[OBSOLETE] GE Motion Switch (26931) and Motion Dimmer (26933)

Not sure what you mean by this…if the device is recognized by SmartThings it should be available within the app. When you say “Selectable Lighting Controls” what do you mean by that?

When configuring Lighting Groups (a feature added to the newest SmartThings app, though I’m not sure in what revision), a limited type of device menu (lights/switches/outlets-only) is offered-up to select from. This Lightning group device selection
menu apparently only includes switched controls, yet it doesn’t include the GE 26933. I’m attaching some screenshots for clarification.

The first 4 screenshots are related to setting up a Lighting group. In the last screenshot I have a Scene set up menu where the Kitchen Table Light is a GE 26933 and uses a different icon, which is consistent across all 5 of my GE 26933s, none of which are listed in the Lighting group selection menu.

It appears to me that SmartThings is not recognizing the 26933 as a native lightning control, but a non-lightning-type device.





I see…I have to be honest I use the app very little and mostly use voice controls and automations through WebCore to control my house. However, looking at this feature on my phone I see my motion dimmer devices. I didn’t count but it does feel some of them might be missing. I assume you are using my DTH?

Ever since SmartThings moved away from the old app, and disabled all GUI controls, I have found that everything with regard to using these devices consistently is problematic. Do you see the full control of the devices on an individual level. In other words, do you see motion and device control in the specific device GUI? If not, scroll back through the past few posts here as that has been the major issue since last year. The good news is that once you dial these in and get them working from an individual level they will probably work in the rest of the SmartThings app.

Hope that helps.

I do use your DTH, or at least I assume it’s still installed and active (it’s in my list of DTHs). When I go into the device in ST I’m able to to configure many of the extended features that I was once only able to do from the IDE. To be honest, I’ve largely backed off from configuring my HA system. I didn’t screenshot my entire list, but I have around 50 devices. During the time that it required both the old and new ST apps to get the best functionality, and when Alexa was just coming into play, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the whole endeavor so I just pulled the plug on Alexa. I’ve just been letting ST run automations and routines, until recently, when ST made some updates that broke a few things. The 26933s have always worked well for me, and the lack of them in ST Lightning groups is not a terribly big deal. You said yours show up in the list for Lighting group configuration. Would you screenshot that for me? I’m not quite ready to dive back in but the Lightning groups was something quick so I gave it a try after fixing what all ST had broke, which was basically my Scenes.

Mine all show up as well. Id bet you’re dealing with a version of the stale cached DTH issue.

Nathan, thanks for weighing-in. I just tried republishing as you suggested and it’s to no effect. I even made an edit to the DTH’s intro notes so that it had a change to save and publish. I hate to unnecessarily create long posts with screenshots because they can be annoying to read through, but I’m wondering if your 26933 shows up with the following icon:

All five of my 26933s have this icon. From within the context of Lighting Group configuration, no devices of this icon type (though all I have with this icon are the 26933s) are in the list of devices for selection. However, from any other configuration context (Scenes, Automations, etc.) the 26933s DO show for selection, and in the device lists they have the same icon as shown in the above screenshot. For clarification, I am running Michael’s DTH: version 1.0.5 12/4/18, and the Settings interface looks like this in the ST app for the 26933:

Just in case someone ends up suggesting that I uninstall and reinstall the ST app, I’ll point out that I configured two Lighting Groups last Thursday where I could not select my 26933s. Then, over the weekend (6/19-6/20/21) the latest release of ST was rolled-out and afterward the app couldn’t communicate with my Zigbee devices, so I uninstalled/reinstalled the app and that did fix the Zigbee issue, but the Lighting Group issue remains.

Again, this is fairly low on my issues list but I wanted to get this out here for discussion. Every other facet of the 26933 has worked flawlessly for me since Michael released even his first version of the DTH, where extended functionality had to be configured from the ST IDE.

It’s not a republish I’m afraid - it’s more complicated than that. DTHs now have an unseen ‘presentation’ layer defined in JSON or by the core capabilities of a DTH. What we’ve seen in the field is the app ‘caches’ these presentations and doesn’t like to reset them - even when a DTH is changed. It takes SIGNIFICANT effort to get them to ‘take’

There’s a post a couple dozen up the thread where I talk about how to break the caching and force the DTH to refresh - in essence it involves changing the device name AND type at the same time.

Open App - rename device. Shut down app. (I usually just append an _x)
Go into IDE - find renamed device, edit change device type to something different (I use ZWave Device as it doesn’t muck about with your presets) Save and exit
GO back in to app verify device type change, shut down app,
Go back to IDE and Change the device type back to the DTH AND rename it back to it’s original name (the label field is the device name) Save and exit.
Go back to app and open the device - you should see the device type change and all the features come back.

Do that activity and then let us know if the behavior changes.

Thanks, Nathan. Makes sense. I’ll update you as soon as I have time to get to it.

I’m running into the same issue that a few people have mentioned above. I cannot get the motion to register in ST. It displays as the cloud with the line through it and I’ve tried just using the smart lighting app as well as a custom webcore piston to see if the motion is actually being detected and it appears it is not. I have tried completely removing and re-adding the switch. I have also tried the renaming the ‘label’ in the IDE and made sure that both the label and the name in the IDE are matching. I’ve tried nathancu’s steps to get past the caching at least 5 times and I just cant get the motion to work.

This is the switch only (26931), not the dimmer.

Did you go into the setting and turn on the Motion Sensor? Even if the settings show that it is enabled, the setting in the switch may actually not be turned on. I would go through there as it does work and once it works, it seems to work well.

I tried turning it off and on again a few times via the settings in the ST app. Right now I have it set to Enabled and I have the sensitivity set to medium. I also tried enabling it via webcore by calling SetMotionSenseMed() just in case the settings were being weird in ST.

Do I need to try enabling it another way?

Nope that should work…Have you tried just using the built in Zwave Motion Switch. If it shows motion when using that, and then you switch back to the custom DTH it might force it to start working. Worst case is that you remove the switch again and then do the 10 press thing to reset the entire switch, then reload it.

Got it working last night. I didn’t need to uninstall from ST or mess with anything in the IDE. It seems like one or both of these settings did it:

  1. Enable Light Sensing (Occupancy)
  2. Motion Reset Cycle

I had the first one off and the 2nd one Disabled.

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I still can’t get this device (26932, which is apparently basically the same as a 26933. i have modified the device handler accordingly, which is how I got the switch to register in the first place) to show up properly. I am absolutely sure I have cleared the cache (through the methods suggested), I have even reinstalled the ST app on my phone.

The more confusing part is the ST web interface shows the device as supporting dimming:

But the ST app does not:

But my Alexa integration to ST, also shows it as being a dimmer:

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I don’t even mind that I cant dim the device through the ST UI, but it does stink that I can’t create any automations/scenes/etc that set the device to a specific dim level, since ST doesn’t think the device supports dimming.

Thanks in advance!

Outside of what has been posted previously, there is no way I know of to ‘force’ the display to show properly. I am even less sure since you aren’t using the correct model, which, honestly SHOULDN’T matter, but may :frowning:

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My hope is to get my smart switches to act locally (rather than through the cloud). I’m reading these posts and it seems that you deprecated the handler for the switch (not the dimmer) - it still works, but there will be no updates.

I’m guessing there’s some native smartthings functionality now with the switch? I can’t figure out what Type to put them under if not under your old handler - is it zwave motion light?

So long as I just need to turn on the light associated with the switch, I should just use the native app controls, correct? I only have one motion sensor used to turn on another pair of lights, the rest turn on the light that they power.

Thank you for your handler! I have enjoyed it for a LONG time

None of the DTHs have been deprecated; they still work until the IDE is retired by SmartThings. While I COULD be updating, it probably won’t need it as it works great as is and there are no current ‘bugs’ within it. Anything that is found can be fixed…whether I do it will be determined on the timeline of SmartThings and the IDE.

There is a generic “motion swtich” that does work with the device. It doesn’t allow for any of the advanced features of the device like occupancy. That is ONLY available via the DTH. There is a ‘hope’ that SmartThings will support this device fully when it does deprecate the IDE, but no status has been given from the company. So, if you don’t use any of those features (which is a shame as the switch is WAY overpriced for a motion sensor and off switch) you can use that. However, that DOES NOT guarantee it will run locally. The ONLY way to test this is to make sure it works with your hub plugged in, and then pull the internet from it. I have done this previously and it didn’t work, but it has been over a year. Please try it and report back.

@MichaelS - I was recently away for 15 das and had, for the first time, enabled SHM to monitor my home. I ran into 2 issues related with a 26933:

  1. I recall seeing lots of “Button On/Off pressed” events while that was impossible as nobody was home. I am guessing the DTH reports a motion, or some other automation related activation, as a physical button press. I’ve seen other devices make a distinction between a physical button press and a digital activation. Shouldn’t it be the case with this device as well?

  2. I had tons and tons of false motion events in my upstairs bathroom resulting in the light turning on a zillion times and me getting intrusion alerts on my phone. The motion sensitivity was set to 2 (Default) and I just switched it to 1 to see if it helps. I recall having sensitivity issues before with these switches/dimmers but thought that 2 was usually ok. Any idea what may be causing this? Nothing in the room is moving and the HVAC was off (so it was pretty hot, and no air movement).

Any newer devices that can act as motion activated lights and also as stand alone motion sensor? I prefer to stick with Zigbee or Zwave.

I looked at this when diagnosing an issue. Thr device doesnt differentiate hlw an activation occurs. Michaels code cant tell the difference because the device doesn’t reveal it.

As to the false motion… Mine in my office does this on occasion if the ambient temp is above about 80F. (~31c) and sensitivity medium or better.

As to other devices… I don’t know of any.

@nathancu - My HVAC was off so upstairs I often had 30C or more however I do find the Upstairs Bathroom light on very often which I attributed to actual motion events but right now I am alone at home and see the light go on very frequently and the temp is now around 23C. I guess I will have to buy a new one to see if it is an better or get rid of it entirely.

I must add that several other motion sensors were reporting motion evens too, for example the Zooz 4-in-1 sensors. I’ll put one in a closed black box to see if it reports any motion in a controlled environment… if it does, I might just get rid of it as it has been source of many issues in the past anyway (excessive traffic even when toned down significantly).

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