I’ve been reading through the documentation for writing SmartApps on the new platform, and from what I can tell there is no local execution available for this. Architecturally it will just never be possible, since the app logic itself is hosted outside of ST, so the hub can’t utilise it without a connection to the internet. The idea of the old Groovy stuff is that basic operations could be done locally.
Firstly, have I missed anything here? Secondly, anyone know if there are plans to let the two concepts (old Groovy method and new self-hosted method) coexist going forward? What I like about the former is that you can give non-technical users apps to do very simple things (think Smart Lights) that will work even if the net goes down.
The ability to self-host brings a ton of additional flexibility, but losing this feels like a major drawback.
In the old system, locally operating groovy was distributed as part of the hub firmware. Literally the only thing that runs locally is the official smart lights feature and a few bits of the official smart home monitor feature. All custom code runs in the smartthings cloud. So there’s not really that much difference as far as customer – written code.
The new system still has official features that can run locally, I believe. But they aren’t giving customers access to the hub processor ( and they never did).
Nope. They always said they wanted to do that, but they always said they couldn’t do it yet. They’ve been saying the same thing for three years now.
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
5
Interestingly one of the ST folks told me recently that they have renewed interest in making custom DTH’s run locally. I hope they were serious about it.
User-supplied local apps & DTH’s are the next evolutionary step. That said, I would be very happy if they just opened up local LAN access to devices and event notifications. I’d love to have a Pi running as an app server with my automations running locally on it, and no cloud dependence except for cloud-connected devices and the mobile app.
This is the kind of thing that is going to cause me to scrap my SmartThings hub for Home Assistant on a raspberry pi (or maybe Hubitat). I should have known better than to trust a Samsung owned company. Having the most basic functionality always executed in the cloud is such a drag for these kinds of tasks.
Looks like Hubitat has potential and I love the idea that it is locat, but I saw many negative reviews about functionality (no scenes?, no motion sensor support?, no event viewer?)
Not sure where you saw the negative reviews, most of the reviews I’ve seen of been positive as long as the person has a strong enough technical background to use it and as long as they talk to folks in the Hubitat community. It definitely works with motion sensors. “Scenes” means a lot of different things, So it would depend on the exact context.
They always said they wanted to do that, but they always said they couldn’t do it yet. They’ve been saying the same thing for three years now.
There are still too many unsupported devices right now, but I do believe that platform has a lot of promise.
It definitely works with motion sensors. “Scenes” means a lot of different things, So it would depend on the exact context.