Hi all
I getting a little bit deflated over here… I just bought and installed my smart things hub, sensors etc this week and Im very new to the system.
I must say its very confusing to configure and im struggling to find any guides or tutorials on how to configure the thing.
Does anyone have any links (prefarably video) to explain how to create automations and scenes and what the differences are, the types of automations, how to configre arlo cams and lights, etc?
Best practice or example automations?
I dont quite get the difference between scenes and automations and the different modes within automations.
I can see sometimes there are referals to modes like Home, Away, Night but the Smart home monitor only shows Away, Stay, Disarmed. I dont see anywhere how to set a mode Home or Night.
And is there a way to create automations or scenes from a web browser as would be better in my opinion.
Its all very confusing and time consuming and i dont want to spend too much time configuring, and instead enjoy the system.
Thanks both, will read through your links further…
Webcore looks like yet another platform but something i dont really want to learn. Would rather stick to one app (smart things)
In the wiki page, what are > smartapps and device type handlers (DTH) ?
With the Arlo integration, i have managed to add it to smart things, but not sure how to create the automations correctly. I noticed even though the automation was disabled, i received a load of notifications via email saying my cameras picked up sound. So not sure why they are sensing sound or motion when i havent enabled them to do so. Within the arlo app, should the cameras be disarmed or set to the new smart things mode?
Within smart things, i see them as showing ON. (highlighted in blue). am i meant to switch them off?
A detailed guide on how to configure them would be useful not just how to add arlo to smart things…
I feel like samsung smart things have this technology and allows you to integrate them but they dont provide any real assistance or official detailed guides on how to utilise them.
Smartthings takes a little playing around to get used to, but once you have it down it’s pretty easy.
Scenes control multiple devices at once with a single click. Automatons are actions taken because of a condition (a certain time, motion, etc)
So for example if you wanted 3 lights to come on when you walked in the front door, you could make a scene called “entrance lights” where you chose 3 lights, and choose the action to ON. Then make an automation called “entrance detected” for the IF use motion detected by front door cam, and for THEN choose your scene. You don’t have to make a scene though, you can add all 3 lights into your THEN statement.
Modes are useful if you want certain things to happen only if you’re home, asleep/night time, or away. I created routines to automatically switch modes at a certain time or if I leave or come back home. This allows me to have a chime when doors open during the night, but they do not chime during the day without having to turn off the automation that makes them chime.
If you’ve done any programming the routines are conditional statements, and the scenes are like a subfunction of the overall program that is your smart home system
Device Handlers, or Device Type Handlers (DTH) are basically codes that tell smartthings how to talk to and control your devices. Some users write the code so that you can have more control or access all the functions of your devices. Some default handlers that smartthings uses don’t use the full potential of a device you might have.
You have to login to your smartthings IDE and manually enter the code, usually copied from someone’s github. There’s usually step by step directions on how to use posted DTHs.
This will explain the terminology and the basic concepts of smartapps and device type handlers. ( The thread title is a clickable link. Note that this thread is also on the get started list.)
And this one is the old “intro to scheduling” FAQ. The problem is that smartthings is In a major period of transition right now: new app, new cloud, new rules engine, new hub. But nothing is quite finished yet, so many people are having to use both the old and the new in order to get all the functionality that they want. And if you are using the new (which is required to set up the new hubs), it is missing some of the features from the old. So it’s all pretty confusing for everybody right now.
( this is a clickable link)
If you only want to stick with the new app, that’s fine, but then you should just use the official knowledgebase articles that @sidjohn1 linked to above, and a lot of the stuff in the forum will not make any sense to you.
If you want to use both apps, which is what many people are doing right now, then there will be a lot more to absorb, but you will also get a lot more functionality out of your system and be able to use many more devices. So that’s really up to you.
People in the forum will always be glad to help if you get confused at any one point.
Oh, and before I forget, here is the community FAQ on modes, and it should clear up the confusion and applies to both the new and the old app although the terminology is just a bit different:
And as far as webcore, it’s essentially a scripting language for smartthings. Very powerful, but most people won’t need it. There are other simpler alternatives available, including the official features, but they can’t handle rules which are as complicated as Webcore can. So it just comes down to what you were trying to do.
Thanks for your explanations and replies. Starting to make sense… but im about to rip my hair out…
I Just want to use smart things mainly as a secondary security system So after reading through the replies and the guide links, ive started to create some Automations.
But they dont seem to working correctly.
EG,
I want the living room lights to come on for 5 mins and to send me an alert, when the door sensor detects vibration only when the home monitoring is set to Away.
I noticed there is an (OBSCURE!) option to choose “when all of the following conditions are met” or “When any of the following conditions are met”
When i select “when all of the conditions are met”, nothing happens, banging on the door does nothing despite the sensor detecing vibration.
When i select “when any of the conditions are met”, naturally the thing triggers no matter whether the home monitoring is enabled or not…
I have the latest hub recently released and the latest sensors. Using Smart things app. Not the classic one. Never used the old one and this is my very first time owning smart things so the system is brand new to me
Yes, the new app does not have all the functionality of the classic app. Plus, you will pobably have better luck with presence and automations in the classic app - at this point.
See the link in the post above yours. There are quite a few differences the biggest being that the new app does not work well with custom code. So there are many devices which will work with the old app that won’t work with the new one.
Support has told existing customers to continue to use the old app until the new one is finished, unless they have a Samsung TV or appliance which requires the new one.
Also, the new app is dumbed down in some pretty significant ways. For example, there is no way to automate the unlocking of a smart lock in the new app. In the old app, you can have any event that smartthings can recognize, including Geo presence, unlock a smart lock. ( I am quadriparetic and need hands-free control of my doorlock, so this really jumped out at me.)
Also, in the new app there is no way to automate arming or disarming the security features except time of day. You cannot do it based on Geopresence, which is a very popular feature of the old app ( as in “automatically arm the security system when my phone leaves the house.”)
There are some things which are better in the new app, but there’s a lot more functionality in the old one.
You don’t need to delete the new one, and you may need it for some hub management functions. Just keep both, and set up your automations and devices in the classic app for now.
