Anyone having issues with any automation? None of my smart apps are working…
Me too. I am starting to rethink this!!
My app keeps crashing or can’t find my network.
Yeah… Some stuff is working and some isn’t. And somehow my hue.lights got deleted without my intervention and and they can’t be re added… Weird stuff tonight…
Frankly… the shininess is starting to wear off. I have had this less than a month and this is my third outage in prime time.
I have asked support several questions regarding commands/functions in the API and was asked to post in the forums so all could benefit, but those posts go ignored. I am thinking about bailing. What is the return policy for SmartThings?
Unfortunately outages happen more often then they should.
Some money needs to be sunk into the infrastructure so the servers dont get so bogged down all the time. I’d be interested to know what server platform they are running. I wonder if they are running the data center themselves or if they host it with a tier one provider.
If they manage it themselves, maybe its time to ask Amazon for some help;)
ST is hosted on Amazon S3 cloud. The problem is most likely in ST’s server software. This is unfortunate side effect of doing all message handling in the cloud. It got better though, it seems, comparing to what it was 6 month ago. BTW, all cloud-based automation platforms suffer for the same malaise, including Lowe’s Iris.
I think as a community we need to look for several things.
Importantly - when things aren’t working - we need to not be in a position that we have to “guess”. Even a very simple server status would be helpful.
As developers - it is very frustrating to write code that works one minute, and then performs differently the next.
We are already exceptionally frustrated by the lack of clear documentation and public acknowledgment of bugs.
It is fair enough to ask us to not contact support when we have a development question - it is much better for the “community” to have our questions posed and responded to here.
The hyper important thing here though is that they must be responded to. My experience thus far has been that Ben is as helpful as he can possibly be, but that one person can not be across everything so there is a limit to how much information he can provide at any one time.
I would like to see a lead developer assigned to the “SmartApps / SmartDevices” sections of the community, and I would like to see a few hours a day of input here. It can rotate through their development team, or be the responsibility of one person.
I acknowledge that it’s a few hours a day of lost productivity for the platform - but I think that the benefits for the community would far outweigh that loss.
If there aren’t pending questions, coming up with example code snipits and posting them for comment in the community would be hugely beneficial, or perhaps offering code review and suggestions for developers could be another option.
If this really is about the community as I (and evidently others) have been told - then lets make it about the community. Feed us the important information about the platform - is it up or down, what is the average delay in processing the message queue, etc etc - and engage with us a little more.
Would this have effected wemo stuff also?
What problems are you seeing?
I am able to actuate WeMo devices, but SmartThings are not seeing that state change. So it’s kinda like blindly turning things on or off.
I am also not seeing anything get triggered by WeMo Motion sensors - but I don’t think that is WeMo specific - I’m not seeing any sensor triggered events at all.
I have a ST motion sensor that is supposed to trigger a light to come on that is attached to a Belkin Wemo switch. It’s not working. If I change the action to come on at a specific time, it works perfect. I can also toggle the light on and off with ST. The problem seems to be limited to the motion now, but it sounds like this is part of a larger motion issue across any sensors? If I look at the console logs, motion is being detected properly by my ST motion sensor.
I’d say the issue is that the ST platform appears to not be processing any sensor input.
I have tried a bunch of different inputs and they all seem to not be processed.
The strange thing is that the log shows inbound events from the devices, so the platform is aware of the trigger.
I don’t know the inner workings of SmartThings - but I would suggest the message queue that they are using to advise subscribed applications of events is not working.
It is really disappointing that this has been offline for what looks like 48 hours now and either has not been detected, or hasn’t been resolved. Either way - a notice should have been posted somewhere advising of this sort of outage.
I am not sure if it’s a global motion sensor issue as my Aeon Motion sensor is working with my Hue lights. I added my Wemo devices yesterday morning and re-added them and I thought that was causing my issues. The Wemo devices have not been very stable on the ST platform (it is Beta after all). I really regret buying these Wemo devices, but did so before home automation hubs started to become more common.
As far as support, I’ve noticed the weekday support is excellent and they get back to you pretty quickly. However, weekend support is spotty and it’s probably due to resource issues. These are the growing pains of a growing, new company and we are feeling them. I still believe in the product, people and company. For the price, it’s very competitive with other controllers out there. I cannot believe Revolv is $299. That blows my mind.
Aeon Motion Sensor not working here with a WeMo switch. Removed and tried re-adding all my WeMos, but the WeMo smart app is now unable to detect any of my WeMo switches/plugs (!). (The WeMo app from Belkin works no issues)
Perfect timing too - I just hooked the Aeon motion with the WeMo switch yesterday morning. “You will never have to reach for that switch again!” I proclaimed to the wife. We get back after home around 8pm, and no light even after some frantic waving in front of the sensor. She is definitely not happy with my recent HA investment
(I am able to see the Aeon sensor report motion/temp/etc correctly though)
Yep, seems like all sensor input is being ignored…
Status.Smartthings.com reports operations normal across the board lol
This right here is the kicker. I am OK with things breaking because we cannot expect them not to. But there needs to be a system in place (that works) to alarm the more technically inclined of an issue.
Status.Smartthings.com has never been useful for me as it seems to be updated by a person and is not automated. An automated system with up down status, message queue statuses, and status of then link between S3 and Smartthings would be great! This could be an amazon issue for all we know but with out us knowing we, by default, blame SmartThings. The more information us developers and technical people have the better. If we know what’s going on we won’t flame the message boards;)
Because of the lack of information I have removed my hue lights as a part of my own troubleshooting and now cannot add them back… If I had information before that I wouldn’t of done my own troubleshooting… I guess that’s the rub of being a break/fix server troubleshooter by day haha.
End rant.
Yeah… that’s the first thing I checked when my lights stopped being controlled; obviously they need better error checking. Spent the better part of a couple of hours trying to track things down. Luckily, I accidentally clicked on my smartthings community bookmark instead of the API bookmark and saw this post at which point screams and smart expletives ensued.
WAS about drop upper part of $800 on smartthings for new house in week or so. Now I am rethinking this. Even though ST seems more active in development than vera, at least their system is not fully reliant on servers. Not going to be an easy decision. Very disappointing.
I’d be careful with Vera. Seems like a better option sometimes but I’ve had it and I can tell you its not as good as Smartthings.
100% reliance on the cloud is a big issue for me as well. I love ST and I think it has a lot of promise. But I’d never use it in its present form for security or anything else mission critical. Things that sorta work most of the time are worse than things that simply do not work. Try convincing your wife that home automation is a good thing after she goes for a walk one day and can’t get back into the house because the garage door won’t open. (Yes, “the power is just as likely to go out”, blah, blah, blah. I don’t remember when was the last time my power went out in this house, actually.) The hub must perform the mission critical tasks otherwise it’s just a toy.
BUT! I also think it’s a fantastic opportunity for ST to introduce a Pro model that has the smarts to run the apps, a backup power, more connectivity options, etc. Lots of very cool engineering challenges. And lots of potential.