I recently bought a smarttag and connected it with the smartthings app on my Galaxy S9+. All works fine there.
So I wanted to play around with the api a little bit and oppened the smartthings webinterface.
But I cannot see the smarttag as a device there, devices are always empty. Tried uninstalling the app, tried resetting the smarttag, no change, only shows up in the app.
The strange thing is, that I assigned the smarttag a custom room (Vespa). This is shown as group in the web interface, but still no devices visible.
Welcome to the SmartThings Community @Erich_Jarz!
Our engineering team keeps working on the availability and reliability of the SmartTags in the API.
You should see the SmartTag listed in the Devices endpoint but all the capabilities have a null value in the Device Status.
Up to now, the SmartTag information is only available at the SmartThings Find SmartApp.
Greetings!
I want to use SmartTag Plus as a tracker. I use SmartThingsNet library for that. But I canât get Tagâs location using it, location is always empty.
API: /devices/{deviceId}/status
Can you tell me when will the API work for getting location?
Hi, are there any new information on this case?
It would be great if we would be able to get information about the smart tag through the API to implement it in our home automation systems. The current method to physically get the phone, open the SmartThings app, then select the smarttag as a device, then open the Smart Things Find app just to eventually see the location data is a little bit laborious and inconvenient. If we had access to the data through the API, we could automate things like âif the tag is moving away while it shouldnât move at all, do xâ or âif the tag is in location x, do y, else do zâ, and so on. And we could directly implement this in our home automation systems like openhab or iobroker. All this is currently not possible. Therefore i would be very grateful if this will eventually be possible, i mean the capability-fields are already there for months now. I donât think that it could be too hard to just populate those fields witht data instead of null
I am trying to be optimistic. On the other hand I consider the mobile presence device and it seems strange that after several years it not only still doesnât include any detailed geolocation data, but it doesnât even include the battery level of the phone.
That said, the attributes are ready and waiting in the tag devices so that has to be a good thing, doesnât it? Maybe not âŠ
@nayelyz: When will you could make this feature sorted out? Can we maybe help? I guess there are very much developers here who can do it in a few hours
If I have my phone and smarttag in the same luggage which get lost, how can I find it?
The SmartTags are considered privacy-sensitive devices, thatâs why that information is not shared in the SmartThings API.
About this, think of when you give âreadâ permissions for all your devices to third parties, if people do it without noticing they would be sharing their exact location, they would be at risk.
In the SmartThings Find app, you can enable/disable location sharing
The team mentioned that having that info available requires a lot of processes to define the purposes of the exposure and define privacy measures to protect the users. So, we canât make promises about that.
The SmartThings Find app allows you to invite other members and share your deviceâs location with them, so they could help you locate your things in that case.
I think you really should give us opportunity to get the location of the tracker.
But to put it simple: If I login to âhttps://findmymobile.samsung.comâ, why canât I view my own SmartTag? Whatâs the security concern with that?
I also barely understand the security concern with the API. If your (not-so-smart) user is generating an API, he/she should be warned, and taught on what his/her risks are. That would be the evolution in 2022. And not the way backwards and banning your (smart) users to use the real benefit of the services by not exposing stuff onto the API.
To be fair enough, can you please evaluate my question on why canât I view my SmartTag in âhttps://findmymobile.samsung.comâ, if I can view my Phoneâs location, my Budsâ location, my BudsProâs location, and my Watchâs location in there?
I am not totally buying into all the arguments @nayelyz has passed on but is good to hear them and thanks to her for extracting them.
My tuppence worth âŠ
There is the Find My Mobile side of things with authentication at an individual Samsung Account level and at a device level within that account.
Then there is the SmartThings side with authentication based on Samsung Accounts but at a SmartThings Location level.
So two different approaches which both make sense independently. A nice line can be drawn between them.
Something like a mobile phone sits happily on both sides of the line. Find My Mobile is a function of the phone. SmartThings mobile presence is a function of the app. They are basically separate things.
SmartThings Find is where the confusion begins. Initially it was effectively just the âmissing appâ for Find My Mobile. It was a bit of a cuckoo in the nest but wasnât doing any harm. Indeed it wasnât doing anything much at all.
However now we have the idea of BLE Connected devices such as the SmartTag. They are installed through SmartThings and have some interaction with it via their âownerâ phone. So they are SmartThings devices. However they are also SmartThings Find devices. They donât reach as far as Find My Mobile but they fall under its way of doing things. The line has been obliterated
I think we at least need the line back, even if it is blurry. If nothing else the SmartTag needs to be able to operate as a presence sensor, the same as the phone associated with it. It would be a game changer.
Hi,
In my experience ios and android phones work well as presence sensors in ST. Smarttags only work as real time presence sensors when in range of the blue tooth of the parent phone so donât really add anything as a stand alone device. Another user in smartthings canât make the tag ring for example. I have to connect to my motherâs phone with teamviewer and then open smartthings find on her phone to get all the functions.
Andrew
I am more interested in what they could do when out of range of the phone for whatever reason. They could still act as presence sensors, which sounds like the most we could get given the perceived privacy issues. They might not have the range of applications that some/many users find for the phone presence but they would still be useful.
Yes they can, but only in the same circumstances as the âownerâ i.e. connected to the tag over Bluetooth.
I think there might be some country limitations then, because:
I can leave my SmartTag (for trial) in PlaceA (workplace), and its location is perfectly queryable with my phone from quite a distance (5km).
And my phone is not just showing SmartTagâs last known location when it was in my phoneâs range, but it also shows my Tagâs live location if there is any other Galaxy user around.
Thatâs a massive legal stuff, whenever you accept your phoneâs EULA, you accept that your phone will help Samsung to find the SmartTags around you. You wonât be able to see whose SmartTag your phone is seeing, but your phone will upload your location along with the ID of the SmartTag to the Cloud.
Then the authorized owner of the SmartTag can see the tagâs live location from the Cloud through your phone.
Thatâs the reason why itâs much more attractive than other trackers (like Tile). Because Samsung has a lot of users worldwide so you can expect a high chance of someone (some Galaxy phone) sooner or later will find your tag and upload its location. (Again, find here happens in the background without user intervention or user attendance).
So it works really good in my environment, but if I put it in my bag (along with my phone), I wonât have a chance to get its location, since the only device capable of that will be with it in the same bag.
I think the point being made was that if the phone is in range then the tag location isnât adding information you donât know already, and if the phone is out of range there will be a delay before the tag asks for help and location updates will be unpredictable after that, so it is not real time presence.
They are nice things if you get them at the right price (I wouldnât pay more than ÂŁ15 tops for the basic model) but they are too passive. They need to expose some useful capabilities.
