I must be missing something here... Apps have no features

[dfpowers (Dan Powers)]

After having switched from Iris which had some nice features for controlling of devices and having been on ST for about three weeks, I feel I must be missing something…

For example I have an AEON Multisensor. It shows temp, light lux and records some of that under the recent tab but it doesnt chart or graph anything. No customization, nothing. I expected some additional features. Maybe the ability for it to turn on a light if the light lux is below a certain level… Nope. Lux is just information. Has no controls or commands for automations. Same for it’s temp sensor.
I have an energy monitor also, but havent hooked it up, but I am guessing its not going to do much other than show exactly how much energy is being used. Again, probably no charting or recording or graphing.
Who makes the interface for each connected device? Are they asleep at the wheel or just waiting for someone else to write the code for their widget?

I have two different types of RGB lights and each controller looks different in the ST interface. One has presets the other does not, and neither allows you to store a custom color value. Are these interfaces made by Samsung or the makers of the light controllers? Fibaro and Lightify in my case. Both are crude and super basic.
I just expected so much more. My Samsung camera has a microphone, why not a RGB or Hue party mode that has the RGB lights create a light show based on the music or sound the microphone hears? Is it just that this is all so new and nobody has thought of doing this stuff yet, or am I completely missing something here?

Thanks for the feedback!

[JDRoberts]

This should help. In SmartThings the devices are separate from the rules. This allows you to use the same device in different ways under different conditions.

( this is a clickable link)

A Short Intro to Scheduling/Device Control/Rules in SmartThings Classic

(March 2018: All of the following applies only to the SmartThings Classic app. If you purchased your hub after March 1, 2018 and are using the new “SmartThings (Samsung Connect)” app, creating rules works differently.) You’ve got your hub. You’ve got some devices. Now how do you schedule what happens when? SmartThings doesn’t have a rules engine/scheduler, so there’s no one tutorial for how to do this. But it’s an open platform, and there are about 12 different ways to set up various kinds of schedules. Some require custom code, some don’t. A “scheduler” in this context is anything that causes a networked device to perform an action, even if it’s just to toggle on or off immediately. (Network engineering definition, forgive me. ) (Note: as of April 2017, the original author of …

[tpip]

@dfpowers

It shows temp, light lux and records some of that under the recent tab but it doesnt chart or graph anything. No customization, nothing. I expected some additional features. Maybe the ability for it to turn on a light if the light lux is below a certain level… Nope. Lux is just information.

You can turn on lights based on light levels.

@dfpowers

Are they asleep at the wheel or just waiting for someone else to write the code for their widget?

Yes.

@dfpowers

Are these interfaces made by Samsung

Samsung bought into smartthings and it labeled as Samsung, but they are pretty much just there in name only. No product support.

The “routines” in smartthings will do a lot. Another ST app that may help is smart lighting.

An app made by a community developer may help but it’s pretty involved. It’s called CoRE and has a big following here.

CoRE and Piston Rules Engine, first design steps

Continuing the discussion from [Rule machine - as per the app developer, this app is no longer available for new installs, distribution, or support] As for designing your own rules engine smartapp, sounds great, here is a new thread for that to keep people from getting confused. This thread is for discussion about desired features and development of the core smartapp. If you’re just looking for the rules engine code for CoRE, it’s in the following thread: If you need assistance setting up a piston after you have installed core, as in the following thread: You can continue to report bugs, request features, or discuss design ideas in this thread.

[JDRoberts]

Core is good, but definitely complex. Probably overkill for the initial use case you described, but you might want to get into it if you want to see the full power of the system.

FAQ: What is WebCoRE? (And what was CoRE?)

CoRE (now WebCore) is a very powerful community – created rules engine for SmartThings. It allows you to set up stacked conditionals like “If A then B but only while C and not if D.” Setting it up can be quite complex, but there are many community members who will be glad to help you. For example, here is a piston that one member created to notify him if the dog had already been fed twice that day and he picked up the dog bowl for a third time. He needed this because he has a large family and people didn’t always remember whose turn it was to feed the dog. [image] The original version of CoRE Has now been replaced by a new version, WebCoRE, which moves the data entry to a web interface. This allows for flexibility and an architecture that requires more memory than is av…

If you just want a quick way to turn on lights based on the sensor values, try smart lighting:

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/205949776-How-to-create-lighting-automations-with-Smart-Lights

[dfpowers (Dan Powers)]

Thanks for the replies. Looking into your input and your suggestions. Also just found that by logging into the smartthings webpage and finding your hub you can see code! Well that appears to be a pretty well hidden secret! Now to learn how to make some things happen in a more advanced fashion. Disappointed that nobody is actually writing interfaces for the ST app. Custom, user definable color states seems a pretty obvious need for RGB lighting. Going to see if I can decipher the code for some of the existing presets and modify them now that I know where to go to find the code. Just thought this was going to be a much more slick environment than it is. It seems pretty clunky and hacked together but maybe that is what it takes in this evolving technology world.

[tpip]

There are actually a few members here that right code for the community. CoRE, askAlexa, Smart tiles, the extensive amount of apps from @ady624, @RBoy, @michaels, @tonesto7, @desertblade just to name a few. There are more apps written by the community developers alone than I could ever use. There are a lot more community developers than I am aware of, these are just a small sampling of some of them.

[JDRoberts]

There’s a very nice third-party dashboard app called SmartTiles that might be what you’re looking for . Lots of people use it. It will run in pretty much any web browser. It’s customizable so you can choose colors, tile sizes, and which devices show on any one screen.

www.smarttiles.click

There’s even a thread in the forums where people discuss specific customizations and hardware options they are using with it:

Dashboard Theming (Custom CSS) and Mounting Hardware Ideas

Someone else mentioned the idea and I decided to create it. Thanks to @625alex we have a very sweet dashboard. However I want to see others ideas on themes or CSS code they implemented for their setup. Maybe even mounting ideas.

[Automated_House (Jimmy aka SmartThingsBeat)]

Your use cases are pretty basic. Have you been to the Marketplace > SmartApps section of the app yet? Smart Apps are what you use to actually perform actions with your devices.