FAQ: Limits and Guardrails (max # of automations, devices, etc)

While you are at it, can you include this one?

7 months later and still no responses.
apparently this is some treasured secret?

The problem isn’t with there being arbitrary limits on things so much as that they are undocumented, difficult or impossible to debug, and apparently even support often doesn’t know about them (or knows just enough to be dangerous).

4 Likes

@jody.albritton, the problem here is that Samsung would never put into the front window these numbers. Otherwise the people who would buy the equipment would look at it, do some calculations and turn around to look for another option.

All we know that the way forward is the new app as the v3 hub came with that. But look at this issue with @kieranlavin 's setup as a newbie. Those were not even overcomplicated automations. A simple user starting to build some fancy home automation would hit it really quickly. And it is only because the features of the new app push these limits. Then support will give some answer what the user cannot deal with, as how is it possible that with some simple automations a limit has been hit.
The next thing what you would realize that the Play Store would be full of 1 star reviews due to this, then Amazon would be full of it, and BestBuy, etc.

People are starting to read the community forum when they have a passion for the subject. Simple users what things to work. If you buy a home automation hub, then you want to build some automations with the provided platform. If the platform has been built with these shortsighted limits, then you will loose potential clients really quickly.

I understand the main reason of cost efficiency, but then introduce a premium option. But I can guess it is in the pipeline already. The past few weeks’ communication probaly made a few people to rethink their options with SmartThings.
How would you expect that those clients which has been turned down would advise other people to purchase a SmartThings hub? At the enď everybody leaves with a bad taste in the mouth and nobody wins anything.
Honestly I can see shortsighted and most of the time incompetent management behind these decisions who do not really care about the customer satisfaction but their 15 minutes of fame and their bonus if they reach a goal. If an engineer has to fight for these limits to be raised, then something has went wrong seriously.

3 Likes

I am not an engineer, but the recent topics regarding the network errors and creating/modifying scenes or automations in the new app are quite obviously shows that there might be a bug with the new Smartthings app or people hitting the limits continuously.

@jody.albritton? @Brad_ST?

All three of those are different root causes and none are related to hitting a rate limit.

“A network or server error occurred. Try again later.” is a very generic error. They are taken seriously though and reporting these and similar issues via support.smartthings.com or from within the app is still the best way to bring attention to concerns.

6 Likes

Hi @Brad_ST, I’ve attempted to start moving as many Routines and SHM custom rules from Classic to the new app as possible , but unfortunately I’ve run into the same issue creating custom automation in the new app, specifically the message “A network or server error occurred. Try again later.”. I’ve already submitted a support ticket for SHM being broken in the new app, so I just added this to the ticket.

I’m really trying to use the new app, but every step forward seems to take 2 steps backwards…

1 Like

Jody, any updates on raising the limit? My fingers are itchy to convert the Classic routines into scenes and automations but I am afraid that I’ll eat my “behaviors” for breakfast in the Good Morning routine. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

I got the email yesterday saying it’s almost time to migrate over to the new app. Stupid me, I jumped into this morning, moving some ROUTINES from CLASSIC over to AUTOMATIONS on the new app … I’m about half way through when I started getting the NETWORK ERROR message every time I tried to save an Automation. Looks like I’m already at the limit. This isn’t going to work for me!

Another problem I see here is in the IF statement. I have a routine in CLASSIC that looks at 3 outdoor motion sensors, after my system goes into NIGHT mode. If it sees motion on any of those sensors while in NIGHT mode - it then turns on Garage Lights, Porch Light and Patio Light for 15 minutes. With the new IF / THEN format for automations - I had to setup 3 automations to accomplish this - one for each of the 3 outdoor motion sensors. The IF statement only allows for ALL of the motions sensors to be triggered AND for it to be NIGHT mode - or any of those 4 conditions. IN the “any” conditional - that means lights were turning on during the day because a car drove down the street. The only way I could see to get this to work, was to setup an Automation for each motion sensor in NIGHT mode. So that’s 3 automations with 2 IF statements, and 3 actions. Is that counting as 15 towards my 250 limit?

There needs to be an AND statement include in the IF - for instance in my case above - IF mode is NIGHT, AND Patio Motion or Garage Motion or Porch Motion detects motion, THEN turn on Garage Lights, Porch Light and Patio Light for 15 minutes.

EDIT - as I re-read some of the messages above, I want to make sure I’m understanding something here … If I enter an Automation that turns on 10 Hue lights, sets each light to a different color, and a different dimming level, and turns them off at different times after they turned on … that’s 40 actions? 10 lights on + 10 different colors + 10 different dimming levels + 10 different times off = 40 actions?

2 Likes

If you’re only concerned with turning on lights with this automation, use smart lighting. You can select your motion sensors and select the mode (s) you want it to run in.

1 Like

For this much automation, I’d use webcore.

In the recent hub update topic, the staff member posting linked to some documentation with a whole bunch of guardrails and rate limits.

The one that jumped out at me was this one:

Max number of devices per Installed App (Cloud Connected) : 30

30 seems too low for some apps. The average US home has 45 lightbulbs, for example.

I would expect a limit of 50 to be more in line with industry standards for lighting (Hue, Lutron, Sengled, etc.)

@jody.albritton

4 Likes