Multi Sensor Angle Determining open/close? (like the garage video)

In the “Garage Door 2” video, it shows using the multi-sensor to determine if the garage door is open or closed based on the orientation. In the video, it clearly changes the tile from “closed” to “open” as the door opens. Does anyone know how to accomplish this? I only see orientation changes on the detail page and no way to change the open/closed status. What am I missing?

I read in the kickstarter comments that you need to email support@smartthings.com and ask them to switch it to that mode for you. They also said they will be giving the user the ability to change that in a future update.

Thanks, Cory! I emailed support a few days ago and have yet to hear back from them.

Yeah, I’ve got two or three emails into them for over a week now. They’re either overwhelmed, understaffed, or perhaps both. :slight_smile:

Strange, I usually hear back in a few hours, to a day max.

Same. They answered within a couple of hours on Saturday and made the change for me almost immediately. Great service so far!

You can always use the chat function as well. E-mails have been both quick and slow for me but their chat service works well if I need something quickly.

I sent the email and support gave me Dev access - it’s cool.
Anyway, I changed the device type to "SmartSense Virtual Garage Sensor Button"
That seems to have done the trick.
When I hold the sensor vertically, the button says ‘Open’, when I hold it horizontally, it says ‘Closed’.

Question - when I press the icon, if it says ‘Open’ it will turn yellow and say ‘Closing’ (if current state is Closed, it will turn yellow and say ‘Opening’).

Trying to figure out what is going on here - what event is fired etc…

@foneguy2 My guess is that the device ID you switched it to is something capable of actually opening & closing a door (probably why it is labeled as a button) which is why it has a toggleable feature. Sounds like it works well for what you need it for though.

I used the app and chatted with someone. They fixed mine right on the spot.

You can go to ide.smartthings.com and log in to gain developer access. Then go to “devices”, select the multi sensor that you want to use, click edit, and change it to “SmartSense Virtual Garage Sensor Button”. Then when the multi sensor is facing vertical it will display closed, and when it is horizontal it will display open.

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There are 2 options to the Multi-Sensor when it comes to being used as an Open/Close indicator.

On the Website’s Device Edit page (start here and drill down to your multi-sensor: https://graph.api.smartthings.com/location/list)

The default “Type” is ‘SmartSense Multi’.

If you change it to “SmartSense Virtual Open/Closed”, you will get the indication of the garage door’s position (I have my Multi-Sensor attached to the inside of the top panel of the garage door so that the long side is vertical when closed. I do not know if the sensor works in any other orientation.)

If you use “SmartSense Garage Sensor Button”, you get the same Open and Close notification, but the icon in the app also becomes touch sensitive and will show “Opening” or “Closing” depending on the initial state of the sensor. I suspect this will allow the inclusion of a relay module to be associated with the Multi-Sensor and control it from the same button. However, my relay is on backorder, so I can’t test this right now.

Hope that helps.

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@Jason thanks for the perfect explanation of how to set this up. Thanks!

I followed these instructions to convert my Multi Sensor into a “SmartSense Virtual Open/Closed”, after doing that, I open the ST Android app and the multi sensor is now represented by a blank tile, when clicking on the bottom right corner (to go to settings) the app crashes :frowning: is this a bug? The same happens when I select “SmartSense Garage Sensor Button”.

I’ll log onto the digi parts finder. I remember looking for a flex sensor once and came across something that provided a linear analog output relative to angle which would tell you open/closed and how much (depending on how it gets mounted I guess). The only other thing that comes to mind is to have a bunch of magnets on the door or the track and wire them up parallel so you would have a different resistance value based on which one along the line was closed. I think Parallex did a paper called something like “one wire, many switches” a while ago using the basic stamp to read analog values you could put a bunch of switches in the circuit and just use one analog pin to read them.

It seems to work but after changing state it reverts back. Tried both the garage and virtual open/close. Anyone?

I’m still not getting the desired results - I’ve tried setting the type to garage door and to virtual open/close but the state change is still moly momentary - it lets me know the door is open when the angle changes but revers back (on the UI) to the opposite state after a few seconds instead of staying in the open (or closed) state. Any thoughts anyone?

Anyone??

@Jason’s tip was right on. Only difference was that for me at this time the Type option was called, “SmartSense Garage Door Multi”. This might have tripped up some others and they may change the name in the future as well.

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