With all the latest reliability issues, I wouldn’t connect the garage door or a space heater to ST. Imagine a space heater continuously running for 48 hours if you-re out of town, because a ST outlet decided to turn on by itself. No, thank you.
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For something like this, I would have a monitoring rule. Anytime the device turned on I would receive a message.
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I would normally agree although the context was with the current ST issues, It is possible that your monitoring rule would not work either (not sure that the state issues are fully resolved so rule could be corrupted), and even if it did you may be stuck far away and not be able to control the device if ST is acting up.
Better to just not trust stuff like heaters being on a automated switch, or if nothing else just remove that switch when you leave for any extended period.
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If you have a space heater with a thermostat control you can use that as a fail safe. I have a similar setup for my dehumidifier, I use external sensors to trigger it on and off, but if humidify drops below 50% the dehumidifier shuts off (setting on the dehumidifier). My initial intent was to use just the dehumidifier but it was running all the time and boy does it use power.
I would have a rule to turn on the heater at night (or nap times) and use an external sensor to turn it off/on. Then on the heater have it set maybe 2 degrees higher than I want the room to be, so if something happens it will never get too hot. That way you control when it can run, and still don’t worry about it burning up the house.
I also use a “Vacation” mode for any extended aways (over a day) and no rules should fire.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but my partner splurged on a luxury heated concrete bench for the garden. Horribly energy inefficient and inconvenient because it takes 20 minutes to warm up. But a good use for SmartThings.
Yet if SmartThings fails to turn it off, I wouldn’t trust SmartThings to alert me it is still on either. Sure… It’s good to try to install a rule or SmartApp for this extra backup monitoring, but it is just as likely to fail at the moment.
Do not put anything that is hazardous or a big energy or water waster on this Platform.
I sure do see a lot of people complaining in this thread and others about presence reliability. I use a combination of 360 and SmartThings key fobs and rarely have a issue. 0 issue with key fob. We have two iphones running on 360. One Android phone running 360 and two key fobs. Occasionally I have to go in and refresh the 360 smart app.
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Strange that ST would remove that ability. It’s pretty useful being able to alert someone with a flashing light. The example given was a clear example of using lighting to get attention. Using the flasher smartapp rather than having the ability available across the system as a standard option is very restrictive.
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This is more a limitation of mesh networking protocols than it is a limitation of the SmartThings platform. Because of the nature of mesh networking, no message is guaranteed to arrive, and the order in which messages arrive isn’t guaranteed either. The faster you want something to blink on and off, the less reliable it will be (because you’re sending lots of on and off commands). So as awesome as it would be to have this ability, it will never be reliable in the way that it was implemented with “The Flasher” Smart App.
Many lighting devices, however, have a “blink” or “flash” command built in. You can expose these commands with a custom device handler. I use my Aeon Microswitches to alert me of all sorts of things. For example, if someone opens the back door of my house while the side gate to our back yard is open, the back porch light blinks very rapidly.
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Exactly. I don’t think we should need to expose these ourselves. Capabilities like this should be made available to us by default. If a device doesn’t have it then you cannot select it.
Oh I totally agree, and I’m sure that’s the plan eventually. But the reality is that the stock device handlers only get updated if they are totally broken (and even then… it can take a while).
The Aeon Microswitch handler, for example, should include a parameter change to tell the device to automatically report its local state changes. It doesn’t. So without a community handler, you’re reliant on whatever was set at the factory (which can vary between batches of switches it seems). That has been like that for 2 years now!
I would agree that it would be nice for devices on the “Official works with ST” dth’s to expose these capabilities at least in the IDE preferences I never really understood why they didn’t implement a configuration for the device similar to vera where there is a list of numbered parameters that you can enter values into (albeit it is more user friendly to be able to name those parameters and give options for them). Hopefully someday we get to that point, but first and foremost this platform needs to fix their imminent issues.
Sorry master, request not understood by rule engine: do you mean by 5 PM or by the 5th of the month? bwahahaha
There was one point on the V1 hub when you could flash lights from a smart app. People did use it for notifications. I’m not sure what happened to it.
Even now, though, if you have Hues you can do it easily through IFTTT, which I think still meets the challenge as IFTTT is an official and easily used feature. 
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And if you have Lifx bulbs, IFTTT is even better, as you can pick different bulbs. With Hue, you can pick only one or all 
I agree. Never run a space heater unattended ( that is, without an adult in the room). Those things kill people. It’s not about them running for 48 hours – – it takes less than five minutes to start a fire with one if the wrong stuff is next to it. ( and that includes some carpet cleaning materials and the spilled beer that you were trying to clean up. 
)
Space heaters can be a quick way to heat up a room. However, they can be as dangerous as they are convenient if used improperly. Space heaters cause 25,000 home fires a year, and 6,000 emergency room visits, according to the Harvard University Environmental Health & Safety group.
Approximately one-third of all house fires nationwide happen during the cold home-heating months between December and February. Equipment that is intended to add a little extra warmth, such as space heaters, is the leading cause of these fires, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPE).
Thanks @JDRoberts for reminding me why I built the performance tracker. I am happy to report that I attempted to reconstruct most of @alex 's 2013 use cases and then some, and tested them for a month.
Here are my comments on each:
2013
When I arrive at home my garage door opens appropriately depending on what car I am driving. It then closes behind me automatically once I’ve parked and enter the house.
2016 :
failed using Life 360 connect my garage door opened several times while I was away from home
2013
The lights come on and everything else wakes up or sets itself according to my preferences automatically.
2016
Total success. Have not had one failure in a month
2013
When I leave the doors (including garage) let me know if I forgot to close or lock them
2016
Partial failure, ST missed couple of notifications, especially on the locks
2013
and then lock and close themselves as needed.
2016
Partial fail - some of my locks misreport status
2013
If no one else is at home, the thermostat automatically turns itself down to save energy, the lights go off, and it enters a secure mode.
2016
Partial success (consistent as long as Life 360 presence wasn’t involved)
2013
My toddler’s room isn’t insulated well and so gets cold at night when his door is shut. When that happens a virtual thermostat kicks on that measures the temperature in his individual room
2016
Success using a custom app. No failure in the month
2013
a space heater automatically to keep it within 1 degree of the desired temperature.
2016
Not that adventurous!
2013
When we wake up in the morning, the secure mode automatically turns off (it knows that motion started in our bedrooms and emanated outwards thus it’s not an intruder) and the lights come on in the kitchen. The coffee pot starts brewing so that it’s flowing by the time I get downstairs
2016
Total success. No failure for a month
2013
My cat gets fed automatically on a schedule.
2016
My cat is lucky to get fed 
I love my cat but I wouldn’t spend the money on an automated feeder
2013
When my wife and I are watching a movie in the basement or doing something else when the kids are supposed to be in bed, the lights flash wherever we are as a warning if the kids are up and around.
2016
Total success
Lots and lots of smaller and larger examples, some with mixed results but many that have been rock solid for a month.
Overall, ST is redeeming itself slowly. In a month, I have not had one schedule failure, or routines not completing or modes not changing or excessive lag or …you get the point. I am happy!
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How can this be achieved? How does smartthings know where the parents are in the house. So you just flash everything downstairs?
Actually I like colors better, because I can tell which of the little ones are moving. But yes, they all go off in our bedroom and livingroom.
I know this is an older post but I was looking for something else and stumbled on this
For anyone with the space heater in the kids room issue, I found a good non-ST solution a few years ago… When we moved to a new house we had the same problem with the toddler’s room becoming an icebox in the winter. There’s no way on earth I would have put any kind of conventional space heater in her room because I knew it would get knocked over, covered up, etc… What I did for her was a ceramic wall heater off Amazon and listed right with it as a “frequently purchased with” was a programmable thermostat outlet… (like this one https://www.amazon.com/Eco-heater-NA400S-Wall-Mounted-Ceramic-Convection/dp/B004FAMXL0/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1469749792&sr=8-5&keywords=ceramic+wall+heater)
This solution was GREAT especially because she was pretty much only in her room to sleep. I could set the thermostat outlet to warm her room up about a half hour before bedtime (the ceramic heater takes a while to really get the whole room warm) then let it cool off a bit while she was sleeping since she’d be covered in blankets, then start warming up again a little before wake-up time and run for a bit before shutting off for the day until bedtime again. It even let me do different times for the routines on different days of the week so we could adjust for different sleep/wake times on the weekends. She’s 6 now and could handle one of the blower-type heaters but I have no intention of swapping out either the heater or the outlet since the combination has worked so well…