[Quote=“cmeans, post:1, topic:38289”]
I was able to set up a Custom monitoring rule, though my device is only seen as an Open/Close sensor…which I assume is why I can’t use it in some of the existing SmartApps that want a vibration sensor.
[/quote]There’s often a better Device Handler than the one that ST automatically assigns to a device. If you go into the devices section of the IDE ( http://graph.api.smartthings.com ), you can change the “Type” to a different device handler. If you want to detect vibration, the device needs to support the Acceleration capability.
[quote=“cmeans, post:1, topic:38289”]
I am a programmer, but I’m a little unclear how to use a custom Device Handler vs. a Smart App.
[/quote]You should be able to get a general understanding of the differences between the two by skimming the SmartApps and Device Handlers sections of the documentation. http://docs.smartthings.com/en/latest/index.html.
[quote=“cmeans, post:1, topic:38289”]
I’d have thought this would be a feature already in place, and not require any custom programming
[/quote]SmartThings falls short in this area, but there’s a custom SmartApp called Rule Machine that allows you to do pretty much anything you can think of without having to write any code.