IFTTT and SmartThings (UK accounts)

General Discussion
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#41

I’ll read that as trolling and not trolling ;)… I get this is not fun for any of us - yourself included taking all the flack whilst trying to remain the upbeat voice of the brand… i guess the major difference being, we are paying for this experience and feel let down whereas you are being paid (i hope not in smart things just yet) to pick up the pieces but likely had your expectations set in the first place.

It takes a lot to keep coming in each day to a negative space and still want to help but I am sure if you can continue to communicate both into SmartThings management and back down to us many beers will eventually flow your way!

I still believe the ‘campaign’ [read: test] has been timed badly and hope you can delay this until the auth issues are resolved… and offer some additional kit back to the effected full retail customers. (hopefully & worryingly you should already know where we all live!! :wink: )

Ant

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#42

Just raised a ticket then found this doh! will keep posted of any reply I get.

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#43

Another one eager for this, I also have the same issue trying to connect SmartThings to my Logitech Harmony Hub.

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#44

Nooooo - I’ve just brought one of these for that reason… Is that not going to work either?

#45

Anything where SmartThings must authorise an outside service to use the customer’s SmartThings account to access individual devices will probably not work until the Oauth issue is fixed.

If you’re used to working with IFTTT, you’ve seen this a lot when you have to set up a new channel and the first thing it does is take you to your account screen for that channel where you sign into that service. That’s the authorisation step that is failing right now when you try to sign into your SmartThings account from a different service.

The reason is that your account is on SmartThings’ new UK server, but the old integrations are going to the US server to get the account information and it isn’t there. Consequently the integration cannot be established.

Very frustrating, obviously.

Among the services affected which do work for those with US accounts are IFTTT, Harmony, Amazon Echo, LifX lights, TCP lights, some WeMo devices, smartRules, SmartTiles, SharpTools, Grovestream.

I don’t know if the following are offered in the UK or not, but if so, they would likely also be affected: Ecobee, Jawbone, Netatmo, Weatherbug…

I’m not sure about Philips Hue. It might be OK because you’re actually authorising SmartThings to use the Hue bridge rather than authorising the hue bridge to use SmartThings devices.

Because privacy laws are different in the EU and the U.S., I imagine the account structures are somewhat different. It’s rarely possible these days to just mirror accounts onto another region’s servers. Once a company has committed to providing account services for Europe, they’re generally stuck with making everything work there.

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#46

Thank you for the detailed reply. It’s explained a lot.

Is there a status page on the Smartthings site anywhere showing updates on the issue?

#47

@JDRoberts - would the purchase of a US hub2 solve my Echo connection problems, if I obtain a US IP address, and configure the connection. I’m thinking yes, but wonder what will happen when I revert back to a UK IP - will I still encounter the same OAuth issue when I make a request, or will it work fine because all of the authorisation work has been completed.

#48

An excellent explanation. This will clear up a lot of questions UK users have/ will have.

Many thanks

Bob

#49

Hue is working fine, as you say, it just talks directly to the Bridge.

#51

I did manage to get Netatmo (Weatherstation) to connect to UK hub/account whilst I was still using my SmartThings Hub (boxed up for return now). If anyone is interested in also trying to do this let me know and I’ll try and recall how I did it. What I do know is that the method didn’t work for anything else Oauth, only Netatmo.

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#52

Take a look at the logs. You can clearly see the hub talking to the Hue bridge over the local network. SmartThings does not even have my Hue Credentials.

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Hue bulb without Hue Bridge?
#53

To clarify (hopefully)… Philips has two options in their app to control the bridge - LAN and cloud. To use their cloud integration you need to create an account on Philips website. The SmartThings-Hue integration uses the LAN (which is why you do not need a SmartThings and Hue account).

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#54

Excellent, thanks for the correction! As you know, this integration has changed a couple of times, and I link my Hue bridge to so many different outside services, I may just gotten confused.

The main point is still that the Smartthings/Hue integration is working in the UK and is not affected by the OAuth problem. :sunglasses:

#55

Just a heads-up that I am also part of the aforementioned ‘Insiders Panel’. We are invited to partake in trials of products from mobile phones and tech to dog food and air humidity removers. I was particularly interested in taking part in this research as I am very involved in cutting edge technology, but I have been a panel member for years. I was lucky enough to have been chosen, however the panel is less about testing the product and more about reviewing it and getting public interaction.

I found this post yesterday evening (my SmartThings pack arrived yesterday at about 4) after both IFTTT and Sharp Tools failed in authentication.

It does seem odd that they would send out these review packs in the UK when such an important aspect is missing. We are explicitly asked to talk publicly about our experiences, which seems like a bad marketing plan at the moment. We are in fact only given 6 weeks to trial the product! I’m happy to wait for a week or so for the UK product to be fixed but after that it will be hard to express an opinion without this really overshadowing the entire process. It really is a huge part of the product.

As a very, very simple example, turning off my lamp requires starting up the SmartThings app (that seemingly crashes at least a few times a day based on my experience) clicking through to my location, my room, scrolling to the device and then finally clicking the light itself. I could turn the darn thing off manually more easily than that. If IFTTT was working, DO Button would let me turn it off from a widget on my home screen and be SO much faster and easier (and less likely to crash).

As I say, I’m willing to hold off for a short while (you guys evidently have been waiting for this for a while longer!) but am unwilling to lie and say that everything works if it simply is unfinished by the end of the trial period.

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#56

SmartThings has its own widgets, so you can do that even without the IFTTT integration working.

There are literally about a dozen different ways to make things happen in smart things without having to navigate to the individual thing page. But finding them is not all that intuitive.

The following topic (this is a clickable link) may help.

#57

I had indeed found the widget on Android. Unfortunately it seems it has a minimum of 4x4 size and is mainly concerned with a list of options (turn light on then another to turn light off) rather than allowing a single important 1x1 on/off button. Maybe I have missed a setting but where home automation is involved, the solution needs to be as ubiquitous as it possibly can be and highly customisable.

However, this was simply an example. There are a number of more complex tasker profiles that I have in mind which are currently impossible.

2015-10-09 21.23.44.jpg754×1346 172 KB

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#58

Another disappointed new customer, ifttt is the most generic integration to control anything how can a home automation system not support it out of the box?

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#59

Supporting IFTTT integration is a choice. A number of home automation systems choose not to do that because they don’t want to be dependent on an Internet connection for their systems to run.

In the US, for example, Staples connect made stability and reliability their top priorities, because their target market is small businesses. They do not offer an IFTTT channel because they feel it would introduce unpredictability and they want their system to run even if internet connection is lost.

Other systems feel their customers understand that automation will only be available if the Internet connection is live, and they want to leverage the third-party options available with an IFTTT connection. So you get good systems that go either way with it. Choice is good.

Of course trying to support it but having it broken is an entirely different situation.

#60

Exactly my thoughts. If it wasn’t an option it wouldn’t be a problem, although I would be far less interested in using a platform that didn’t allow interoperability.

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#61

Quite poor to see this still isn’t working when the issue was raised a month ago, I’m looking to be able to use either IFTTT or SharpTools in order to better integrate. I’d be even more annoyed if I’d paid full price for this and wasn’t testing it for ‘TheInsiders’

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