Groovy SmartApp Shutdown

What features though? The devil’s in the details here and when a dev can’t say exactly what they’re waiting on when all their users are waiting for an answer, that doesn’t look good.

SmartApps in the new architecture that are installed and then configured in the ST app are Webhook apps and the only ones that have been migrated or newly created are the ones from ST. So, you have to think that there is clearly something preventing 3rd parties from providing Webhook apps since there aren’t any available.

I’m not trying to defend Rboy or anyone else, but it seems strange to me that we don’t have a single 3rd party Webhook app available yet.

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:point_up_2: From the other thread we’ve been chatting in.

I totally understand why someone who made a free groovy smartapp wouldn’t want to rewrite it and pay to host that, but this is a paid product.

Looks like @ethayer is taking the challenge though

Edited to add that we’re aligned that there likely are challenges. All I’m saying is that it’s not clear what those challenges are since RBoy has been quiet about it all and that doesn’t look good for his paid users.

I bet many of the people here would be totally open to the idea of paying again for a new license or even paying a reasonable subscription since it sounds like RBoy would have costs and most of the people using it are AirBnB type of hosts.

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Its rboys silence thats has fuled these post.

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What I have noticed with Harmony in my setup is that despite the SmartApp still being active I can no longer trigger Harmony activities from ST. However, when starting activities from Harmony the related devices in ST are updating but only on the 5 minute polling basis. I have used the approach to add an ‘on’ and ‘off’ of the related ST device in each Harmony activity to force instant status updates but it seems those commands are no longer working.

Other than IFTTT integration being pear-shaped right now the loss of full Harmony integration is my biggest issue. I’ve managed to plug all other holes.

Check this out, working perfectly, at least for single harmony hub:

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@nayelyz

Will the Smartthings Weather report SmartApp over speakers (in my case, Sonos) be updated to the new architecture?

This was part of my wakeup routine, and as expected no longer working after the Groovy SmartApp shutdown this week. Additionally, this wasn’t mentioned as part of the platform update. I don’t believe this was a third party app.

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Background:
I noticed the past few days that many of my Automation Smart Apps are no longer working. When going to check them in the app, they’re all toggled off, and if you try to toggle them on, the toggle disappears. (As others have reported.) If you try to modify & re-save them, I get an error “No Network Connection”. (I’m definitely connected to my home WiFi.) I figured it might have something to do with the transition I read about sometime last year, and found this thread.

Honestly, after setting up S.T. a handful of years ago, I rarely come here unless there’s a problem (usually between S.T. and my Arlo cameras). In my one visit to the community last year, I read something about transitioning away from Groovy apps, but I feel like I’ve been seeing that for years, along with the arguments about classic app vs new app, etc. While I shouldn’t have buried my head in the sand on this… I did notice some Apps (like SmartLighting) slowly transitioning last year. My hub would restart overnight, and I’d lose something for a few days, and then it’d start working again. I figured I’d wait to see what wasn’t working, and deal with it later once the mess stopped. I guess I’m there now.

Question:
So, this brings me to my dumb question: How do I know which of my apps were groovy-based, and which are not and S.T. just temporarily broke to transition them (like they have for a few days over the past few months)? I’ll admit that I didn’t dive too deep into understanding everything, except for several years ago when I first started, but I’ve since forgotten most of that knowledge. I know that’s on me, but are there any simple guides to knowing which of my automation Smart Apps are permanently broken, and which S.T. or developers are still transitioning? If it helps, most of the things that are broken involve a motion sensor triggering an Arlo camera to record, and a virtual device and/or buttons triggering a message to be played on my Sonos speakers. I can’t get into the Groovy IDE anymore to tell you what they are though.

Apologies for my ostrich behavior… sometimes it’s hard to keep up withing everything when life is really busy, and everything was working just fine for several years.

Groovy smartapps would show in the Groovy IDE (while its still available) https://graph.api.smartthings.com)

At this point if you see that toggle Behaviour where it’s toggled off and trying to toggle it on causes the toggle to disappear The odds are very high that it’s a groovy app that is now obsolete.

There are only a very few official groovy smartapps that will automatically transition themselves eventually if they haven’t already

Smart lighting
SmartThings Home Monitor (but not custom monitoring)
Severe Weather Alert
Smart Lock Guest Access

And I think that’s it. :thinking:

Services listed under the Services tab in the smartthings app are also official features.

But anything else that breaks is unlikely to fix itself right now. There may be new versions that come out, like there’s supposed to be a new version of the official Ifttt integration, but there aren’t very many of those.

Thanks. I am aware of that driver. I have four Harmony hubs though.

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Thanks @Automated_House & @JDRoberts . I got into the Groovy IDE and clicked “List SmartApps”, and it’s most everything in the S.T. App → “Automations” → “Smart Apps” on my phone. Well, that’s a bummer, to say the least. I’ve noticed that Samsung S.T. Automations have been getting improved over the years, so I think I’ll be able to accomplish many of these automations by “re-writing” them in the App, but it’ll take some time as I’ve got 30-40+ that are now broken. My fault for not keeping up I guess.

I’ve seen some discussions in other threads about virtual devices. Do those still work, and can you still create those? If not, my system will be crushed. For example, I have a lot of “virtual switches”, which trigger events when turned on… so multiple buttons or actions can trigger that same switch, and the same action happens. I also have “virtual buttons”, so I can click things in the app on my phone and initiate various tasks. I believe I used the Smart App “Virtual Device Creator” from my phone to create those. If that no longer works, how is everyone creating/using virtual switches and such now?

IF YOU HAVE A SMARTTHINGS/AEOTEC HUB

Then life is easy. Several community members have created edge drivers (which run on your hub), and create virtual devices of many different types. There are regular simple on/off switches, momentary switches, virtual sensors of all types, virtual thermostats, even some other specialty devices. And there are virtual switches combined with virtual sensors which can be used to trigger Alexa routines. So lots of choices. There’s even one that lets you combine two physical devices, typically a tilt sensor and a garage door relay, into one virtual device that will look like a garage door, functionality that we used to have to do with a smartapp.

Different drivers have different features so you may want to look at several before deciding which to use, or use different ones for different use cases, but there are many community members now using each of the ones on offer.

To find them, go to the quick browse lists in the community-created wiki, and look for the virtual devices list.

https://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Quick_Browse_Lists_for_Edge_Drivers

  1. IF YOU DON’T HAVE A SMARTTHINGS/AEOTEC HUB

of course, the vast majority of smartthings users don’t have a hub, and this is where things get a little complicated. Many of them do still use virtual devices, particularly to trigger Alexa routines or to integrate with other third-party systems. We used to be able to create these just through the IDE whether we had a hub or not, but now that option is gone.

Officially, smartthings says they are still looking into possibilities for this, but there is no easy official feature at this time.

You can create a simple virtual on/off switch using the CLI which is a programmer’s tool for the new architecture, but that requires that you have a laptop, and are willing to get elbow deep into some code. And it won’t trigger Alexa Routines. :thinking:

Fortunately, a community member has created a webpage utility that, while more complex than using the IDE, is way simpler than using the CLI on its own and does not require that you have anything other than a mobile device. This option, called API plus, will let you create simple on/off virtual switches or a virtual lock. And the virtual lock can be used to trigger an Alexa routine.

(And if you hate having to make the lock unlock when you’re in fact trying to turn something on, you can use a virtual switch with a routine so that when the virtual switch comes on, the virtual lock locks, so that the lock command gets hidden from the humans. )

SmartThings API Browser+ ... Now Available to All

So… There are some virtual device options for people who don’t have a hub, but there aren’t as many as there used to be in the old architecture, and they are more complicated to set up.

Hopefully, we will eventually get an official feature for creating virtual devices, which is easy to use and has more functionality. But we will just have to wait and see.

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Assuming you have a hub it is easy to create Edge based Virtual Switches and other virtual devices. There are several community created ways to do this.

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I also have a CT101 and used RBOYs smart app. To be fair mine was a few simple temperate changes. I was able to create routines based on time to duplicate what I had working with RBOYs program. I dont like the fact that I have to create multi routines, but it does work.

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On this page, it was mentioned which SmartApps were going to be transitioned: https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/9339624925204#h_01GCZRZ4J25BX19926NGS04HHT

These are SmartLighting and Severe-Weather Alert.

How are the apps in the Labs section going to be treated @nayelyz ? Are they staying or going

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My webcore has stopped working. In the IDE, every || pause button greyed, and it’s not click-able. From my pistons, look like they stopped receiving events 2 days ago. I hadn’t changed anything. Webcore itself is able to create/edit pistons, and I can see them change in the IDE – just no real-time comms to the service.

Is “hobbling” SmartApps like webcore how we’re expecting this to all to start shutting down?

It’s been stated for over a year, and intensely for several months, that Webcore would stop working completely.

They’re not “hobbling” it. It’s being removed permanently. Along with every single custom SmartApp that’s ever existed. And that fact has been shouted far and wide. Via emails. Via forum posts. Via press releases. Via news articles. Via Reddit. On and on.

I’ll never understand why people don’t pay attention to things relating to their intricately set up/critical smart home systems…

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Sorry, I don’t have information about that, I’ll let the team know that you’re interested in getting more details related to that section to see if they can share something.

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