Removing a Broken Device post-Edge

Devices & Integrations
1

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a post about the proper method removing an old broken device. This is actually only the second time I’ve ever had a device totally break, and in this case, it’s fell off the garage door and run over with the car, broke. I’m not going to be able to exclude this thing properly.

In the past, we had a whole rigamarole to enure it would be fully removed from the hub and not show up as a ghost device. I reached out to SmartThings support for guidance, but as usual, they have no idea and just ask for a million logs, versions , and screen recordings that they know take hours to provide which they ask for in hopes that I’ll give up on the ticket.

All I’d like to know is the proper way to forcibly remove a broken device. Anyone got any suggestions for how to handle this post-Edge world order?

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Use https://my.smartthings.com/advanced to remove the device and exclude it after. Normally not the proper method but seems to work best of late.

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Hey @jkp, I was going to do that, but isn’t that just a forced remove? What do you mean by exclude it after?

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If z-wave - remove it and exclude. Some users have been reporting exclude or removing does not remove the device recently from the app

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I removed a dead (won’t power up) zwave device this morning.

  • Using the mobile app, press and hold on the tile for the device. A context menu appears with the “Remove” option.
  • The UI will indicate that it wants you to try and exclude the device as part of the removal ('follow manufacturers instructions…"). Just let that timeout (about 60 seconds).
  • A “Force delete” option will appear. That will run for 30-45 seconds and then return with a “the device has been removed.”

Since 2020 or so, my ST hubs have had no issues with ghost zwave devices. The force delete has been clean for me when needed.

3 Likes
6

Exactly the reassurance I was looking for. I’ll take the plung and do it. Thanks!

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I’ve seen this written a few times, but it’s not quite right.

When you say Force Delete, it will tell you to put your device in exclusion mode and display a little spinny wheel to suggest it’s waiting for your to do that. Obviously this won’t work for a broken device, but if you just wait patiently, it’ll give you a screen with a button allowing you to force delete.

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Once it worked for me straight off. Trying the same instructions now, and force delete just isn’t doing the job.

Update: logging online to my SmartThings (Samsung) account and using the UI at https://my.smartthings.com/advanced/devices made it a quick delete process. Strange that the iOS app makes this so difficult!

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