[OBSOLETE] Button Controller Plus, HS-WD100+ HS-WS100+

The regular button controller is under marketplace/Smartapps/more

But it won’t run locally.

At the present time, the only thing which run locally is the official SmartLighting feature (and then only if that specific automation is only referencing device type handlers which run locally) and a few parts of smart home monitor. That’s it.

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Right on thanks @JDRoberts. I’d have thought button controller would be in lights and switches but I guess it’s capabilities are greater than that. :wink:

Right. And there’s an important technical difference. A switch can be turned on or off with a command from the hub. That’s not true of a button controller. The controller itself doesn’t respond to the basic command set ( Basic is a specific Z wave turn in this context). It can send information that one of its buttons was pushed, but the button controller itself doesn’t get turned on or off.

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Hi dalec, I have been trying to use the Homeseer WS100+ to control Hue lights. I would like to be able to dim the lights up and down through double press up and down on these switches. Would it be possible to add this option?

I did just this yesterday. The special states of WD-100 are not exposed to CoRE when trying to use the Button object, so I created few virtual switches and had the app here toggle them (this is done outside CoRE), I then created basic piston rules in CoRE that are conditioned with the virtual switch state with an action to set RGB colors. You should also be able to dim the lights too this way although I have not implemented it myself.

I’m brand new to SmartThings, just installed my hub yesterday evening, so maybe I’m missing something obvious. However, in the stock Button Controller, it seems I can only toggle a switch.

I bought a Homeseer switch with the hopes of setting up the ability to automatically turn other lights off when double tapping a light on or turning multiple lights on when double tapping one on. I want the double tap to turn one or more things on or off specifically and not just toggle. Does this SmartApp offer this capability or is it just toggle? Or am I even missing something with the stock Button Controller SmartApp?

If these don’t do that, is there another option that would give me this capability? Just trying to figure out if what I want to do is even possible.

I don’t see how to add this option. Sorry.

Yes this app can do all three ON, OFF and TOGGLE; The original post says:

The control options available per button are > Lights to Toggle; Dimmers to Toggle; Lights to Turn On; Lights to Turn Off; Dimmers to DimLevel 1; Dimmers to DimLevel 2; Fan to Adjust - Low, Medium, High, Off; Shade to Adjust - Up, Down, or Stop; Locks; Speaker music player; Modes; Hello Home Actions; Sirens; Custom Message; Push Notifications; SMS Notifications and Associate a Momentary Button.

I added this long screen capture so you could see how it displays.

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Oh man, I both missed that and was having trouble figuring out how to get it available on my phone and where to find it (I now do have it up and running and see those options). I now feel like I can do exactly what I was hoping to do with the combination of the SmartThings hub and the Homeseer switches.

Thanks for helping me see what I should have been able to see on my own.

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No worries!! You are new to SmartThings and it took me a while to get use to unique style of forum. :slight_smile:

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I have Button Controller Plus installed and it’s working just fine. I’m wondering how I can use the double and triple tap features in CoRE? I don’t know where to find them. Thanks!

Are they not sent as higher numbered “buttons”? Something like (I don’t know if this is exact) button one is tap on, button two is tap off, button three is double tap on, button four is double tap off, button five is triple tap on , button six is triple tap off.

Again, I don’t know if those are how the buttons are numbered, but that’s typically how single tap and double tap are done for a button controller.

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Ahh, I look for them under “button”, not as part of the dimmer switch. So simple, yet so easily overlooked by noooobs! Thanks @JDRoberts

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That’s SmartThings. :wink: Very powerful, but not easily discoverable.

Has this been updated to reflect the 8 buttons now available in Darwin’s device handler? Also, what would be the best way to get an individual MQTT or API call made for each button?

No it hasn’t been updated. As the number of buttons get higher the UI is getting clunky because the current setup requires you step through every button whether you are using them or not. I am looking at a modification to allow the user to select the number of buttons they are wanting to implement so that you are not forced to go through them all. Not sure how you to get MQTT or API call for each button BUT have you looked at CoRE? It will allow for control for 8 buttons of the HS-WD100+ device handlers

I’ve set up Button Controller Plus to work with 6 HS-WD100+ and HS-WD100+ switches. Everything works great, with one exception: I’ve noticed that the first time I use a double- or triple- tap combination to turn on or off a group of lights in a while, there is a long delay before the lights activate – about 5-6 seconds. We’ll arrive home at night and I will triple-tap the switch by the door to turn on all the lights, but nothing will happen – we’ll stumble around in the dark for a few moments, and then finally the lights will come on.

However, once I’ve done a double- or triple-tap, then it becomes more responsive. All lights will respond to the taps quickly, within ~1 second. There is still a noticeable delay, though.

Does anyone know what is causing these delays? Is this due to:

  • a configurable polling frequency, or
  • there’s a round trip to the cloud and something on the service side is initializing, or
  • it’s how long it takes for the hub to send the commands to the lights, or
  • all of the above, or
  • something else?

Anything I can do to make these switches more responsive? It’s usable as-is but definitely an annoyance. I thought that the “instant status” capability was going to allow this to be faster.

I tried using the button state to create CoRE rules but that is much less reliable than Button Controller Plus. The CoRE rules would fail to turn on or off individual lights very frequently. Button Controller Plus is much more stable.

So, I found another thread about local processing that explains why it’s not instant in general: FAQ: CONFIRMED: Local Processing - Working Device Handlers. Also another thread discussing the same delays with Homeseer switches: Lousy experience with Homeseer HS-WD100+ and HS-WS100+. It seems like the only options to get local processing are:

  1. Wait for Smartthings to add local processing for HomeSeer device handlers and Button Controller+. Seems like a long shot.
  2. Buy a HomeSeer Hometroller and use it instead of SmartThings (our could I use them both at the same time?). The Hometroller only uses local processing.

However, I’m still wanting to understand why the delay is longer the first time I double/triple tap. I find the delay tolerable for subsequent taps – it’s just that first 5-6 seconds that’s bad.

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