Home, night and away location mode? How do you set these in the new app?

Apps & Clients SmartThings (Samsung Connect)
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I’m a new user and have a basic system set up with security sensors and a few switches. I’m also using the new app.

The one thing that is driving me crazy is how the heck I can have any control over the location modes like night, home, and away. I’m trying to automate and create scenes, but have no idea how to define any of those modes by time, etc.

Lastly, does anyone know how you can activate the smart home monitor through any scene or automation? I don’t see it as controllable when I try to crest a scene or automation

Thanks

Ps. If there is a smartthing for dummy page or post that walks me through this kind of basic stuff it would be appreciated.

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Welcome!

I’ll let others answer the question about setting the location mode, because the new app is not VoiceOver compatible, so I really haven’t been able to use it at all. But I’m sure someone will be by to help.

As far as SHM and the security mode, read the following thread and you should get a better understanding of what’s going on there. The topic title is a clickable link:

Change SHM without phone?

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You can set modes via the custom automation creator.

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In the new app, you can change modes with Custom Automations; in the Classic app you can do it using Routines.

  • If you want it to change on a schedule, you can set your If condition as “Based on time of day”.
  • If you want it to change when you come and go, you can set it “based on a member’s location” and then choose when any/all selected members arrive / leave.
  • If you want it to change when a switch turns on/off or a contact opens/closes, you can set it “based on a device status.”
  • If you want it to only change when in a certain mode, you select “based on this location’s mode”.*

You can stack any of the conditions above, including multiple of the same type - so you can say “if the front door opens AND the living room light is on” or “if John or Jane arrives home AND it’s between sunset and 10pm” then change the mode to Home.

*If you select the mode as an If, then you can’t change it as a Then, which seems reasonable but means, for instance, that you can’t restrict your arrival automation from running twice if John arrives first and Jane arrives later. The Classic app allows this, and you may be able to work around it in the new app but I’m not familiar enough to know how.

Routines in the Classic app allow you to set that app’s SHM status, but you don’t have the same option in the new app (and the SHM there is independent of the Classic SHM).

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You can also set modes within a scene.

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Hi @MarkTr ,
Is there a way for a 3rd party smartApp for the new version of SmartThings to read or change the locationMode?

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The location mode is the same (shared) between the SmartThings Classic app and the new Samsung SmartThings mobile app… so you can make changes in either app or any third party SmartApp.

Here’s a quick recording I did showing the mode being changed in the new Samsung SmartThings mobile app on the left and you can see the changes instantly reflect in the Mode tile in the SharpTools.io dashboard on the right (and vice-a-versa).

Edit: You may be thinking of Smart Home Monitor (SHM) which is different between the SmartThings Classic app and Samsung SmartThings app. Third party SmartApps have access to the SHM associated with the SmartThings Classic app but not the new STHM associated with the Samsung SmartThings app.

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It seems Sharptools uses the older version of smartThings API to access the locationMode which seems to work for new version as well. However, my question was whether it is possible using the newer version of smartThings API which requires registration of Cloud connector app using either Webhook endpoint or AWS lambda .

It seems we only have access to general location information. I just wanted to confirm that new ST plans to restrict change of locationMode via the cloud hosted smartApp.

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The following thread about the new API may be more relevant to your needs:

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sorry I don’t have answer, but rather more questions. Likewise new user. I’m trying to control multiple thermostats in home, away, and night modes. (This house has 8 thermostats) Samsung tells me I can’t do it in scenes. But "maybe in automations. If so I’d need a device (switch) to control three settings. Does anyone know of such a device? Or is there a way to do it from the smartthings app without needing a physical device (switch)

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Hi
Is it possible to show the location mode on smartthings app screen ?
Gr
Pascal

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Nope. You can see it in the upper right menu.

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Something could by strange over here, for some reason in IDE and Classic App I can find different modes, in some time I update them in IDE environment some months ago, now Im trying to migrate to New App and finde a Mode=“En casa” instead IDE and Classic App mode “Home”, so how can could it be? I am thinking about SHM and STHM access has to be the same data base for my location? (IDE reading).
Anyway, in order to synchronize and avoid failures in routines and automatization, I change the mode name in IDE from “Home” to “En casa” to assure IDE, New App and Classic App have same locations modes, some guessing about what happened here?

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The Location Modes should be shared across the new app and classic app.

SmartThings Home Monitor (STHM) in the new app is completely separate from the Smart Home Monitor (SHM) in the Classic App. The status is not shared between SHM and STHM. And and SmartThings has not exposed STHM via API (see below for a workaround though). :slightly_frowning_face:

You can find more details about the differences between the new app and the classic app in this post:

And you can find a workaround for controlling STHM using virtual switches (or location modes) here:

Edit: I just realized you might be the same Carlos J from the STHM Virtual Switch post I linked to above. I wonder if your hub being an ADT device could have anything to do with the oddities you saw? Either way - are you still having difficulty with something or you got it working after manually renaming things?

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Hi dear Joshua, thanks for your kindly help." The Location Modes should be shared across the new app and classic app." is my guess, thats why I wonder how I can see different modes options between Classic App Vs New App, as screens I attached (“Home” in Classic Vs “En casa” in New), but anyway I just entered in IDE and update “Home” mode name to “En casa” in order to synchronize what I see in IDE/Classic/New, I had to reenter the “En casa” mode option for some routines in Classic App as “Chime when Disarm” for Aeotec 6 siren, because since the change of mode name, the routines lost its trigger based on “When system mode changes to…”. Now the Classic App displays “En casa” mode instead “Home” mode, now IDE/Classic/New have the same modes.

The issue with the ADT/ST hub is in fact there are 2 systems in one Hub, ADT and Smartthings, they communicate each other, when Classic and New apps are installed, they recognize this kind of hub and integrates an ADT Dashboard to handle alarm panel: Something happens here: the SHM can trigger the ADT/ST status, but not viceversa, for example if I Stay arm in SHM it triggers Stay in the ADT/ST panel, but if I disarm the alarm in ADT/ST dashboard nothing happens in SHM (it stays in Stay status), so basically you need to use only ADT/ST dashboard to handle alarm panel. All security devices you want to be handled by ADT/ST system are specific for this purpose and
you can handle them via ST too, but if I want to change the hub (to ST or Hubitat for example) I think they will not work… =(. Im trapped with ADT/ST ecosystem because special devices.

To make things better I installed ADT Tools 2 (great app) to synchronize ADT/ST and SHM, also integrate an external siren to whole system and its working fine. ADT Tools created 3 virtual buttons to handle ADT/ST and I am using them in my Sharp Tools Dashboard.

But now I have found a possible solution for New App (I am testing now…) Automatization for:

- If STHM changes its status to X then change Location mode to X:
After STHM changes by itself ADT/ST alarm status, updates the location mode to keep consistency

- if Location changes its mode to X then change STHM status to X
When Classic App, Sharp Tools Dashboard or Google Assistant changes ADT/ST alarm status (and automatic routines in Classic App change mode), then STHM is updated to keep consistency

In that way I think I can use STHM in New App to trigger ADT/ST alarm status (if I want to use New App)* and when I want to use Sharp Tool Dashboard to Arm/Disarm the alarm using the virtual buttons (ADT Tools 2) will change STHM status for New App purposes. Until now seem is working and everything is Ok with Sharp Tools Dashboard

By the way I am migrating manually, I do not trust too much in the automatic migration process, I have read some issues about it.

  • I am looking avoid to use ADT/ST dashboard in New App because ir really really big and visual ugly.