Migration to V2 - Hurdles and Best Practices

Wow man. Thank you so much. We are pouring our hearts into this, and indeed I feel like everyone is going to see a serious increase in pace of improvements now that we have the multifaceted V2 Hub/Devices/Cloud/Apps/Certification (aka the pig in the python) out the door.

One little thing as an example that will help us move faster is that developers can now impact the core product and UX. Smart Home Monitor itself was built using our IDE and is an example of how the community is going to get equipped to really move the experiences forward with us. We are just hardening the core platform and tools right now and catching up with documentation, but we’re on a mission to open it up further as well.

Alex

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Great info. Minimotes with Smart Lighting and Routines and SHM will indeed all work locally, so you’re good there. Send info to our support team on additional devices you’d like to see run locally and we’ll work hard to make it happen wherever possible.

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It took me way more than 3 hours to migrate 40 devices. I didn’t do it in one shot, but it took a couple of evenings and a good part of Sunday. I’d estimate 6 hours at least, which is on average 9 minutes per device.

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I can’t physically use minimotes. That’s why I use the SmartenIT 3 toggle device.

So unfortunately, the opposite of good.

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That’s my personal approach too. Still working on migration tool for those who feel differently and for the replacement Hub scenarios, but I actually enjoy and benefit from the clean setup and finding better ways to approach things. Feels like home improvement or decorating which I also enjoy refreshing from time to time.

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I will ask our certification team about the status of making the larger toggle run locally. Stay tuned.

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As I said I was personally surprised at how quickly it went for me. I am not claiming that will be the same time/device for others though perhaps a video recorded competition is in order someday :wink:

For those who don’t want to migrate yet, that’s why we are making sure V1 Hubs keep working great while they wait for the migration tool. But I believe I made the right call in getting out the door when it will benefit those inclined to migrate despite the pain so that they could have it faster, and because brand new customers will also have a much better experience than on our previous app.

Thanks!

Alex

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@alex! It’s really nice to hear from you in the community. We so do appreciate it. And I think you still do qualify for the Guineas book of world records for the speed! Congrats and we all luv ST and started an appreciation thread to commend each and every one in the ST world. Good luck.

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I think the LAN verification is the best way to go. Most people’s wireless network will work from their driveways and Wifi is very reliable. I know some community members have hacked their routers and run scripts to simulate this behavior and I really was not looking to go down this route if possible. Might I suggest a poll in the community forum with the simple question “Is Mobile Presence Reliable in your household?”. I would be very curious on the results. I don’t have permissions to start to do a poll native in the forums.

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@alex,

Again, big thanks for taking the time to address these concerns.

I understand from previous threads that this url will show what smartapps are running locally.

https://graph.api.smartthings.com/localInstalledSmartApp/list

Would you care to share your list?

I understand if some names have to be redacted…

Also, can you describe your usage? Do you automate everything you can, or do you find yourself using the app to toggle devices, check status, etc.?

Again, thanks for stepping into the line of fire. Passion for this product is fierce. We all want to see it succeed.

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Sorry Bruce. It pains me to hear those things, but I do think we are improving pretty rapidly right now and also have more resources to get more done in parallel than in the past. We’ll keep trying to do better.

Regarding migration time, that’s why I clarified. I think it went surprisingly fast for me since I’m about as knowledgable as they come, and know that for many it will not be nearly as seamless. That said, I believe in my call to move forward with the new product vs waiting longer.

Onwards,

Alex

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I think the coming Lighting “Sets” this week together with Smart Lighting and Routines will be 10x better than the old Lights & Switches stuff. I’d love to hear about your use of other dashboard modules and help make sure the improvements are clear enough for you.

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Would voice activation work well for you, as a side note, if we could make ambient voice control possible with good reliability?

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That’s disappointing. Of course we were never promised any specifics and we’ve just been speculating on how it could work… But @Hagins definitely implied more dynamic functionality during a Dec Conference call this year.

Appreciate the clarification, but it looks like Hub V2 has a long ways to go to meet the expectations (that we admittedly mostly set ourselves).

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Good idea will consider the poll or just a straight up customer survey. My own personal experience has been that mobile presence has improved over time as I do my annual phone replacement, but agreed that wifi feels like a very reliable additional indicator. Issue may be whether the OSs enable us to check for that while app is backgrounded, but will check in on it again with the team as it has circulated as an idea from time to time.

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One of the best things SmartThings ever did was the integration with Amazon echo. It’s fantastic. @tyler and I have talked about it a lot.

I also have the harmony home control and with the combination of Echo, smartthings, IFTTT, Harmony, and the extensive use of virtual switches in SmartThings, I now have granular voice control of my home entertainment system, something I never had before.

So I can say “Alexa, turn on Netflix,” or “Alexa, turn on ESPN” or “Alexa, rewind Roku” and everything works great. I’ve used a lot of voice technology since the wheelchair thing, including at big medical centers, and I haven’t seen anything like this. :sunglasses:

SmartThings makes echo 100 times better because of the availability of virtual switches and the IFTTT channel. I use that every day, all day.

But in terms of unusual situations, the echo is dependent on the Internet for voice processing. That’s true of pretty much all good voice processing these days.

So if the Internet is out, I have to assume voice is not available either. Which is why I need the toggle switch for my Plan B. :sunglasses:

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It’s got the processing power to do it. We will get there.

Side note, I hope y’all appreciate the incredible focus we’ve put into security and privacy (ie with the new camera functionality). In some cases, those security implications and our dedication to being the most secure platform are making us have to be steady in our rollout big new features such as local processing when it comes to developer submitted apps and DTHs.

We’ll get there.

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Got it. Good feedback.

Thank you. Happy to do testing, as long as my wife hands me over her phone, which is always a struggle :wink:

Will do. I will think through a separate post on that to describe my own evolving usage in some detail.