I just had to uninstall and reinstall the app AGAIN because it kept crashing after launch. This is the second time.
Add me to the list of people wondering what “Add a set” is. It does nothing.
ALSO – the integration of the “Smart Lighting” smartapp setup into the “Add a device” process is messed up. The “Smart Lighting” app supports many rulesets – with just one installation of the app, you can add as many rulesets as you like, which is great. However, if you setup lighting automation during the add-a-device workflow, you get multiple copies of the Smart Lighting smartapp. I did this during the first half-dozen or so switches I added, and when I flipped over to look at the SmartApps tab, I had 6 copies of Smart Lighting.
I uninstalled all but one of them, then re-created my rules in the one remaining, and everything works fine. So now I just have to remember not to let any apps install during device setup.
Oh and the app (or new hub?) sucks as far as getting updated switch statuses. It’s showing “on” for switches that have been off for more than 12 hours.
If you go into a room, choose a device, and look at the smart apps that are using that device, everything looks fine. You will see the smart lights solution app listed under the name you chose when you were setting it up. (I called this one “shelf lighting.”)
However, if you go to The things view and choose the smartapps tab from there, you may see the “smart lighting” smartapp installed several times, once for each device, and you won’t see the custom name you chose.
There is no need to have multiple copies of Smart Lights installed. Each instance of Smart Lights can support multiple automations. So the best course is to use a single instance of Smart Lights, and put all of the automations in that one. In the master list of SmartApps, there would be just a single version of Smart Lights, which when you open up, you will see the full list of named (or default named) automations.
The problem is occurring during migration, because when you go to add a new device, it walks you through setting up the lighting wizard by installing a new copy. So it walks you into the bad practice.
Correct, but if you add a new Smart Lights rule from the screen you get after adding a new device, it makes a whole new instance rather than a child of the existing install.
The better plan is to not install any apps during migration. Wait until the entire system functions as is. Then go back and add automations and apps.
The mobile app has always led you to a list of apps to install as the last step of adding a new device. It’s just that 9 times out of 10, you should ignore that step, and just move on…
I understand what you’re saying, but here’s the thing…
Best practice in network engineering has always been to completely configure battery operated mesh devices immediately after joining to the network.
The reason is that almost all of these devices are designed by the manufacturers to stay awake for a somewhat longer interval than normal immediately after joining so that they will correctly process the parameter setting commands.
Otherwise you could run into a very common problem where you want to set three or four parameters and the device literally keeps falling asleep during the process so that only some of the parameters get set.
There are even a few devices, although not many these days, that stay awake continuously from joining until they receive a configure command. Which can completely use up the battery if you don’t send one.
Anyway, while I do understand the logic of waiting, it’s not what is typically done in a Z wave or Zigbee mesh network. You join the device, do whatever you need to do to get it set up, and then move on to the next device.
While the same wake up interval doesn’t apply to mains-powered devices, it’s generally easier to have the same general procedure for each device.
The configure() commands are sent on include for z-wave and zigbee device types, except for weird custom ones where you have to go into the IDE to change the Type. For the rest of them, this process you are referring to happens when you include the device to ST. This may not be the way other systems function, but this IS how ST functions.
The adding of automations and apps happens entirely in the cloud. The device is not even touched.
So, again, don’t do the automations until everything is included and working. This was what @Alex did in his miracle 3 hour migration. Once you have the devices on ST, you can do the rest at your leisure, and don’t even have to be home to do it.
Have any device type developers figured out how to get those nice fancy device tiles? All of my stuff is looks old now. I jumped around the ST device types in the template page and saw a couple of changes. I tried to copy them to get the updated icon, but no dice. Any ideas gang?
FEATURE Request:
It would really be helpful to be able to swipe down the notification center to see the current Mode of the home and possibly a brief summary of the Smart Home Monitor status at the top of the SmartThings widget.
