Hub Firmware 17.11 Release Notes

Due to the lengthy nature of this SmartThings Hub update, we are going to be performing this update in a different fashion than normal and rolling the update out in groups over a number of days. We are also going to share a bit more technical detail than usual - feel free to post your questions below and we will do our best to answer all of them.

First of all, this update will be rolled out over multiple days. You will receive an email at least 24 hours prior to the update being applied to your Hub; the email will contain a time window when your update is expected to be applied. Please refrain from asking when the update will be available for your Hub - due to the quantity of updates, we won’t be able to respond to these requests. To verify your Hub has updated, please see Is my Hub’s firmware up to date?

On to the good stuff - what makes this update different? Up to this point, updates to the Hub have been performed in an incremental fashion; this means that each update builds upon the other updates that came before it. The advantage was that updates could be smaller since only the changed portions of the system need to be transferred each time.

The new update is a full image. Now, when your Hub receives an update, it will contain all the information needed to run SmartThings software. This first full image may take as long as 15-30 minutes. However, going forward, the switch to a new update will be almost instantaneous - beta users have reported not even noticing that the update happened. This means that there is no longer a small window where power loss could corrupt your Hub. It also means that if a file becomes corrupted on your Hub, it can be detected and a valid image applied. In the worst case of a catastrophic failure, the new update includes a “golden” image of the Hub firmware that can be used to attempt a recovery.

This update also includes:

  • Additional diagnostics for detecting and repairing memory corruption, and reporting failing hardware early.
  • The ability to enable firmware updates for all devices except lights or all devices including lights. Lights will turn on automatically after they update so you may not want to enable automatic updates.
  • Additional firmware updates for OSRAM lights (US only)
  • Welcome Code and factory reset capabilities
  • Numerous stability improvements and bugfixes.

We hope you agree that the above benefits of this update justify the extended downtime.

29 Likes

Outstanding! I’m looking forward to the enhancements.

The recovery is currently limited to the same hub.

Other than instant future updates. What else does the version help do? Does it make it easier to add new features and functions?

Or has that not changed.

1 Like

The new version doesn’t directly make new features and function easier, but it does make it much easier to roll out new features to a limited group for testing. We took advantage of this to run a very successful beta program for this release. The new version also makes it possible to roll back changes if things really go wrong (fingers crossed we don’t need this capability)

4 Likes

Now that’s smart! :smiling_imp: :wink:

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Cool!!! :sunglasses:

Is that “golden” firmware technically a network-enabled boot loader? Does the hub have any nvram/eeprom for a boot loader, so that in case of corruption, the boot loader can download the firmware and reflash the main software nvram?

Can this new firmware serve cold (and free) beer?

5 Likes

This really sounds promising. The platform has been great for me with 270+ devices and still adding… :slight_smile: … If you ever need any testing for someone with high number of devices…then do count me in,…

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Pretty close. The bootloader has the ability to trigger a recovery, which is stored read-only in eMMC (Flash). That leads to the golden image running and getting a known-good copy of the hub firmware from the network and installing that.

Still working on that one. We had a prototype but the beer was warm… back to the drawing board :smile:

7 Likes

Keep an eye open for future hub firmware beta programs - we’d love to have you!

2 Likes

I can say as someone with a similar device count, this beta works really well.

Thank you for the answers.

I could duct tape the hub to my HVAC outlet, that could fix the problem. At least in the summer. Hot tea in the winter… :smiley: Anyways, nothing duct tape can’t fix!

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Especially nuclear duct tape!

Oh that’s hard to find, they don’t have it at Lowes and when they do, the $15 off coupons never work…

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Well, one of my hubs just got updated to 17.11 … didn’t get bricked so all is well from what I can tell. One more hub to go … and who knows when that’ll happen.

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Mine has been updated for a few days now… Had to check it to make sure it was done.

Good to hear. We rolled out to a random set of 1000 pre-selected random North American (due to time of day) users today and things generally worked out well.

As noted, we’ll send out emails at least 24H in advance of when your hub will get updated once we decide for certain. The plan is to do a larger group on Wednesday and, assuming things are still looking good, do the rest Thu/Fri of this week. If we are seeing any significant problems, however, that could change – so, no promises. Regardless, expect email communication prior to the update.

Future updates will likely not be spread out this much but we are using some extra caution due to the nature of this update.

3 Likes

I am a new user with smartthings. I have not even got my hub yet. This new firmware sounds really good and I look forward to starting to use it soon. I picked smartthings because of this open communication with the manufacturer and the end user / developer community. Just seems like a fairly healthy, vibrant community. Please continue down this path as it can only help the overall platform.

1 Like

When you say firmware updates are available for devices now, does this mean OTA updates for example the Homeseer Wd100+ that supports OTA firmware updates will work with smartthings now or is this a different Support?