Help for a StaplesConnect Transplant?

Hi Guys. I finally made the plunge from StaplesConnect (SC) to SmartThings (ST).

I’ve been using SC to simulate a Home Alarm systems for the last two years. Things have worked flawlessly, until the last 2 weeks. Things have started to go “wonky” interacting via the cloud with SC. Also, even thought the event triggered, the system wouldn’t come out of Away. This, coupled with the email I got two weeks ago (interesting timing) that Zonoff shuttered it’s doors, and no-one has any idea what’s going to happen to the webinterface.

Figured it was time to jump ship while it was still easy to exclude all my devices from the webinterface.

So I’ve paired all my devices to ST:
Motion Sensor
Door Sensors
Leak Sensor
Schlage lock
Linear Siren
5 GE Dimmers
2 Ecobee3’s and 2 remote sensors.

And created a bunch of rooms, setup the “Smart Home Monitor”, and defined the Goodbye/I’m Home/Sleep/Awake routines.

Besides some basic automation, I’m primary using to alert for unauthorized access. (I’m not expecting ADT type service, so hopefully I’ve got my expectations low enough)

Things I need help with:

  • How do I add the app to my wife’s phone?

  • I used to have SC setup to switch to “HOME” when the Schlage lock would open. Essentially by unlocking the door, the alarm would get shut off. This worked amazing, since my wife, kids, and i all used codes. But it also covered the oddball case when my parents would use a key to come into my house. I can’t seem to figure this out using the ST “Smart Home Monitor”

  • Schlage lock management. The keycodes were setup via SC. I can’t seem to figure out how to do this with ST.

  • The Remote sensors for the Ecobee pickup the motion sensors in the “Smart Home Monitor”, but the motion sensors in the Ecobee itself do not. Thoughts?

  • Devices not pairing correctly. My Linear WA105DBZ was paired, but has shown Unavailable since the moment I’ve paired it. Not sure if I paired it correctly. Where can i diagnose this?

  • Devices marking themselves “Unavailable” Looks like I’ve walked into the newest crisis of SmartThings. I have two devices listed as Unavailable, that shouldn’t. One is my door lock, and the other is a utilize plug. If I cycle the plug on and off, it seems to come back, so it’s “talking”. Strange, on the door lock, if I hit the lock “tile”, nothing happens. but if I hit the BIG tile, it changes to Locking, and then starts communicating. (The Siren from above might be this status, but it’s 100dba, I’m not setting it off to test this theory)

  • Stuck Device. When Pairing/unpairing my devices, I broke one of my door sensors. I replaced it with a spare, but it’s constantly reading Open. (Well, right now it’s Unavailable) anyway to troubleshoot this.

  • Camera’s. SC had some of the old Dlink camera’s intergrated (942’s) My wife would view them via the SC app, but that’s all they did. I had moved to Milestone’s Xprotect Go server, with an additional Hikvision camera. What’s a good way to approach this? I’ve seen references to Blue Iris. Xprotect does have an API. All I want is to be able to see the video. Either natively, or launching somethng else. I wasn’t looking to use the camera’s as motion sensors, since that didn’t work so hot with the SC platform (SO Many false positives)

Thanks for the help. The biggest change I can see from SC is that ST has an active community, where SC had none.

Welcome!

I’m having a rough day today, so I’m not going to be able to give you a very detailed response, but I just wanted to say hello. :sunglasses: Also, I’ve moved this two projects so you can get individualized responses based on your own specific set up.

I’m sorry to hear that zonoff has died, but hopefully you can get something comparable set up since as I understand it you do have mostly Z wave devices. We will need to know the exact brand and model of most of your devices, as it will make a difference.

As far as locks, the official integration doesn’t give you code management. Fortunately, there are two very good and very popular alternatives.

The first is a free option, just called “lock manager.” By Erik Thayer. Very popular. If you haven’t used custom code in smart things before, it’s pretty straightforward: basically you copy the authors code and then you paste it into your own account. Here’s the FAQ for that process:

So now the question is where do you find the code to copy? Most of it will have an author thread in this forum in the section for community – created code. The problem is that the search for this forum sucks. :disappointed_relieved: (Sorry, but it does.)

So to address that issue, there are Quick browse lists in the community – created Wiki for three areas: smart apps, device type handlers, and project reports. That way you can jump straight to the smart apps for locks or the project reports for mailbox notifications or whatever.

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Quick_Browse_the_Community-Created_SmartApps_Forum_Section

Saves a lot of time and aggravation.

Back to locks. Remember I said there were two popular solutions? In addition to lock manager, which may be all you need, there is an independent developer, Rboy, who has a whole bunch of code behind a paywall. Some of it is very sophisticated, some of it is almost identical to free options available in the forum. But he does provide direct support as well, and there are a lot of people who feel the license fee is worth it.

His site is listed in the third party App Store section down at the bottom of the quick browse lists. And he has a popular smart app for locks. So that’s another option.

Anyway, between one of those two options you should be able to do pretty much anything you want to do with the locks. :sunglasses:

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As far as devices being unavailable, my recommendation would be to turn off device health. You don’t need it, as there is a community created option, simple device viewer (on the quick browse list for smartapps under “wellness check”) which does even more than the official feature, and doesn’t break anything else while it’s doing it. :wink:

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/214529303-Device-Health

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Your wife will have her own smartthings account, but will have guest access to yours.

Also, if you’re willing to consider a $30 license fee, there is a very popular third-party dashboard app for SmartThings which is definitely worth looking at

( you may have started to notice a pattern here. The SmartThings platform is very powerful and versatile, but it’s not always obvious how to access that power, nor is it all available through the official features. Fortunately, this community is creative, helpful, and happy to share. Some developers charge for their work, Many share it for free, but unlike Staples, which was a very closed system, much of the power of smartthings gets unlocked when you start using the third-party add-ons. You don’t have to, so that’s up to you, but there is a lot available if you’re interested. :sunglasses: )

I did hint that I saw some of these issues while browsing the forums. Hence the “next Smartthings Crisis” comment.

For the record, Device health appears to be Off on my account. So no easy answer there.

Thanks for the response. This is a slightly “different” forum feel than I’ve experienced before.

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Now that I’m home, I can answer @JDRoberts more completely
Actual List of devices:
Lock: Schlage BE469IR
Motion Sensor: EcoLink PIR-ZWAVE2
Functional Door Sensor: EcoLink DW-ZWAVE2
NonFunctional Door Sensor: Aeotec DSB54-ZWUS
Siren: Linear wa105dbz-1 (Manual says -1, Receipt says -2. I believe the -1)
Light Switches: GE 12724

Not connected yet, but sitting on the shelf
GE 45633 LCD Remote
ZXT-120 (Zwave to AC IR extender)

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The Aeotec sensor can be added as either a secure device or a non-secure device and this in itself tends to cause pairing problems. Too often people end up with the device which is expecting one message format and is receiving the other and that’s where you get the stuck problems.

To pair it as a secure device it will have to be very close to the hub at the time of pairing, but if I recall correctly, that’s a better way to do it now. So I would try that.

See the user manual for instructions on secure pairings.

The GE 45633 cannot be used as a button controller with SmartThings. Some people do use it to control other zwave devices that are nearby, but getting it set up can be complicated. Search the forums for more discussion.

I assume the ZXT 120 is the remotec IR thermostat simulator used with air-conditioners? If so, it should work fine, but you will need a custom device type handler for it:

For the siren try the following DTH

I removed the Aeotec, and now I can’t seem to get it to pair. :frowning: I’ll try it MUCH closer to my hub. I’m pretty sure my Siren (which was also a repeater) is non-functional right now, which means it might be why the Aeotec isn’t working well, it might be too far from the hub.

I had no plans for the GE45633, it was required to make the ZXT120 work with my old Staples Connect.

The siren is tricky to mess with, since it’s 100dba, and it scares the dog. Seriously, she goes an locks herself in the bathroom. I’ll see if I can get to messing with it Saturday when I can put her outside for a few hours.

Thanks for the links to the Wiki I’ll be playing with Lock Manager. Seems like it will get almost all of the features I was looking for on the lock.

Also found this to get the camera’s in the app: Still need to find a better way (Blue Iris is still on the radar I guess)

The only thing I’ve got left on my list is:

  • The Remote sensors for the Ecobee pickup the motion sensors in the “Smart Home Monitor”, but the motion sensors in the Ecobee itself do not. Thoughts?
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Success on the Aeotec Sensor. I had to exclude it a second time. (This might have been the issue the whole time, but i had already successfully excluded it), re-paired it, and now it works correctly.

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Question on DTH’s. Specifically for the Schlage Lock one’s. If I use a Custom DTH, which seems to be required for most of the SmartApps, do I lose the local mode ability? Or is this more a question for the DTH developer?

Seem to have answered my own question. It appears from the IDE interface that my lock is no longer listed as a local device. (I confirmed it was before I switched the Lock Handler)

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So it seems the devices that are coming up as Generic Zwave are the ones giving me the most trouble. The previously mentioned Siren, and now my Remote Outlet.

It’s a GE 12719.

I primarily use this device as a repeater, but it keeps coming up as “unavailable”

Of course, I recognize that this might be the previously mentioned Smarthings “issue” that is ongoing.

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At the present time, no custom code can run locally. They said they’d like to change that in the future, but for now that’s the way it is.

Some of the stock handlers can run locally, but not all.

Just closing out my Zwave questions.

I had Zwave Mesh issues.

  • My Linear alarm, when I pulled the faceplate to hit the reset button when I first paired it, twisted the power wires causing a short, and ran the battery down. Figured this out when I went to exclude / repair it and saw the sparks.

  • The lock and the outlet Most likely were using the Linear alarm as a repeater.

  • Also, I made a horrible mistake, and placed the SmartThings Hub ontop of my Wireless Router. Found the SmartThings article that says that is pretty much the worst thing you could do. Moved it to the same location I formally had my StaplesConnect.

All my Zwave issues went away, and stuff started working pretty reliably.

Glad to hear you got it working! :sunglasses:

It sounds like you probably already know all of the following, but just in case, here is the FAQ on setting up your network. Read post 11 first, then go back and read the full thread.

Actually the problem with positioning the hub too close to your router is that zigbee works on the 2.4GHz frequency so that can be easily drowned out by your wifi. Z-wave shouldn’t be affected in the same way as it’s on a different frequency.

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I’m pretty sure it was the Linear Alarm being offline that killed most of my reliability, since the lock was a good distance from the Hub. (20ish feet, and a couple of walls)

I figured it can’t hurt having a little separation, but I am aware that Z-wave is in the 900Mhz range.

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