently being used for. Currently Routines are probably using most of the available functionality in terms of conditions and actions but not the full power of the available control structures.
Back in late 2019 the idea of reimplementing webCoRE to use Rules was put forward, along with a proof of concept. I thought it was clear that it was going to be down to the webCoRE community to do this if they wanted it but many others, perhaps the majority, formed the impression that ST would be driving this.
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As @orangebucket noted, Edge is a different piece of the new platform, with edge being specific to how hubs will work in the new architecture.
Automation logic is a different piece, and was released a few months into beta before edge.
You have multiple choices in the new architecture for any given use case:
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see if you can do what you want to just by creating a routine in the current smartthings app. It has a lot more functionality than previous app versions did.
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use the rules API that @orangebucket mentioned. It’s supposed to end up as being comparable to Webcore although it’s still in development. You can read more about that in the following section of the forum:
- use the thirdparty app, SharpTools. This runs in any browser and has a nice visual interface. It is already using the new architecture. Not as powerful as Webcore, but currently has more features than the official routines and is easier to use than the rules API. Very popular in the community. They have a free tier for basic stuff, or $30/year for the pro features. They also have a free trial so you can check it out and see if you like it.
4a) write your own smartapp in any programming language you want, host it yourself, and communicate with smartthings through the cloud API. That’s real programming, but you can do whatever you want.
4b) You could even buy a hubitat hub, host their community’s version of Webcore there , and use the cloud API to communicate over to devices running on your smartthings account. That’s a little clunky, but it should work. So basically hubitat becomes the server that you use for Webcore rather than writing everything from scratch.
So there are several choices, and you may have reasons for picking a different one of those options for different use cases. But you should be able to get at least the same amount of rules functionality that you have from the old architecture, and probably even more. 
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If we must buy another hub to get those same functionality of old architecture, its like to say, buy another car so you will be able to drive the way you did with your old one before I ponctured your tires…
I would like to believe that it will be better or so but not sure. For now I just cant see how I would be able to do what I m doing with that old stuff (webcore). I mean, if I have to pass month to built my own smartapp each time I want to do an automation, its a little freaking… I like to use variable to store things and use it later and even store time inside variable and use this time as trigger and change it inside the automation according to other variable and calculation and time of the year… The rules api wont do this, it would be a fixed time and it would be hard to use variable because it have no variable in there. Also the interface! Webcore have a great easy to use interface… The new rules api is hard to use since if you have too much condition or complex one, you wont be able to see everything and for what I see you ll have to use multiple automation with a lot of virtual switches to get to do simple webcore things…
Hope to be wrong and see something very nice and completed… but what I see around is that its not ready to go and they will add new features in the future… So I dont think that it ll get variables and some powerfull feature like webcore in a close future!
If the cummunity would transcript webcore, nobody told anyone how to do nor what should be done! Because if multiple users makes different part it could be very quick… I think they wish not to be done! At the begining Andy was talking about turning webcore in a rules engine and seems to be interested to do something cool with the new architecture but he is gone from ST and the project turn to be done by the cummunity… pretty strange!
Hope to be wrong but we ll see!
Thanks!
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