Local control Aeotec Hub

Does anybody know if there are any limitations to local control for smartthings using the Aeotec hub?

There are always limitations, can you be more specific?

For a device to support local control, it must use either an Edge driver or a standard Samsung SmartThings provided DTH that supports local execution.

As Groovy (DTHs) are on thier way out with groovy id reccommmend Edge drivers at this point

Now that let’s the device work locally but some functions of rules/automations still don’t support local control @jkp? I think you had a good list of which still were cloud? So if you include one of those functions or a device that doesn’t support local operations in an automation, the entire automation is cloud v. Local. (local automations are denoted by a little house icon in the app…)

Finally the app itself. If you manage to get local control and automation of a device… Realize the app itself talks to the cloud - NOT your hub. So it (the app) won’t be able to control anything in the event of an internet outage so plan accordingly with automations and hard buttons. Local control does not change this.

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@nathancu Ah. I have Vera which supports local control through the cloud and an IP address.

I want automations to run whether or not the hub is connected to the Internet.

Maybe I’ll use Ezlo, the new Vera.

I’m seriously confused about Smartthings.

I just want a bunch of scenes configured with Z-Wave devices.

Does the Smartthings Cloud support Z-wave using the Aeotec hub?

Yes. That’s How you get ZWave and Zigbee support.

In the original architecture, almost everything in Smartthings was cloud dependent. You couldn’t even change the mode without an Internet connection.

Overtime, they have increased the number of things that can run locally, but it’s still pretty limited under the old architecture. And in particular anything that was custom ran in the cloud.

Now they’ve announced a new architecture, edge, and more automations can run locally. But we don’t have all the details and it’s still in transition. Right now, the app still requires an active Internet connection and we haven’t been told one way or the other whether that will continue to be true.

So right now it’s confusing for everyone. And we’re all reluctant to read anything into the statements they do make because they promised us “local processing” once before, in the transition from the V1 hub to the V2 hub, and that turned out to be almost nothing.

And the new stuff has a lot of discussion about “API First “which would include a lot of cloud cloud integrations and some cloud hosted custom smart apps.

So we just don’t know yet.

If you want a system that you can be sure can run without the Internet except for away from home control, I would look at hubitat, Homeseer, or Vera from Ezlo.

And If you know that what you want is Zwave only, I would look at Homeseer or vera.

Smartthings has always put its own abstraction layer over the top of the independent third-party protocols like Z wave, and that has led to some significant gaps. See, for example, the following:

Smartthings is a good candidate for people who want multiple protocols, including at least some matter support. But if you know you’re going to limit your setup to zwave, I don’t think it makes the top three. Mostly because of those gaps.

On the other hand, if you want a system that can run your Samsung smart television plus a lot of other cloud based devices from major brands, then smartthings would be a better candidate.

JMO of course.

There are long time users who are seriously confused about SmartThings.

Samsung has discontinued manufacture of SmartThings hubs and sensors. Aeotec is the only source for “works as SmartThings hub” but not in as many countries as previously covered by Samsung.

The firmware that runs on the hubs is smack in the middle of being totally rearchitected. The cloud-hosted bits are going away in favor of drivers that run completely in the hub (at the edge… Edge drivers).

So basically everything that has to do with SmartThings is in transition. And then there’s Matter theoretically on the horizon.

If I were dipping my toe in the home automation waters for the first time this year, I’m pretty sure I’d steer clear of SmartThings.

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Some. Some are going to third party servers and will communicate via the API. There’s still going to be a smartthings cloud, it’s just not going to offer free groovy hosting like it used to.

Samsung smart appliances and tv’s, for example, will still be cloud dependent, and that’s a huge part of Samsung’s smartthings customer base now.

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