I’ve noticed a pattern with my devices not working properly.
We replaced all the light switches and fan switches in the house with GE branded controller switches. Each of these works perfectly. However, anything connected via a plug or any other type of device, just doesn’t work in a routine.
For example, I get up at 5am and I have the sensor on the stairs trigger the lights on the stairs and downstairs to come on when the sensor detects motion. This works fine. However, over Christmas we had the tree lights attached to a smart plug and I added these to the same routine. The light switches would come on happily every time, but the Christmas lights wouldn’t. If I switched them on manually with ST, they cam on without a problem.
Now, I’ve installed a Brunt Blind Engine on my office window. This should also raise when the lights come on, but never does. As with the Christmas lights, I can go into the ST app and raise the blinds.
Similarly, our bathroom has lights and fans controlled by GE switches and a light strip behind the mirror. They all come on as soon as the sensor detects someone, but the routine only switches off the GE switches for the fans and main lights. The bathroom light stays on unless I manually turn it off with the ST app. It switches off if I tell Alexa to turn it off, but when I get up at 2am my wife will not be please with me shouting at Alexa to turn the lights off!
The pattern seems to be that devices that aren’t wired in are flakier than those that are hard-wired.
Any suggestions? I’ve got repeater plugs all over the place and the wifi is great throughout the house since I have a Netgear Orbi mesh. The distinction seems to be Z-Wave GE switches are good, ZigBee, not so much.
Before diving into zwave or zigbee issues, did I understand it correctly that regardless of protocol you were still able to control devices with the app, including Alexa? It’s the automations (through the new app, SmartLighting, or whatever) that isn’t controlling the device?
What happens when you create a Smart Lighting rule or Automation to turn on that same plug based on that same motion sensor? Does that work?
What’s throwing me for a loop is that you say you can still control the devices via the mobile app or Alexa, which would imply your mesh is just fine as long as there’s nothing slow going on and the devices react almost instantaneously (or fast enough…).
Also, to be safe, how far away from your router is your ST hub? There’s always a chance for interference if your wifi and zigbee are on the same channel. You can’t change the ST hub’s channel, but you can change your router’s, if needed.
It’s the automations (through the new app, SmartLighting, or whatever) that isn’t controlling the device?
Yes, this is exactly what’s happening. Both the classic and new ST app will control the devices manually, just not in a routine.
What happens when you create a Smart Lighting rule or Automation to turn on that same plug based on that same motion sensor? Does that work?
Do you mean as a separate routine just for the non-wired device? I haven’t tried that, but I can.
What’s throwing me for a loop is that you say you can still control the devices via the mobile app or Alexa, which would imply your mesh is just fine as long as there’s nothing slow going on and the devices react almost instantaneously (or fast enough…).
Yes, this is why I thought it was something to do with the protocol. I can walk out of the bedroom and trigger the sensor on the stairs, so I can see the lights come on. In the 2-3 seconds it takes me to walk down the stairs and get my phone, I can start the blinds opening, so it’s not a responsiveness issue I don’t think. I have tried turning the lights off manually at the same time and this works happily too.
The hub is in our bedroom. The router is in the kitchen below. Our bathroom mirror light is on a smart plug and that seems to always switch on, but never switch off. The lights and fans trigger off the same two sensors. The lights, fans and mirror almost always come on without fail, but only the fans and lights go off after the 10 minutes of no motion.
Nope. Just tried the “switch everything off at night” which should close the blind, and nothing. I turned the office light on first and that went off, but the blind did nothing. It did close when I manually closed it (set to 0% open) in ST.
I tried setting a routine to just open the blind to 25% with nothing else included and that doesn’t work either. I get the message to say it completed but the blind doesn’t open, and the device still reports as 0% open
Right. The brunt integration is cloud to cloud. It doesn’t work in the classic app. Hence why a scene in the new app does work. you should then be able to automate that scene with the automation creator in the new app.
ah. That’s good to know, thanks. Annoyingly, the routines I set up in the classic have to be recreated in the new app. Anyone know how I can import them? Even if they only half work, it’s easier to edit than recreated all of them from scratch. Especially as the new app is now throwing a network error when I try to save new automations.
I think there will be something ST will be releasing as part their notifications to Classic users. Check here because I believe your answer is there:
Specifically:
" Routines - Routines will become Scenes and Automations in the new app. The triggers for a Routine will be changed to Automations and the actions for the Routine will become a Scene.", found here:
There’s more, but I think I’ve hit a max somewhere cause I’m getting that same error today as well. I have 44 Automations, 6 scenes, and 34 smartapps doing all sorts of things to well over 200+ devices.
What possible benefit could that provide for anyone?
If that’s Samsung’s idea of driving customers towards a paid app, it’ll do exactly the opposite. I’m no expert user by any means, but I do like to automate everything. We have fans, aircon, TVs blinds, gates as well as the usual lights.
The whole point of ST is that its easy to get set up and extend that everyone can do it virtually out of the box. Most people start with lights, then move on to other stuff when they see how simple it is. If you cut the legs off at such a ridiculously low level people will look elsewhere.
Good plan Samsung, establish a yourself as the best, then blow your brains out. Samsung seem to be the Kurt Cobain of technology
Detecting motion is not a schedule (that is subscription to an event), waiting for an event to happen (such as wait 5 minutes, then turn off), is. So 5 and 6 above are not schedules.
Point still stands though. Two basic things (on/off for weekdays and the same for weekends) leaves just two. Aircon on if it’s getting warm, oh wait, I can’t turn it off again because I have set two aircon units to come on when it’s hot in two different rooms.
Six of anything is ridiculously arbitrary, especially when each “on” event is likely to have a corresponding “off” event. How about 500 events? If you’re over this, chances are you’re fairly competent and knowledgeable and so a paid app with more flexibility isn’t unreasonable, but 6??? Jeez, My seven year old can think of more than 6 things he wants to automate!
Keep in mind that each instance is an app. So is really hard to hit the 6 limit. That affects custom apps more so than built-in apps. You would have to have something like this to hit that limit:
In the morning
IF motion detected
Wait 5 minutes
THEN do something
Wait 5 minutes
THEN do something
…wait 3 more times then you hit your limit.
That is six schedules for each installed ‘new’ style SmartApp. It also doesn’t say how they are counted. If it is a maximum of six schedules set up at any given time, then that is quite a lot.
Now THAT may cause problems with 200+ devices. 