I moved automations moved off of the “Smart Lights” App and into the new SmartThings app for half a year now. I have never had any issues.
In the past week or so, something has changed. My automations fire as expected, but when I have the option for the light to turn off automatically after X amount of time, The lights never turn off.
This happens for all my automations, not just a single one. I reached out to ST support and they haven’t provided anything useful. None of these automations write to the IDE logs, at this point I am really just curious to find out if I am the only seeing this issue.
You’re not the only one. I have an automation in the new app to turn on an exhaust fan at a certain humidity level and then turn off after 5 minutes. It NEVER turns off, even after the humidity level goes way below the value specified. I even let it run for 2 hours before turning it off myself.
I’ve given up on contacting support because they just can’t diagnose and resolve these issues at the level the ticket comes in at, and by the time it escalates I’m too frustrated waiting weeks for help. Sometimes just editing the automation gets it working for a bit, but then it fails again. It’s a shame that something so simple should not work, but then again the new app has taken close to 2 years to get to this point…
There have been a couple of community members who have reported problems with timers since the last hub update. In most cases they had to re-create the original trigger or the automation itself and then everything ran OK again. There was one situation where Delays still aren’t working properly. I don’t know if that’s related to your issue or not.
I do that practically daily… Works fine the first time the automation executes, but when it runs again and the device doesn’t shut off I get the call from my wife saying “SmartThings is broke again”. I just moved that automation back to my own app for now.
Interesting. What about deleting the whole custom automation and rebuilding? Mine worked all last night. In fact I forgot I had set it up to test and was wondering why my nightstand turned itself off when going to bed .
Delete/Re-adding the entire custom automation does nothing for me.
I’m torn between waiting this out or just writing my own SmartApp to handle this, hopefully the link @JDRoberts shared doesn’t mean my own SmartApp would have timing issues.
Well, I have the same problem here and re-created the automations - no luck at all. The automatic switch off function does not work and in the online logs, there is not even an entry that a timer has been started.
Pretty pathetic quality testing on the Samsung side (again).
Instead of using one single automation being triggered by the motion sensor, I start two independent automations (both triggered by motion detected)…
Automation 1. Switch light on
Automation 2. Switch light off with a delayed action timer (which miraculously works…)
Edit: I will probably keep it this way for my setup as it allows me to also switch off the smart plugs and not only the dimmer/switches that have the “and switch off after xxx minutes” function implemented.
Hopefully they will not break this workaround as well…
I’ve done that too. What reminded me to come back to this discussion was that my daughter just told me (again) that her fan was still running 2 hours after her shower. Humidity level was well more than 20% below what the rule was using to turn on the fan.
The automation is either not dealing with the “off” timer correctly, or it’s not properly seeing the humidity level drop below where I have it set.
Using my own SmartApp, all these conditions work fine to control the fan based on humidity levels and a timer, so I’m sticking what that app until ST get’s simple rules working in the new app.
I did pretty much the same thing, I was sick of lights always being on.
I didn’t feel like writing my own app (although a much better option) so I just moved back to the traditional smart lights smartapp.
Didn’t delete the automations in the new app (only disabled), in hopes/dreams that Samsung will someday get a clue and realize they made a breaking change to some users.
Anyone who is having these timer/shut off issues and is using official features in either the V3 app or the V2 classic should definitely open a ticket with support. The more people who report it, the more resources they will assign to fixing it.
I suspect that more people are having these issues than realize it because of the nature of the automations. We’ve already had a couple of community members say that it had been broken for several days or even a week before they realized it wasn’t working. And if it’s something like an automation to turn off the light 10 minutes after everybody leaves the room, you might not realize it wasn’t turning off unless you were specifically looking for that.
You can mention this thread to support when you open your ticket, but remember that they don’t officially monitor this forum, so you have to file a regular support request to get it into their statistics.
I am a newbie, I have been battling with this automatic off timer in custom automation only working for the 10 seconds options but no other standard option (I want to use 1 min)
I tried to use ‘Smart Lighting’ but it won’t allow automation that turns a light on when no motion is detected inside and door sensor is open and a set illumination
An update now the light turns of after 1 min, but it is turning on even if motion is detected on the sensors which the previous screenshot of the automation I sent indicates it shouldnt turn on if motion is detected in the 10 minute time frame.
Any thoughts of course of action? I have deleted the automations and remade them a few times.
@shankman You might want to make a thread specific for this, you might get more traction.
I am a little confused by your logic. I’m not sure i understand your endgame, this is the way i read/understand it in plain English.
If its dark out AND
There hasn’t been motion in the kitchen for last 10 minutes AND
There hasn’t been any motion by the front door for the last 10 minutes
You want your media room light on, and then auto off after a minute has passed?
If that’s your goal, then great. It just seems like an odd order of events to turn on any light (let alone your media room), and i want to make sure there is no issue in your conditionals.
Thanks John appreciate the advice, the title of this thread is my exact issue but I will try your advice.
Yes you are correct in your interpretation.
Essentially i’m just checking:
There is no one inside (as i’d expect them to open the door and have lights on)
Its dark outside
The front door is opened.
Then it will turn the light on in the media room (which is next to the front door).
Because its a ‘AND’ condition I assumed the order of the conditions would not matter.
Currently it is behaving, in 2 weeks I’m having 20-30 fibaro switches installed. My Smarthings will then get a run for its money - so far ive been testing with two switches only.
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