Questions from Wink user thinking of moving to SmartThings--multiple locations?

I actually had to power cycle after the firmware update last night. I had no control over my Hue lights (oddly smartlight rules were working but I couldn’t control via “things”).

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Not being able to delay or postpone updates is a big issue for many people but smartthings is still primarily a cloud-based system and they can and do push out updates whenever they want. :disappointed_relieved:

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You do have the ability to reboot your hub from IDE when you aren’t home at https://account.smartthings.com.

Now in some cases, folks have reported that they could not perform this (hub didn’t respond) or that a simple physical reboot did not bring the hub back online and had to do a full boot meaning, unplugging power to the hub, removing batteries (if added) and waiting 15 minutes or so. I have never once had to do this. Any firmware update or outage that has occurred over the last year, my hub has recovered 100% of the time on it’s own. When I have initiated the Reboot Hub remotely, I have never had a single issue.

Thanks–good to know. Of course it’s the one time I have the problem that’s going to be the issue :frowning:

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I bought the Smarthings hub to drive the 9 zone heat thermostats in my house. I’m beginning to question this decision. With “device health” turned on the system will just randomly stop (and start) talking to random individual thermostats. Weird . With “device health” off the system reports crazy nonsense from the thermostats (one day when it was 40 degrees outside, my Master Bath was supposedly 5 Degrees lol ). Luckily, the Radio Thermostats seem to revert to internal programming when hub drops them, so the housing isn’t freezing or a sauna… but Samsung needs to fix this before i would think about integrating a front door lock or my security system. I opened a ticket with Samsung support and in spite of this being a cloud solution with them having the ability to see what is happening remotely they have no solutions for me. Samsung knows about this problem and seem powerless to fix it in spite of 6 months of trying.

The users here are great, Samsung Support on the other hand needs a tune up.

As for updates… Samsung forced one to my hub just yesterday… 19.20… There is no postings here or on Samsung’s web page telling my what this fixed… Just a vague email about video streaming…

If your system is simple stay with wink… If you like to fiddle tinker or are trying to do something complicated, then welcome to the joys of an open cloud solution.

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This update fixes a bug which can prevent streaming from LAN video cameras.

Thanks for that,

I was looking for a formal announcement from Samsung on the section of this forum dedicated to updates… You know Giving us a list of what 19.20 does and what it fixes…

As I noted so far all we is a confusing statement about video streaming… and some confusion from users if this was an emergency or not. For all cloud system change management is critical. Sure sometime you have to push out an emergency patch… But you need to follow up with what is going on right quick or users start to wonder. You can see this phenomenon on the threads you posted.

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Doesn’t always happen :slight_smile:

Some things are just a surprise.

Best best to know when things are ever happening. Goto https://status.smartthings.com and Subscribe to Updates

EDIT: This isn’t intended at looking for scheduled or non scheduled updates (ie: firmware or app). It is more targeted at system or platform Issues and it’s normally nothing in real time. It may be hours later before anything about a problem is reported or sent out.

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Fair enough but so is Wink and I have the ability to decide if and when I apply the update. Having said that though, they never detail what the update is for what it fixes, adds, changes, etc., so not awesome there.

The most recent forced update. Some of the trouble reports posted there are from very experienced users, at least one of whom is a network engineer. So just saying it doesn’t look like the trouble reports for this one are due to user error/ignorance.

Therein lies the conundrum :wink:

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Edited my previous post based on your deleted one for clarification as to details of Status. :sunglasses:

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Try to find a Version 1 of the Hub… It’s no longer getting any firmware upgrades, so that eliminates the unscheduled reboots. I’ve never upgraded, and, anecdotally, my home is more stable than most!

I think this eliminates the possibility of local control though which is something I’d hate to give up. Thanks for the thought though.

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OK, so here’s a crazy thought. I have an always on computer with BIOS settings to power on after a power outage. I can VPN into the computer using RealVNC. What if I plugged the Hub into a network controllable power strip like this one?

If the hub we’re to become unresponsive I could control the power strip to power cycle the hub.

That can work for some situations. If you get a chance to look at some of the discussion threads on that second home quick browse list, it is one of the possibilities discussed. You can also look at the “power” list, there are some similar discussions there.

What it doesn’t help with are any devices which need a physical reset, something which does happen after some updates for some users, particularly sensors which may have to have the batteries popped before they’ll come back online.

( I myself am quadriparetic, so I’m very aware of all these issues since I have to pay someone else to do them. And the people who have second homes are also very aware of them. Most customers who only have one location may not even remember that they had to pop the batteries on a couple of sensors after a recent update.)

Good point. Though the ones I’m mainly concerned about are my 2 ecobee3 tstats, my Schlage Connect deadbolt and my Linear GD00Z-4 garage controller. Of those, the Schlage falls into the “gotta” pull the batteries category and I have had that issue occur once with the Wink. Luckily I was on-site so not a big deal.

The only way for me to let neighbors and contractors in is open the Schlage or garage door remotely which, if either need to be power cycled is a problem.

I should be able to connect to the ecobees without the hub so long as I have wifi. I say “should” because I had an issue with my upstairs tstat going offline a week before our last trip down. Ecobee support was able to see it had gone off/on-line a large number of times in the week prior to it seemingly going dead. When I arrived on site the tstat appeared fine and temps were good but I had to pull it from its’ base to power cycle it. The whole thing was a reminder of how unnerving it can be to be 600 miles away when things break and you can no longer get status updates.

Edit: Wrong Linear model number

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How about using the old wink hub at the remote property with a single smartplug connected.
That way you could remotely reboot your ST hub if it’s connected through the wink controlled smartplug

Interesting idea. Another user suggested a Synaccess NP-02 remote power switch. It can do scheduled power cycles, is accessible via telnet, serial, and local browser session. I was able to pick one up on ebay for $35 so I’m going to play with that but your idea might be a good fall back…

Hi WB, So at your advice I signed up for updates and as I perused through them I discovered this gem

North American Device Health Outage

Resolved
Users should now be seeing device reporting the correct health status. We have identified and resolved the issue. Thank you for your patience.
Posted 6 days ago. Jan 09, 2018 - 10:34 EST
Investigating
Some North American users are impacted by a device health outage. We are actively working to restore functionality.
Posted 7 days ago. Jan 08, 2018 - 20:31 EST

Ummm no this is not resolved if anything the last update made things worse… Does Samsung know?

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