SmartThings and SmartTiles disagree about the status of a smart switch

I have several GE/Jasco Wireless Lighting Control and Appliance Modules, one of them has been acting up for the last couple of months - the status is shown incorrectly.

For the device that is acting up:

  • SmartThings always shows it is “on” (except for a brief while when I toggle it using SmartThings)
  • SmartTiles always shows it is “off” (except for a brief while when I toggle it using SmartTiles)
  • Simple Device viewer’s Events page shows “N/A” with a warning triangle
  • Simple Device viewer’s Switches page shows “N/A” with no icon
  • It responds to on/off commands from SmartThings app (My Home > Things)
  • It responds to on/off commands from SmartTiles
  • It turns on as scheduled (sunset-xx minutes)
  • It probably turns off as scheduled (9:30pm, usually it is turned off manually before that time, hence my uncertainty)
  • The API shows its network ID, shows it as active, with last activity 2 minutes ago (when I was turning it on and off to test)
  • The on and off events (scheduled, and from me testing it just now) all show up in the API

A while ago in an attempt to fix it I attempted to replace it (from the SmartThings app) - the app said “Device not considered failed”.

I believe after that I did a Remove (using the SmartThings app), and then re-added it.

I’m certain the hub has been rebooted at least once in the intervening time.

Looking at the details of the device, one thing that differs from another identical device is the Current States field.
A working switch shows:
switch: off
indicatorStatus: never
while the switch I am trying to fix shows:
No states found

Is there anything else I should try before assuming the device is selectively dead?

Thanks.

Hi Mike… interesting paradox.

I presume you’re using a “standard” published, official Device Type Handler?

If you’re adventurous, you can probably find the source code for the DTH in the SmartThings Public GitHub and add more logging log.debug() statements, etc., so that you can trace what is happening (or is failing to happen).

In Live Logging you’ll be able to see both SmartTiles’s output as well as the DTH… and check the Device’s Event History and so on…

I don’t have any custom device handlers, so I guess I’m using whatever handler SmartThings assigned when I set up this switch.

Looking at all the switches (of the same make/model) via the app (My Home > Things > select the device > hit the gear symbol), I see that the one bad switch doesn’t have the option to configure the LED indicator, whereas all the others do. Also in the API the bad switch has a Type of “Z-Wave Switch Generic”, while the others have a type of “Z-Wave Switch”. All switches (bad and not bad) have a type of “Published” - would a custom device type handler be identified by that field having some other value?

So perhaps SmartThings is confused about what device this really is. Given that I already (I think) removed and re-added it from the phone app, is there a way I can totally remove it from the API and re-add that one device?

In your IDE/API page, go to My Devices.

There you can select the Device and force delete it. If it is Z-Wave you probably will have to do a Z-Wave Exclude mode (in SmartThings and on the Device) to allow it to be re-added.

However, before you delete it, you should look at all it’s details, including the Device Type name. You can even Edit the Device properties and change the Type to another Device Type Handler (either from all the available published ones, or from one that you have self-published in your Account).

My Z-wave GE devices do this every now and then. I typically flip the breaker/unplug the device for 15 or so minutes and then turn it back on. This usually gets it working again. Only once did I have to completely replace the device to fix it.

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I will try that. I unplugged it for a short while (20 seconds maybe?), but perhaps it needs a longer time-out.

Thanks, I’ll look at that after the longer power-cycle.

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Well, unplugging it for an hour or so did the trick. It’s working again.

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