Preview | SmartThings-managed Edge Device Drivers

Are you sure? That’s not how it works on most other platforms, where you can activate individual end points without any issue.

I’m not saying that smartthings did it correctly, but just being done with endpoints shouldn’t be an issue under the protocol.

Using the smartthings example of a power strip with individually addressable sockets, I would expect Alexa to be able to turn on each one individually.

But again, I don’t know for sure how it was implemented in the new smartthings architecture.

@psbarrett @Automated_House

1 Like

As far as i understand no. It can only be used with the device fingerprints currently found in each beta driver.

Please someone correct me if am wrong.

Child component is like the architecture, for example, you can see in the Ikea 5 buttons.
Each of the 5 button is created as child ‘component’, and these components are rendered in one detailView panel altogether.

You cannot set individual names for these components, as you can’t do with Ikea 5 buttons.

In the same manner, if the multi gang switches are created with child ‘components’,
there’s no way to name those individual child component switches, like ‘hallway light’, ‘livingroom light’, which means, there’s no way to voice control those child switches.

In the addChildDevice() function in groovy DTH, there’s a argument named ‘iscomponent’ to choose whether the child is created as component or separate child device.
It seems that Edge Device Drivers don’t have any method to create separate child device, and that could be problem using voice assistants.

2 Likes

Well that sucks. :disappointed_relieved:

But I find it hard to believe that the multi component device manufacturers like @TheSmartestHouse and @Eric_Inovelli would find it acceptable if their multi button devices were not controllable by Alexa on a smartthings platform. And so far they’ve sounded pretty positive about the new system. Hmmmm….:thinking:


@erocm1231 , do you know if the components of a multi button device like the Inovelli Fan and Light Switch using an edge driver will be exposed to the voice assistants like Alexa and Bixby?

1 Like

@jody.albritton can you shed some light on this?

1 Like

@jody.albritton @smartthings can you shed some light on this?

If child “components” switches could be showing up as “separate switches” in Alexa or Google Assistant, the voice controlling might be possible, because, you could set the names of the devices in Alexa or Google Home app.

However, I use Samsung’s Bixby quite a lot, because it supports a lot of SmartThings capabilities so I could control all the details of the devices connected to SmartThings meticulously. I have 2 of Galaxy Home minis in my home.

Unlike Alexa or Google Assistant, which provides their own platform interfaces to rename or rearrange devices, Bixby is directly connected to SmartThings, so there would be no possible solution for Bixby.

2 Likes

@Augusto_Geovanny_Mar @Andremain

At present, you can’t switch non-edge drivers to use an edge driver, it will need to be joined with an edge driver fingerprint present. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the generic support at the base of the “category drivers” will support a device like the Aqara without some special support (I have no experience with this particular device but if it is like some of the other Xiaomi devices which are not Zigbee certified, they have some issues that won’t be magically fixed by using edge drivers, so YMMV).

If you or someone else wants to start playing around with that, the source for the drivers are available which you can start with as a base for development as you see fit in keeping with the license. SmartThingsCommunity/SmartThingsEdgeDrivers - drivers/SmartThings/zigbee-water-leak-sensor

1 Like

@SmartThings Any chance we will see more drivers for the beta? This is too limiting.

1 Like

Aren’t there simply two problems with component devices?

  1. Although components have names and labels, just the same as devices, there is no way to set the component labels dynamically at the ST end, and as yet no way to directly refer to components without going via the device itself. It may be that the need to support legacy devices has prevented this.

  2. The components are neither being mapped to multi-endpoint devices on the voice assistants, if indeed they have such a concept, and nor are they being mapped to individual devices. It is not clear what the obstruction is to one of these happening.

It is not that child devices are really necessary, it is just that components still haven’t effectively replaced them.

1 Like

Got it! Thanks for the clarification

Yes. More drivers and more examples coming.

That is awesome news! Zigbee switches and buttons would be immensely appreciated and if i may ask, will something like the Fibaro Double Switch 2 be converted by you or Fibaro themselves?

@Mariano_Colmenarejo this is of interest to you my friend.

1 Like

We have already been working with our partners and we will release the official versions of the Edge drivers when they are ready. The same tooling that is available to us and the partners is also available to the community. Right now the focus is on the developer experience for creating and deploying the Edge Drivers. Over time there will be announcements about specific official Works with SmartThings brands targeted at non-developer customers.

2 Likes

I would so love to have control back for my Fibaro RGBW 441 before Halloween, my fingers are crossed
I am definitely a non-developer customer
I do have a question though, does the current UI now allow for non standard layouts, the fib 441 has multiple switches for different affects and multiple options within its settings to change the devices behaviour, is that something the UI can now handle

1 Like

Thanks a lot Jody. May i ask if Fibaro is on board?

search in the documentation leads to the invalid pages

https://developer-preview.smartthings.com/edge-device-drivers/search.html?q=bind&check_keywords=yes&area=default

https://developer-preview.smartthings.com/edge-device-drivers/zigbee/zdo/zdo_commandsundefined?highlight=bind#st.zigbee.zdo.bind_request.st.zigbee.zdo.BindRequest._serialize

404

Thank you for bringing this up, I’ll report it to the corresponding team. What you can do for now is deleting the last part of the URL from “undefined” to “serialize” so it just calls the zdo_commands.html file. Eg:

https://developer.smartthings.com/edge-device-drivers/zigbee/zdo/zdo_commands.html

And then, select “Bind Request” in the menu.

Sorry, @orangebucket! Thanks for your input :smiley:

1 Like

Yes, something has gone tits up in the URL - ‘undefined’ should be ‘.html’ I believe.

Sigh, beaten by Nayely again …

3 Likes

@nayelyz is it possible to make and edge driver for something like the Honeywell Evohome, or must that be done using the smartapps integration?