[RELEASE] StreamLabs Smart Home Water Meter Interface

A bit weird. It appears that the call to the built in debug logger on line 65 of my StreamLabs Water Flow SM is failing. Normally it would log in the IDE what the various inputs are when the SmartApp is initialized. If you feel comfortable, you could try commenting that line out by adding ‘//’ in front of that line ( //log.debug “StreamLabs SM installed with settings: ${settings}”) and see what happens. However that doesn’t bode well with future calls to my built in logger function which ultimately calls the Smartthings log function.

I just verified that the logs of my StreamLabs here in my home are still occurring properly. Strange.

Thank you. Yes new app, so limited as you say. But through my PC, I can view usage fine

I have released a version 1.1 of the Device Handler (and updated README) into my GitHub repository that provides limited functionality of my Pause feature which was lost in the new SmartThings App. Note that this is definitely a kludge. I looked into implementing a proper update, but am postponing that for now. In my opinion, the mechanism to convert Classic SmartThings App functionality to New App functionality is still confusing and not ready for Prime Time; the main tool is still in Alpha release. I’m hopeful that in a number of months things will improve and I can revisit this. Note that if you don’t need the ‘Pause’ feature, there is no reason to update; the existing StreamLabs SmartApp and Device Handler work properly with the new SmartThings App to trigger wet/dry functionality. The README.md file provides an updated description.

This update adds settings to control the Pause and Home/Away feature (the New SmartThings App no longer displays the buttons for Pause, Home/away, or water flow statistics). So to pause monitoring, you can go into the settings panel of the Device Handler and change the setting to be ‘Away’ which will pause monitoring for a StreamLabs water flow alert. Unlike the old UI button icon, this setting will NOT revert back to indicate monitoring; the software can’t programmatically change this. Please review the README.md for information.

If you decide to update, using the SmartThings App, remove the current StreamLabs SM Smart App; this will automatically remove the existing Device Handler. Don’t just try and remove/install the Device Handler by itself; the SmartApp needs to install it. It is best to do the removal before getting the new software. Then using the IDE, update the Device Handler to the new version (via GitHub or copy/paste) ensuring it is published. Using the SmartThings App, add back the original StreamLabs SM SmartApp and configure it again. This will automatically install the new Device Handler.

I have more than one StreamLabs. Can I set up more than one? So far on my first one, when I go into the device handler, I can see the gallons used, but th SmartApp just shows “dry” with no history. Hoping setting up a 2nd one will work better, but don’t know if I have to add a 2nd smart app and/or device handler. API is the same for both units

In regards to support of 2 StreamLabs devices, I designed it so that this should be supported however I only have one device so it is an untested feature. For this to work, you should probably first edit the already installed device handler and the SmartApp and changed their names to be something different than the default names. The way it is supposed to work is you need to install a second instance of the SmartApp. When you configure it, the location name for the second StreamLabs device (which should be different than the location name for the first one) would be entered in this SmartApp configuration. When the second SmartApp is installed, it should query the StreamLabs cloud looking for the name of the second location name; if found, install another device handler for it. So you end up with 2 SmartApps and 2 device handlers installed.

In regards to history, I have no control over that. I believe it would only show something if dry/wet status changes. You should be able to test that by going into StreamLabs App, setting it to ‘away’ status, then run some water for several minutes (my SmartApp poll is every 3 minutes). StreamLabs will indicate a leak in about 15 seconds. SmartThings device handler status should change to ‘wet’ in a few minutes. Stop water and device handler should eventually return to ‘dry’ in a few minutes. Don’t forget to put StreamLabs back to ‘home’ status. Good luck

(1) I have more than one StreamLab Flow Meter on different hubs. How would I set up a 2nd one. (2) my first one is hooked up but only shows DRY on device, although when I am on myPC when I click on device it shows the usage. Would be nice if that showed on my Android also so I coudl create automations. * water: dry

Jsykas:

  1. If your 2 Streamlab Flow meters are to be associated with 2 different SmartThings hubs, I would think that you would just install my SmartApp once on each SmartThings hub (which will install the device handler on the appropriate hub). I don’t think there is anything special you would need to do. I do not have 2 SmartThings hubs or 2 Streamlabs meters to verify this. If this is what you have tried and not been successful, a couple of things to check on: I would recommend that when you install them with the Streamlabs app, you give them different location names; verify with Streamlabs that both devices are registered with the same API key (maybe they have given you 2 separate API keys that would require you to also do that in the SmartThings IDE.
  2. Please note that this Smartapp and device handler are principally designed so that the Streamlabs meter can operate as a leak detector in the SmartThings ecosystem. It is intended that SmartThings apps (e.g. Smarthome Monitor) can be triggered by the alert in StreamLabs. It is not intended to replace the Streamlab’s app which contains a wealth of information regarding a home’s water usage. When I originally designed this (under the Classic app), I included some of the water flow statistics in the UI as a convenience (and can still be seen in the IDE). However, the New app broke the presentation of these items. As I indicated in a previous posting, upgrading to the New app is not obvious; I still hope that in coming months, the process will become clearer and I will be able to do it. That being said, I don’t think there is a way to provide what you are after however (at least based on my knowledge of the classic app). Devices have standardized interfaces called capabilities; water sensors can only present a wet/dry status. There isn’t a mechanism to provide a quantitative value such as a water flow rate or volume. Possibly the new app provides a mechanism, but I’ve not delved very deep into the new app. Hope this helps.