I made a terrible mistake - bought V2 before reading forums/reviews

I remember looking at Wink a while - it seemed so tacky…are things better/more advanced now?

Currently stalled at one of the setup screens for 5 mins now…telling me to “please wait…”

I will buy anyone’s V2 and my V1 is available. No one has taken me up on that yet. People will complain about anything, and that’s fine. If there is valuable info inside the complaint, it can be useful. They want more, well don’t we all in the first world.

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Wink is certainly better now than it was nearly a year ago when I returned the Relay. Far from perfect though. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. I run them both now. Wink is used for most lighting and HA aspects while ST runs the parlor tricks. I had to make the switch back to Wink because ST just would not operate consistently for me no matter what I tried or changed within my home. Even last night it decided it was going to ignore my routine that puts me into an ST override mode despite working for a week straight. So now, ST pretty much just plays sound events on Sonos, and it does that with anywhere from 75%-90% reliability depending on the week.

[quote=“oezeadi, post:18, topic:24074”]

  • No instructions on how to exclude light switches (but it is very easy
  • just turn switch on, then off) Excluding the LFM-20 garage opener is ridiculous…got it to work after 20 mins [/quote]
    Exclusion/Pairing is device specific. I usually just google the manual if I forget. Having just finished up redoing my stuff to v2, the only thing that tripped me up was getting one of the 12 evolve LM switches to exclude - one of them just would not let go. So I skipped it, came back at the end, and then it worked fine (with the better mesh established :smile: )
    Anyway, just plow through it, and then you’re done.
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Just piggy backing on your post for others. The often neglected support site has explicit directions to exclude/include, reset/add for most of the supported devices. In fact even the app shows these steps if at all we click on the instruction manual for most of the devices. Just an example from the app for Cree’s. Scroll further down and you have instructions for ST.

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I just migrated to V2 a few days back. It was a long process but generally went okay. Over all V2 Hub seems to be running well for me. I’d say everyone of my disappointments have been a result of software, not hardware. Specifically, SmartApps that ST did away with. However, I’ve either had my own versions of those apps or been able to find a community version that works as well or better.

[quote=“oezeadi, post:18, topic:24074, full:true”]

  • Good instructions from ST here ( ), but having no migration tool for launch was a ridiculous decision[/quote]

Alex talks about this decision and why it was made somewhere. I don’t have a ready link, but the short version is this: 1.) He didn’t want new users buy old hardware just because the migration tool wasn’t ready. 2.) He wanted those who were able to handle the migration to have access to the new hub if they wanted it.

Devices can’t be deleted from the hub until they are no longer being used in a SmartApp. This is where I had the most problems myself. ST kept crashing on me after just about every SmartApp uninstall.

As others have said, these are device dependent, so instructions would include 100+ devices. Easiest to check manuals of your device or google it.

Did much better than me. Took me about 3 hours I think.

My biggest issue came in trying to reset some of my SmartApps and decided how I was going to do it: Built in functionality or Custom Stuff? I tried to stick with custom as much as possible, but two biggies just would work:

1.) Power Allowance… This one is an important one for me. I suspect it will eventually come to SmartLighting, but right now it isn’t part of it, so I have to install a community version of it.

2.) Smart Home Monitor - Security: I would LOVE to have this work, but right now it’s lacking one small and one major thing that made me switch back to SmartAlarm: The small thing: No notification when alarm state is changed. As I usually leave before my wife and kids in the morning, I like to see a notification that they set the Alarm. The major thing: No delay before the alarm goes off. There HAS to be some sort of delay to allow the routine to run and shut off the alarm before it triggers. Totally useless without this for my setup.

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Nobody will buy from you? How about $70 for it :slight_smile:

that’s kind of sad that your experience has been so poor

I found how to do the LFM20 - the process is ridiculous to discover, but every easy to actually do once known (it is a super fast double click on the button to exclude)

I concur everything you have said - same exact experience thus far

UPDATE (DAY 3):

  • I have had a busy weekend so I have been doing a couple hours of install each day
  • The ‘Smart lights’ is totally better to INSTALL, but completely useless TO ME without POWER ALLOWANCE! Who actually sat around a table at Smartthings and said, “OK, we have a new hub and new software - what should we eliminate? Power allowance? The most favorite thing for most people about smart lighting? OK - LET’S DO IT!”
  • Garage doors installed but TOTALLY useless without the ability to do routines with them
  • My D-Link Cameras: HAVE NOT WORKED SINCE DAY 1. Was this just a placeholder for this much-talked-about “future update”? DON’T advertise something that you haven’t tested
  • The new app thus far: I actually really like it - especially the “feature device” thing for each Room.
  • The battery backup feature is REALLY COOL and much needed
  • The local storage feature is REALLY COOL, but I am waiting to see how reliable this truly is

In the meantime, this will do that function for you.

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Thanks - already using your code! Found it yesterday. Upset that it is just one big code - would be nice if it was for individual lights (i.e. ability to code each light separately vs. grouped)

Oh, you want a version that you can keep adding more lights/time pairs?

Yes, exactly…would make it much more flexible

Not more flexible, maybe just easier to install a number of times. It’s actually more complicated. I’ll look at it, but not too hard, because I’m sure that ST will fix Smart Lights soon.

Well, unless I’m mistaken I need to have the same amount of time (e.g. 2 minutes, let’s call this X) set for all the lights I select, right? But, quite often different lights need a different X

I hope they do update it. It’s one of many things though, so I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t get prioritized, because there is a TON missing from the software

Of course. You simply install additional instances of the app. There is another subtlety about this: If you select multiple switches, the time will be from the last one turned on. You would do the same in Smart Lights if they hadn’t left it out – a separate lighting automation for each switch to turn off after some minutes.

As far as I can tell, they only left out two elements from Smart Lights that used to be available in the shortcut apps of Lights & Switches: this one (Light Power Allowance), and Turn of after motion stops (not paired with Turn on with motion). These are tiny snippets of code, a few lines each. I think they’ll show up in the next release of Smart Lights, whenever that is.