Hi There!
I’m new to SmartThings, and have a cornucopia of devices that I want to build into my system:
- Ceiling fan + light (IR control)
- Apartment building door buzzer (relay shorting the “door open” switch, plus possible detection of audio on the speaker)
- Apartment front door (using a KeyMatic door actuator, controlled from a hacked transmitter and relay contacts)
- Curtains, directly controllable by relay contacts
Each of these devices seems to be a perfect candidate for a custom Arduino gateway. That said, I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around some of the smaller details:
- I picked up a SmartThings Arduino shield, but as I read the documentation it seems that it can only assume a single “role” in the system. I’m planning on doubling up where a single Arduino controls more than one device… Is the SmartThings shield useable in this scenario? Or should I give up and use a WiFi shield and a custom REST API for each device and action?
- I’m having trouble understanding how to map my devices to device types. For example, I have a ceiling fan/light with these operations:
- Fan OFF/LOW/MED/HIGH
- Light ON/OFF
I suppose one must decompose this into two devices, a light and a fan. The light is obvious. What about the fan?
- My door lock (in Germany, so it’s not quite the same as an American setup) has three positions: LOCK, UNLOCK, and UNLATCH. The first two are persistent states, and the latter is a momentary action (which also switches the persistent state to UNLOCK if not already done). Is there a SmartThings way of representing this? Or do I implement it as a lock/unlock device with an additional momentary switch to open the door?
So many questions… this barely scratched the surface!