The new app is supposed to revamp sliders. As far as I know this is the second attempt over the years to do so. The first one failed and unless I am missing something, I would say the same thing about this one… I can’t dim my lights anymore as the sliders aren’t working!
No matter how I touch the slider nothing happens other than moving the entire page.
EDIT: Wife figured it out but it is very inconvenient… Quickly touch the percentage and let go then you get a full screen slider. What happened to reducing the “clicks” for common operations? This, IMO, is a big step backwards in usability.
Yeah…this is pretty bad. It worked just fine before and now it takes multiple extra clicks and a less clean interface to do the same thing. It also simply looks worse…why would the percentage be on the screen twice???
This app change affects most of the sliders in DTHs so many will have to be adjusted. I think it would have been safer/better to add this new method rather than replacing the default one. The default slider certainly could have used improvements but those could have been made without changing it so drastically. Below is an example of a custom DTH (Virtual Hue Light) that is now all messed up and will require work to make it look/usable again.
I’ve never really had any issues with the custom slider that appears under the round color control. For some reason that one was not affected but the one next to teh on/off and the other right under the custom one did…
Problem is it doesn’t free anything up. The slider on most of the stock handlers was already on the tile. Now its in the corner with the percentage number…with another tile right below it with the percentage. Before you could slide it right from the same screen, now you have to click it and adjust on another screen.
There doesn’t seem to be any positive and multiple negatives (same number twice on screen, not intuitive at all, extra clicks, etc)
Agree with the dislike. Looks bad, not as intuitive (as in, if I hand my mother the phone she’d be able to figure out how to change the slider instantly the old way, now it would take hunt and pecking), and it just doesn’t go with the style of the app.
I guess I can see them making it bigger so you can be more accurate, but really, is there big difference between 55% and 51%? Maybe combine both? Old slider for 5% increments or click on the XX% for the full screen slider for full screen more precise selection.
This is one of the worst changes that I’ve ever seen in this app. Let’s take a slider that was available on the main device on a room page and make it so that device can’t be dimmed without going to the device itself and then clicking on something AND THEN change it.
Plus, on RGBW devices, I now have 4 useless buttons that I have to click into and out of just to change colors. Yes I can click the color selector button to set the color, but I never needed to before. I could do everything from the sliders that were right next to each other.
Hopefully I can find the previous version and reinstall that. I will then be turning off automatic updates until this issue is resolved correctly.
2 Likes
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
13
Despite ActionTiles not implementing an incremental +/- (i.e., we just have a slider)… I personally do see a big difference between 55% and 51%. Actually… it’s particularly important for certain LEDs where 1% is a perfect night-light and anything more is too bright; but also in the home theater where scary movies need a little less ambient light, and party movies need more.
Just sayin… Granularity of control is a good thing; but it is hard to decide what the most efficient UI is for this.
I totally agree with this. When I’m putting my daughter to sleep, she goes into the crib and I set the light from 15% to about 7%. Then as I sing to her, I slowly lower it down to 1%. I then turn it off as I leave. Her light at 5% is still pretty bright.
I pulled the last version off my tablet (which had been thankfully powered down) using adb.exe and then ran aapt.exe against it to verify it was the last version (2.5.1). I then uploaded it to a couple file sharing site for anyone that wants to downgrade. For those unfamiliar with how to do this:
Uninstall this broken version (2.6.1)
Swipe from the top and go into settings
Go to Applications or just Apps
Go to App Manager
Find SmartThings in the list and click it
Click Force Stop then Uninstall
Install the last version (2.5.1)
Swipe from the top and go into sttings
Find Security or Lock Screen & Security
Find a option called “Unknown sources” and turn it on. Accept the scary warning
I threw it on a couple file sharing site and most are slow but feel free to upload somewhere else. Once done I would recommend turning off unknwon sources. Also to stop it from auto updating:
Go into the Play store
Click the top left menu then go to My Apps and Games
Click on SmartThings Mobile
Top right corner click the three dots
Uncheck “Auto-update”
Good luck and put in support requests if you like me think this change makes it a lot less useful.