Samsung Bixby Modes and Routines to trigger Smartthings?

SmartApps & Automations
1

Anyone experimented with Samsung “Modes and routines” on a samsung Galaxy?
It’s tantalisingly close to being very useful but some of the restrictions make it hard to work with.

  1. It’s kinda nice to be able to trigger a routine by lots of powerful things you can’t do directly in Smarthings eg
    a) By scanning an NFC tag
    b) by receiving a text from a particular contact containing a key word/words
    c) when a given bluetooth device is connected
    d) when a given alarm is dismissed
    etc…
  2. however the ability to control smarthings is limited
    a) you can only control real devices, not virtual devices
    b) you can’t toggle a device - routine must turn it on or OFF
    c) you can’t make device status part of the trigger condition (ie run this if device X if off)
    d) you cant execute smarthings routines
    e) you have multiple steps in the then clause but cant refer to smartthings in multiple steps - which means you cant change a device status, wait for 10 mins, change the same or different device status

I have some NFC tags and think i might create tags to automate some devices. Might be useful to have the tags in the car.

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2

I was thinking about this work plan. Now will dive into it. :grimacing: Thanks for the post.

3

Ahh you mean Bixby routines !

I use them, it is a shame there not native to ST though

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4

You can have the Bixby routine run a ST scene to switch a virtual device. That device can then be used to trigger routines. Little bit long winded but that’s how I do it

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5

They will never make it native, they want to sell Galaxy phones.

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6

Official reference

Note: This feature is available on the Galaxy S10, S20, S21, S22, Note10, Note20, A52, Z Fold, and Z Flip series phones.

Use Bixby Routines on your Galaxy phone

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7

I’ve been trying to get Modes and Routines working with Smartthings on my S22 Ultra. I want to use it to automatically turn all my lights on when I arrive at home, and turn them off when I leave.

Weirdly, it seems work fine realising that I’ve left home and turning the lights off, but its very hit and miss turning them back on.

I created a routine for each, and put the trigger as arriving or leaving a location, chose my home address as the location and also chose my home WiFi to improve its accuracy. However sometimes I’ll come home and the lights won’t be on when they should. It always seems to register that I’ve actually arrived at home as the history shows the routine being run at the time I arrived. Sometimes I’ll see an error message in the history saying it ‘couldn’t perform an action’ next to the routine but other times I don’t see the error message but it still hasn’t turned the lights on. If I go into the actions of the routine and then back to the main routine details page it runs the actions there and then to confirm for you, and it seems to have no problem turning the lights on then so I really don’t know why its not working.

The other weird behaviour I have is related to my arriving home routine being set to run between 5pm - 5am as I don’t want it turning the lights on in the daytime when I come home, just when its dark. I’ve noticed that even if I’ve been at home all day, it will suddenly turn the lights on at 5pm. I was expecting the trigger to kick on only if I’m newly arriving at a location, not if I’m already there.

So definitely some gremlins so far which is a shame as it has a lot of potential usefulness. The lights that Smarthings are meant to be turning on are Philips Hue lights which are integrated with Smartthings, but I’m wondering whether that may have some impact on the issues, as its another layer the commands have to pass through.

8

Did you look at “welcome home” in smartthings labs? I think this might achieve what you want. However I’m not clear if it’s groovy based and about to be removed.

9

I know that I am late to this string, but the way that I handle the question about being newly arrived (or not) is to set my location as “Away” when I leave, and “Home” when I return. That way, I can set a precondition that says that I must be Away… then Home, for a routine to run. If I am Home all day, and my location never changed to Away, then the routine will not run as it will not meet the precondition. I use a virtual switch that I turn on or off depending on whether I am home or not.

For Example:
If
Location Mode is Away (as a precondition)
and
Sunset to Sunrise (as a precondition)
and
KCrane is Present
then
Change location mode to Home
and
Turn on Light

10

Hey everyone, I’m having a strange problem. I just got the s23 ultra but I’ve been using smart things for about a year now. Whenever I go to the modes and routines it will not allow me to control my smart thing devices when I’m trying to create a routine. He gives me this error message :

 "The devices you were using have been removed 
   from SmartThings. Add devices to SmartThings 
   to use this feature."

However, when I go to my SmartThings apps all of my devices routines, and virtual buttons everything is still there and fully functional. I’m not sure if it’s a setup issue or if I’m just unlucky. Has anyone else experienced this or have any advice on how to fix it thank you.

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11

I have this exact same issue. Were you able to fix it or had got any clue about it? I’m kind of frustrated with this as well.

12

So yes and no, it’s fixed now but I didn’t do anything. I would suggest rebooting your hub and your phone, then signing out and back into smart things. I believe it’s just a connectivity issue between all of the devices. Good luck

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