Samsung Connect App

I’ve noticed that Samsung is not very good at those kinds of things. Communication, interoperability, delivering on promises… nope, they kinda suck at all of it.

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I have the Galaxy S7 Edge, and the Samsung Connect thing actually showed up on my phone a while ago, though it only showed my Samsung Smart TV and my fitness watch (or whatever was connected by bluetooth) as far as know initially. A few weeks ago, I noticed several little light bulb icons showing up in the notification panel under Connect and when I tapped one, I was sent to the Samsung Connect app, where all of my smart things show up. I played around with it a little, but not enough to fully explore what you might be able to do with it. I did pair down the number of things showing up in the notification panel, to just a light that I only turn on via SmartThings, to make it a little quicker to get to (and my fitness band and tv). Drag down on the notification panel, tap the light bulb, I got a toggle to turn it on and off. It was quick and easy, until I set that bulb up with a custom DTH. It appears that I have no functions available for any items that use a custom DTH.

The lights and outlets without custom DTHs, I do get an on-off toggle and for dimming bulbs, a dimmer slide in the Connect App. But I also have some adjustable white bulbs, and I don’t see any way to adjust the temperature (soft white to daylight) of those bulbs, just dimming. I appear to get all of the info reported for my sensors (for example, Samsung multi-sensor on garage door shows open/close status, temp, acceleration/vibration, battery, and connected status).

Some of my things in Connect are assigned to the rooms associated with them in the SmartThings App, some are not (the rooms do not appear). I tried adding rooms in Connect, and some of those rooms then showed up twice in the SmartThings App (but not all). So I stopped messing with that.

So it does look like, at least for checking status and simple functions and with some bugs, it can be used concurrently with the SmartThings App. I have not seen any interference from this to my SmartThings App, though I have not tried to set up any routines (which is an option) in the Connect App. Not all functions are available for some things, and none are available with any things using a custom DTH.

For me with the little I have seen, I might use it for certain lights or switches that I want quick access to an on/off toggle in the notification panel, but that’s probably it for now at least. And unfortunately those lights that meet that criteria for me are using a custom DTH and therefore, I can’t even do that much.

I have not done anything to migrate items to the Connect App, I have not added devices directly to the Connect App, I have not “added” or reset my SmartThings hub, the stuff just shows up on the Connect App. My lights are all Lightify, and my sensors and outlets are all SmartThings. I setup my SmartThings on my existing Samsung account, as opposed to a separate SmartThings account, which may or may not affect any of this.

I genuinely wish I had researched this more before resetting my hub. I’ve just lost all of the config and automation for like 20 devices, custom device handlers etc. Total joke. The worst of it is that I now have a useless hub connected to the Connect app which can’t control any of the z wave devices, doesn’t find the Smartthings official outlet when trying to repair that, and basically is borked beyond belief. 65" QLED TV, K950 soundbar, Smartthings and loads of devices, and I have the least connected household since before initially buying Smartthings. I seriously hope someone connected to the devs is reading this and gets them to up the ante as this isn’t the experience I expected from having all Samsung devices and trying to get them to talk to each other. The worst of it is that this came from feeling more positive about Bixby being able to interact with Connect on my Note 8 and now I have knackered the rest of the system. I’m working with support at the moment, but I have a feeling that my hub’s config is done and I’ve got a massive reconfiguration ahead of me :persevere:

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So was this a case where you tried connecting your hub to the Connect App, and during that process it told you to reset your hub and then you lost everything? Or is this where you reset your hub for some other reason and it connected to the Connect App instead of how it was before? Like I said above, all my stuff just showed up on the Connect App with limited functionality, but it’s all still there and working normally on the SmartThings app as well. But I did not go through any process in the Connect App to add my hub or devices to the Connect App.

Another note that may or may not be significant, this is the Connect App that is embedded in my Samsung phone (and by embedded I mean I didn’t install it, I can’t even disable it, much less delete it), as opposed to me getting the app from the play store on some other droid device.

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This was in trying to get the Samsung Connect app to talk to the hub which then said it needed a welcome code (which I thought was odd). But all this has stemmed from the fact that I changed the email address on my Samsung account to the same one as I used to sign up with Smartthings; quite unrelated to this issue, but it’s been changed a while now. When the Connect panel is using my Samsung account, it shows my Samsung account as my Outlook account. However, support found that in the back end, the hub (when I joined it to the Connect app) is actually claimed by my Gmail address; the email I originally used to sign up my Samsung account and already changed ages ago. This is quite confusing since I don’t know what system support used to find this out, but the two apps now seem to be working and interacting with the hub. Connect doesn’t seem to be able to do anything with the soundbar or any z wave outlet made by TKB Home just telling me that it can’t connect to the device, but Smartthings is working again somewhat. The massive reconfig begins… here’s hoping I can still get to my device handler code that I wrote to drive my cheap eBay blinds motors!

And then I find this…

I’m guessing the reason I did not experience any of the headache @ba-johnson did (and the reason my things just started showing up on the Connect App without any effort on my part) is that I used my existing Samsung account when setting up my SmartThings stuff to begin with.

I may have to play with the Connect App more and report since I seem to be able to use it without messing up anything else.

I did set up a rule (Smart App) to look at the process in the Connect App. You can select multiple conditions and multiple actions in a single rule. I only tried a very basic rule (when vibration is detected on the garage door multi-sensor between 7pm and 6am, two spot lights turn on for 3 minutes) and I have not actually tested it yet. It was quite simple, intuitive, and quick to set up, but none of my items using a custom DTH show up in the list of devices available for either conditions or actions. And not all functions for certain devices are available to select (adjusting between soft white and daylight on adjustable white bulbs is missing, for example). For really basic controls it might be good. One thing I do really like, is that the rule has a toggle for turning it on and off.

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I have had to use both SmartThings app and the Connect app to talk to all of my devices. I still can’t do anything with my oven. I have had enough problems for awhile and hoping that the lack of communication between devices, apps and hardware is fixed soon.

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So to sum it up, as November 2017 there is no way to add the Samsung Connect hub devices as secondary Zwave controllers to a Smartthings-based setup?

I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone by replacing my aging Apple Airport Express repeaters with the Samsung Connect Hubs, but it doesn’t look like its SmartThings/zwave-connectivity is helpful, at least at the moment for someone that uses extensive IDE-based rules.

If this is not the case, please let me know.

do you already have a SmartThings hub? If you already have a hub, then no, you can’t have two hubs and them play nice together.

Dang. I was hoping to blanket my home with SmartThings-compatible secondary zwave controllers.

Is there any way to make the Samsung Connect hub the primary controller and use it with the regular SmartThings app & IDE? I’m willing to drop my ST v2 hub out of the equation.

Yeah, you can start from scratch and use the Connect Home with the SmartThings app. I believe you just set it up via the SmartThings App instead of the Connect app. You may even be able to use both apps now since they both use Samsung Account login, but you’d have to confirm that with support.

I don’t see how that is possible, because the ST app asks for the hub’s 6-character code to begin setup and which the Samsung Connect hubs don’t come with as far as I can tell?

ask support. You may just login to the SmartThings app with your Samsung login and it’s already setup. I’m on the account migration beta and can now control things from both, but the connect app does show some things as unknown when they shouldn’t be. Here is one room in both apps.
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My ST and Samsung Connect account share the same email address but different passwords. When I try to log in with my Samsung password, it doesn’t allow the login-- so presumingly Support would need to migrate my ST account to SC which may be still restricted to beta testers.

What are the downsides, if any at the moment for this migration? Will I lose all my devices, smartapps, IDE setting, etc?

I don’t think they are migrating yet. SmartThings account created after May this year are technically Samsung accounts. Otherwise they are separate.

That doesn’t apply to my ST account, so I suppose I will have to wait till they roll-out the official migration to use this.

UNLESS- perhaps I create a new Samsung Connect login, and then log into ST with the same credentials? Maybe the hubs would show?

maybe. email support and ask them.

Looks like you have your Connect Home activated under your Samsung account. You should be able to choose to use the Connect Home as a SmartThings Hub from within the Connect app while signed in with that account.

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I just got my Samsung Connect Home as the 1st device and have it set up with samsung connect app. I am going to buy the smartthings multipurpose sensor and motion sensors but I can’t seem to find these on add a device with Samsung connect app. I try to use set up the Samsung Connect Home via Smartthing app but it asks for welcome code even I enter my Samsung Account info.

Here are my questions:

  1. Does samsung connect home support smartthings sensors without the smartthing hub?
  2. How can I use my samsung connect home as my hub with the smartthing app?

I am very new to this so would really appreciate your help please. I felt like I make a mistake to get the samsung connect home to start with if it can’t actually be the smartthing hub and use it with the smartthing app.

  1. The Samsung Connect Home Wi-Fi router and Connect app do support SmartThings sensors independent of the SmartThings app and a dedicated SmartThings Hub.

  2. You can use the Connect Home within the SmartThings app if you sign into the SmartThings app with your Samsung account that you used in the Connect app.

If you haven’t already, select to use the Connect Home as a SmartThings Hub from within the Connect app. You can then add devices such as the the SmartThings Motion and Multipurpose sensors.

If you are being prompted for a welcome code within SmartThings it likely means one of these things:

  1. You haven’t enabled the Connect Home as a SmartThings Hub from the Connect App.
  2. You are signed into a different Samsung account in the SmartThings app.
  3. You have selected a new location instead of your existing Location (known as a ‘Place’ in Connect).