Santa Tracker?

Iris (I know , I know, but it had some cool features)… has a Santa Tracker app. Much like the Ring holiday specific ring tones, it caused your SH hub to show when Santa had showed up, what doors or chimney sensor he tripped etc… Anything like that in ST?

Nothing like that specifically in official features, but a couple of different community members have done something similar. There was one about three years ago put a motion sensor in an area of the house where their cat went often and then when they were away at a family party told the kids at the party that the motion sensor was detecting Santa at their house each time it went off. Not fancy, but fun. :smile_cat:.

You can read more about what other community members have done for the holidays by looking on the quick browse lists in the community-created wiki, looking down near the bottom of that page for “project reports“ and then selecting the holidays list. There’s a lot of very creative ideas there. :snowman_with_snow:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Quick_Browse_the_Community-Created_SmartApps_Forum_Section

BTW, One of the things that smartthings allows you to do that Iris does not is to create virtual devices.

You can create virtual contact and motion sensors that will also look like switches to SmartThings. Then you can turn those switches on and off anyway you want.

Tell the family that any object you want is a “Santa Sensor” – the elf on the shelf, a particular ornament on the Christmas tree, a particular stick up decoration on the window.

And then you can create automations which will cause those “sensors” to trigger based on whatever you want: Time of day, someone leaving the house, a Light going off in the upstairs bathroom—any event that smartthings can detect. :wink:

You’ll get the notifications on your phone. You could look at the history for the sensor. You can have other events happen like an RGBW light turn red or green, or music or sound play. Or have echo say a particular phrase.

So really, you’re only limited by your imagination if you want to create your own “Santa tracker“ in your own house. . :christmas_tree:

The following FAQ discusses using virtual sensors to trigger Echo routines, but you can use the same DTH without a voice assistant just to trigger other events like lights or starting the toy train or whatever.

Thanks and understood, but they make a pretty slick little app / skill/ whatever you want ot call it that “creates” virtual switches and sensors for you… i’ll try and grab some screen shots…

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