FAQ: What is WebCoRE? (And what was CoRE?)

SmartApps & Automations webCoRE
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CoRE (now WebCore) is a very powerful community – created rules engine for SmartThings. It allows you to set up stacked conditionals like “If A then B but only while C and not if D.”

Setting it up can be quite complex, but there are many community members who will be glad to help you.

For example, here is a piston that one member created to notify him if the dog had already been fed twice that day and he picked up the dog bowl for a third time. He needed this because he has a large family and people didn’t always remember whose turn it was to feed the dog. :dog::blush:

The original version of CoRE Has now been replaced by a new version, WebCoRE, which moves the data entry to a web interface. This allows for flexibility and an architecture that requires more memory than is available through the mobile app.

WebCore has its own forum where you can get expert help, find the most current code, and see lots of examples and tutorials:

WebCoRE also has its own wiki with a lot of information:

And they have their own forum where you can ask detailed questions

And if you like video tutorials, one community member has done a series of them:

[Video Series] Getting to Know webCoRE

Please do not ask questions about how to use WebCoRE in this thread, as you will get much faster and better answers by asking in the WebCore forum where the WebCoRE experts hang out. This FAQ is just here to briefly answer the question of what WebCoRE is, not to answer questions about how to use it. :sunglasses:

Note: you may see references in the forum to an older community – created rules engine, “rule machine.” Rule Machine was discontinued in the spring of 2016. When no official rules engine took its place, other community members, particularly @ady624 , developed CoRE and then WebCore.

WebCoRE has since moved considerably beyond where rule machine left off in both power and complexity. So anything that could previously have been done in rule machine can now be done in WebCoRE, although you may need expert assistance to design a piston to do so.

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Thanks @JDRoberts!

One CoRE thing that has confused me - and this is not a qustion about how to use it - is that there is a CoRE on the rboyapps.com site. Is that the CoRE or do several implementations of CoRE exist?

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The only official CoRE is the one at the link I gave above. @ady624 is the author.

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If you click on the @RBoy link he has posted on his site, it will take you to the one and only CoRE app…

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For those who might be like, WTH is CoRE and keep skipping over it, DON’T!!! It is FREAKING AWESOME!!! An hour on the CoRE Wiki page and you will be writing your own Pistons (the trigger, thing, whatever you call it that make things work) in no time. The people over in the CoRE community thread are very very helpful!

Here’s an example of why CoRE is so cool.

SmartLights allowed me to use a motion detector to turn on a light (at a specified percentage 30%) when motion started in between a certain time period. It also allowed me to turn off that light if motion stopped after a certain amount of time.

The problem was if I turned the light up all the way and motion was detected again, it would dim the lights back down to 30%. Arrrgggg!!!

CoRE allowed me to say the above “But-If” the lights turned up past 30% then just wait for a specified amount of time and turn off the light if motion detector is in-active.

This piston is called a Latching Piston and is one of the very powerful tools that CoRE offers.

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I’m a pretty lazy, patient, fairly low tech guy. Just retired & have fun playing around with my ST’s stuff. In the future will CoRE or something like it be a standard ST’s built in smartapp? Should I wait or get off my lazy butt and start learning CoRE?

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People have been asking for a rules engine since SmartThings was first built over two years ago.

Maybe we’ll get one with the TV version, but it doesn’t seem to be part of the corporate philosophy. So I think if we get an official one, it will be a nice surprise, but if you need layered conditionals I would go with core for now. :sunglasses:

If you happen to have an iOS phone and are willing to pay $10 for a third-party app , there is another very simple alternative, which is SmartRules. It’s easy, graphical, and does give you a “while” condition. You definitely don’t need to be technical to use it – – you just download it from the App Store like any other app. But it costs money and it’s much less powerful than CoRE.

http://smartrulesapp.com

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Definitely learn CoRE, you can still be lazy!

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=CoRE

I am doing all kinds of cool stuff that I never really thought that I could/would be doing with Smartthings. Hell, I just wanted to save a little on the electric bill but now, my life is just simpler once I learned CoRE.

Here’s another one:

Smartthings multi sensor on dryer. If dryer starts and is on for at least 20 minutes, when dryer stops, wait 1 hour, if dryer door is not opened within that 1 hour and time is between 10am and 8pm then flicker the lights and turn off power to PlayStation!!!

Send notification that clothes needs to be put away!

Once dryer door is opened and closed, wait 15 minutes and then turn on power to PlayStation!

Laundry now takes 1 day instead of 1 week!

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Talk about good timing! I’m currently on my computer in the basement & wondering if the dryer is done on the 2nd floor. That would be a lot of steps to go up there and check if it’s done for a lazy guy! The “boss” still works and got orders to do her delicates this morning.

I tried a ST’s multi sensor and a Aeotec smart plug on the washer & never had any luck. Looks like I’m gonna have to go for it. My goal will be to announce over my Sonos when both are done.:grin:

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I agree. I downloaded CoRE last week and have since converted all of those random Smart Apps into Pistons and they work much more reliably now. It took a bit of learning, but following the examples shown below it was not too hard. Worth the time and effort.

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My washer is a Samsung “Top” Loader (no agitator inside). It barely makes any noise or movement and I didn’t think the sensor would work well on it. But, the sensor on the dryer has worked flawlessly since setting it up. It senses the vibrations, temperature and open/close of door. :slight_smile:

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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: CoRE - Get peer assistance here with setting up Pistons

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Thanks JDRoberts. I’ll do that this weekend.

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So… ST is not a virtual parent! LOL

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How do I access CoRE in my iphone?

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Please ask detailed CoRE questions, Including what can I do and how do you access it, in the Core detail threads. This particular thread is just intended as a starting point to explain the general concept.

In your case, see the following thread. The first post should answer your question and you can ask any follow up questions there. ( this is a clickable link)

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Looking through ST documentation, I came across CoRE. At first glance, it looks pretty neat. A quick (and naive) question. What is the difference between CoRE and IFTTT? Is CoRE simply logic blocks for a specific device vs IFTTT will help you interact with multiple devices?

Thank you in advance!

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CoRE is a rules engine for SmartThings that was developed by a community member. It can be complicated to work with but allows for extremely powerful control over your devices and automations.

IFTTT is a completely separate service that allows you to link connected devices and web services that are not otherwise a part of ST to devices that are controlled by ST. But the integration generally allows for far more limited control of ST devices than what CoRE can do.

They’re complimentary, really.

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To add a little to what Mark said…

Core is written for the SmartThings platform and is a scripting language that lets you set up stacked conditionals and very complex rules for devices attached to your SmartThings account.

IFTTT is an independent service. Many different companies sign up to have “channels” on IFTTT. It is up to each company what features of their devices/services they make available through IFTTT. Users of IFTTT are able to create “applets” in an “If This, then that” format which lets you take an event from one channel and use it to trigger an event on another channel. This allows for integration between devices that don’t have a direct integration.

For example, there might be an air-conditioner that didn’t have any direct integration with SmartThings. But if it had an IFTTT channel, then you could use the SmartThings channel as the “if” and the air-conditioner channel as the “that” and get indirect integration that way. But the logic available for rules in IFTTT is much simpler than the logic available in core.

So Core was created by a SmartThings customer, runs in the SmartThings cloud, and let you create very complex rules to control devices attached to your SmartThings account.

IFTTT is an independent service and was created to allow many different companies to offer simple “if this then that” integration in a standardized format. It is primarily used to link together two devices that otherwise cannot communicate, with IFTTT as the “man in the middle” passing the messages around.

As Mark also said, these often end up being complementary. For example, you might want a rule to turn off the air conditioner if The bedroom window was open for more than two minutes. And again, we’re assuming an air conditioner that doesn’t have any direct integration with SmartThings, but does have an have an IFTTT channel. But you would create all of the control logic in SmartThings, perhaps using core, and then the very last step would be to do something that would trigger an IFTTT applet with the air-conditioner channel as the “that.”

So core is a rules engine for setting up complex rules for your SmartThings account. IFTTT is a third party service offering a simple “if this then that” structure that can be used with devices from many different companies that normally cannot talk to each other. Since SmartThings does have an IFTTT channel/service, you can take advantage of the additional integration possibilities that IFTTT offers. :sunglasses:

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That is an excellent and very detailed answer. Exactly what I was looking for. Appreciated it very much JD!

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