Multiple Household Members

General Discussion
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So far, I am loving my SmartThings. There have been learning-curves, but they were insignificant compared to X-10 and Insteon. Kudos to the ST team for a great app, great gear, and great service yesterday when I had to un-pair a Schlage lock.

I’m in the “playing” phase, trying to figure out what works and what I can do. For example, I have 4 separately powered LED under-cabinet lights. I want one of them to come on when it gets dark in the kitchen regardless of whether anyone is there, and the others to come on when we walk into the kitchen and turn off when we leave that room. Pretty sure it’s doable. Research is half the fun.

However, I do have a question. I was away this past weekend, and had set things up to turn on a light when it gets dark out. When I checked my cameras, I found it hadn’t turned on. Which leads me to believe that the SmartApps run off the phone, not the hub.

If that’s the case, I may have an issue. We have a household of three: my wife, my 11-year old son (who does not have a cell phone), and myself. I am often away on weekends and of course I take my phone with me, but may not always be connected to the interwebs. If the logic runs off my phone, it would mean the front door does not unlock when my wife comes home (if I give her the smart tag). That would be quite a bummer. It would be much easier if the apps were run from the hub instead of from the phone.

It’s quite possible I’m misunderstanding, and I actually hope I am. If I’m right though, I may need to install the ST app on a spare (IOS6-compatible) phone/pod/pad and leave that in the house.

I also have not yet been able to get my wife’s iphone detected as a presence option. It picked up mine and the smart tag, but not hers. I must admit I haven’t tried very hard yet, so don’t read too much into this.

Can anyone answer if the SmartApps run off the phone or off the hub? And has anyone else run into this issue and come up with a solution?

Thanks!

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I also have not yet been able to get my wife’s iphone detected as a presence option. It picked up mine and the smart tag, but not hers.
I haven't tried this, but I've read in other threads that this is a known issue: you can only have presence working for one phone.

As for the SmartApps: they should be setting up functionality in the cloud.  Your phone just sets it up, and isn’t needed for the actions to take place.  Did you see if the action was working before you left?

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Thanks Gray! Your input is always very helpful. Yeah, it did work Thursday and Friday night, but not Saturday while I was away. I’ll check my SmartApps and see if that’s where I messed up somewhere. It didn’t work today either (using the Sunrise/Sunset SmartApp). I’ll try some things out, wait for darkness, and let you know.

As for the additional iPhone, I hope they either add the capability to add more iPhones or Joplin their store already!

Then again, no big rush, because I just found out that in order to install the Schlage lockset, I’ll need to fill in the void currently holding the 1920’s hardware. So, first some woodworking, then lockset, and then, by the time that’s all done, I’m sure they’ll have an option for me.

Next: I have two wall sconces that aren’t on a switch - power is always to the lamp, and that’s where I switch on and off. Looking to install some non-dimming in-wall switches… The fun never stops!

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I think in general things might not be working with 100% accuracy yet.  I have a support ticket in because rather mysteriously, yesterday morning my Once a Day app sent an on signal to the cat feeder smart outlet, which worked, but its off signal was ignored.  I manually turned it off, and the two feedings since have worked fine, so I’m not sure what that means.

 

I have the same issue with door hardware, but I think I’m going to avoid the woodworking and just install a deadbolt above the old lock.  I just have to convince my wife it’s really worth the extra $100 to go Z-wave or Zigbee…

Oh, and regarding the lamps.  I started a thread in Connected Things about my attempts to retrofit my 1939 house’s lighting.  The issue with the  non-dimming switches, at least the reasonably priced GEs, is that they require a neutral.  One suggestion which could be great if it works (but likely wouldn’t) is the Intermatic screw-in modules.  I’m guessing they won’t fit in your sconces, but if they do they could be a simple solution.

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@Gray I just got my kit and have been having a blast playing with my Schlage Z-Wave deadbolt. I never would had thought locks could be so much fun. I set everything up and told it to lock when my presence sensor left the house…then walked about 6 houses down the street and waited. Nothing happened. The app still showed me home…confused I waited some more thinking maybe it had a long timeout…still nothing. Finally I hit the beep button and my fob started beeping…the range on these things is insane. After I turned the corner, and walked another block it finally got out of range and everything worked as expected.  It also has the door unlocked by the time I get to the door no matter how hard I try to beat it.

It does seem to take exactly 3 minutes for the fob to fall off the network when you are out of range and to lock the door. I could see this being an issue for some people if they live in a bad area…or are just paranoid. I however have two 100lb German bred Shepherds I work with in Schutzhundand and consider the deadbolt protection for the burglars more so than the house haha.

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I’m still getting intermittent results on my Sunrise/Sunset SmartApp. The mode will change but the lamp won’t turn on. Not quite as reliable as it is presented. As for the wall sconces, there’s an Insteon in-wall version that will work without ground. If necessary I can run a new wire to the sconces, but I’d like to avoid…

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Yeah, I have been trying to figure out a way to have the bathroom lights come up to a preset dim level when motion is detected late at night, but full brightness at any other time. So far, I haven’t had much luck.

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I highly doubt the logic runs from the app rather than the hub given there are only certain things Apple allows a background app to do, like use GPS. Also, if the logic did run from the phone then things like alerting you when a door opens and you’re in away mode would not work.

Do you have your lamp action assigned to a mode, or is it set to all modes?

-Vince

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The SmartApps don’t run on the phone OR the hub; they run in SmartThings Internet based service (“in the cloud”). The hub relies on its connection to the Internet to send events to and receive commands from the SmartThings SmartApp service.

Similarly, the app on your phone interacts with this central service - to configure SmartApps there, receive information and events from it and to send geofencing events when you use the phone as a presence sensor.

SmartThings have indicated that they hope to move some event processing capability down to the hub in future (allowing some SmartApps to continue functioning in the event of loss of Internet connectivity), but for now its all cloud based.

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The SmartApps don’t run on the phone OR the hub; they run in SmartThings Internet based service (“in the cloud”). The hub relies on its connection to the Internet to send events to and receive commands from the SmartThings SmartApp service.

Similarly, the app on your phone interacts with this central service – to configure SmartApps there, receive information and events from it and to send geofencing events when you use the phone as a presence sensor.

SmartThings have indicated that they hope to move some event processing capability down to the hub in future (allowing some SmartApps to continue functioning in the event of loss of Internet connectivity), but for now its all cloud based.

Yep, I experienced this last week. Comcast in my area(1/5 of the state) went down for 12 hours. During that time, nothing would fire or function.

However, the really bad aspect was that all the events were queued up and fired the moment the internet returned. This is bad because my doors unlocked during the middle of the night. I was happy that I was awake because I could lock them back.

Either smartthings needs to move some of the processing to the hub OR put a time out parameter that when commands are X amount of time old that they are not executed. In this case, executing 30 some odd commands 12 hours later is pointless.