Changes here and there some good some bad
Among the bad, the text font headings on the routines page is so small only Ant man can read them, pretty sure next size down from current is sub atomic
Small icons from home page now appear per room if there are compatible devices in the room and same as before, the app has issues detecting what is a light or what device has temperature capability Subsequently devices are not included which should be
Quick Tv option has a few more settings
Weather tile continues to disappoint, still goes out to a web page
I don’t tend to use Favourites because if anything was that important to me it would be important enough to use a widget or something. So the panel on the Favourites page (inexplicably copied by Google Home) banging on about them is particularly irritating. It is still there and still irritating but it doesn’t look quite so childish now. Unfortunately it links to ‘Learn about SmartThings’.
The status tiles remain as broken as ever with the Lights showing me two lights and the Select devices option showing me diddly squat. As mentioned they now intrude on to the Room pages.
The ‘Home’ icon on the top left of the pages has changed to a three line ‘burger’ menu with a home icon splatted on it and is now a Labs feature that lets you choose which device cards to include in the app. Sadly this doesn’t include the option of the hidden mobile presence devices. I don’t really understand what home icon is still doing there.
The Add device page has changed significantly. It now has ‘Samsung devices’ and ‘Partner devices’ (WWST and Matter) panels with ‘Add’ buttons, plus ‘Scan QR Code’ and ‘Scan nearby’ buttons at the bottom.
Unbelievably when I went to ‘Samsung devices’ and then ‘Smart Home hub’ it started looking for a QR code and I then had to click a teeny ‘Add without QR code’ link before I got the option to choose a V2 hub. It does at least list my Locations when I finally get there so that is hopefully fixed.
The Scenes and Routines now use the same size and shape tiles as devices. It is now possible to read the complete names of the Scenes on small screens for the first time ever (so yes the text is rather small). The Routines no longer have the icons that hint at their contents and can no longer be disabled from the tiles. That is now a function on the details screen. I am not convinced that is an improvement.
I completely overlooked possibly the biggest change. Scenes have gone. They are now Routines with a ‘Manually run’ condition. The Routines section is divided into ‘Manually run routines’ and ‘Automatic routines’.
I’ve only just realised that the entire Automations page is now called Routines. So instead of three types of Automations named Scenes, Routines and SmartApps which actually made sense, we now have three types of Routines called Manually run routines, Automatic routines and SmartApps, which is daft.
We also have the ridiculous situation where the Routines now have a Run routines action to automatically run the Manually run routines.
Ah yes, I knew there was something familiar about this. It is pretty weird stuff, particularly since under the bonnet Scenes are still a separate API object.
What idiot wrote that?
In my defence the enable/disable slider was a critical part of that suggestion.
I’m still finding more and more. For example, the ‘Home’ logo that I said had changed to a burger menu with a little icon actually varies with Location. I only have two Locations so I can’t see if there is a pattern to it.
An empty Routines page has a panel with the option to ‘Create routine’ or ‘Learn more’. I’ll show you that first, and the results of ‘Learn more’. The pictures in those are dynamic.
I suppose I should be fair and say that a lot of these changes are probably ‘a good thing’ for those encountering SmartThings for the first time, even if a bit misleading in places. However experienced users also have to use this app whether we like it or not and I think it is moving away from us. The ‘my.smartthings.com’ site needs to be brought up to the quality of the Advanced Web App so there is a developer grade tool available as an alternative to the mobile app.
On a plus side, the new Tv remote option is extremely good and looks very nice, to the concerned developers infact can we keep these people and let them do a few more changes
That does look the part. I don’t think I can use that with my TVs.
Following on from a previous comment, this update does seem rather polished compared to many we’ve had previously. I don’t necessarily agree with all the changes but they seem to have put some effort in. Whether the QA has also improved is another matter.
I should add a note of caution that in some of my interactions this version of the app has been an absolute dog. So slow that you think the buttons don’t work, and I really hope they aren’t adding to the bloat as the app was already absurdly large.
Although ‘manually run routines’ is a bit pants as descriptions go, I like the idea of Scenes being just a special case of Routines. However it only makes sense if the Scenes API is withdrawn too and there has to be an action in the Rules API to execute Rules rather than just Scenes.
Is anyone else having a problem adding new devices using Scan Nearby since the App was updated? This has failed for me twice today. First when trying to find a Hue bridge using [ST Edge] Philips Hue LAN [BETA] and then when trying to pair an Ikea Fyrtur blind following instructions in Pair Ikea Fyrtur Remote with Fyrtur Blinds?
There seem to be two icons. It seems that one of them is supposed to represent a QR code. You see that if you are the owner of the currently selected Location and it brings up the QR code to invite another member to the Location.
The three line one is not meant to be the ‘burger menu’ icon, it is actually supposed to represent a list but the house icon overlaying it makes the middle line look truncated rather than short to start with. It is used when you aren’t the owner of the currently selected Location. It brings up the ‘Manage devices to use’ page that is also found in the option menu on the Devices page.
I don’t really see either of the above as being useful, and having an icon do two different things doesn’t seem like a good idea.
If you use the ‘Manage devices to use’ page to deselect a device any Routine it is used in also disappears from the app. Not sure whether that is wise or not.
to the concerned developers infact can we keep these people and let them do a few more changes
