I suppose we ought to have a thread to discuss the latest update. I’ll start with what for me is the bad news so I can stop being a grumpy pants quicker.
Still broken and/or unusable:
Most of Home Insights is completely missing.
Updating custom SmartApps still returns an error.
Map View still lacks any useful scale to help build the rooms and device icons are still about 75cm in radius based on size of appliances. Default room size is about two to three times the size of my house.
The app update Notice covers a few changes, with the Manage Devices page being a particularly sensible change to consolidate functionality, though I still wish they’d move Remove Device to the Edit Device menu too.
The device details pages now include a modestly sized battery icon and percentage where appropriate. That to me is about right for the Controls tab. Hopefully the big battery tile will be removed once the rollout of the app update is completed and they’ll find a better way of featuring the battery history. It’s not that isn’t potentially useful, it’s just in the wrong place.
The December update of the SmartThings app includes the following.
additional devices for Quick Remote Control
In total, the following 7 new devices have been added that support Quick Remote Control. Washing machine, dryer, AirDresser, dishwasher, range, multifunction oven, Airpurify humidifier
a function for sharing video recordings has been added to the camera plugin
The owner of a location or camera can share the video with specified location members. The specified members can view the video recording in the SmartThings camera plugin.
the “Manage devices” menu has been added
The “Manage devices” function has been added to the ‘More’ menu under the Devices tab. This menu allows users to move a device to another room or remove it.
Just as you selected devices not to be used in SmartThings in the ‘Select devices to use’ menu, users can set devices to be hidden or shown again.
the rule category function has been improved
By long pressing Category, you can move the position of the category and also see the link to the setting. When you create or edit a routine, you do not need to leave the routine creation screen.
Also still broken (still broken from when I first had the update a week ago); Android Auto just has the Tizen loading dots and will not load at all, then the Quick Remote feature still doesn’t work for Washers or Air Purifiers, even though it says they do. Then one of my TV’s won’t even show up even though I have another lower end model of the same year and kind work. A Q60T 55" works, but a Q90T 65" doesn’t, also keep in mind the Q90T used to work just fine.
Sometimes it seems like they spend more time fixing things that they broke then introducing new things.
JKnight
(Keeping SmartThings limping along since 2013.)
7
This update is not available from the Play Store or the Galaxy Store, I only see it available in the western US via ApkMirror (no thanks). I do see ratings and reviews for this version in the Play Store and the Galaxy Store, so I guess someone must have access to install the update.
An ok update imo, nothing new is broken (just the same stuff as before). I like they added the routine category when creating an automation, that’s useful, but they still are missing a search bar in the category creation page to look up for routines.
I have a question about the notes, what’s Camera Plugin? That’s for ST brand cameras?
I am in the UK. When I opened the app this morning and checked ‘About SmartThings’ it told me an update was available. That would be in the Galaxy Store. However I checked the Play Store and there was an update there too that had yet to be automatically installed.
I’ve just turned on two other phones. A Samsung had it available in the Galaxy Store but not yet in the Play Store. A non-Samsung phone doesn’t have access to the update yet.
The ‘Replace Hub’ page has been updated so the text is now consistent regarding online/offline hubs and better still if a hub can’t be replaced a tailored reason appears on the page.
So for example on my main Location I see:
Why can’t I replace this hub?
All hubs in Location are in a hub group. You can remove a secondary hub from a hub group to use it as a replacement hub. You can also just change a secondary hub so that it becomes a primary hub.
On a secondary Location where my V2 hubs are parked I am informed that none of my hubs have any devices so there isn’t any point in replacing them.
That is pretty much what I suggested as an improvement recently. It seems they were probably well ahead of me.
On the whole I have to say that all of the changes that affect me are nice improvements. It’s the broken bits that haven’t been fixed that are the big issue for me.
1 Like
JKnight
(Keeping SmartThings limping along since 2013.)
12
Thanks! It is still not available for any of my Android devices, Samsung or not, via Galaxy Store, Play Store, or trying to update within the SmartThings app.
With how rocky their roll-outs are, I guess I am not surprised that they are targeting a small number of users first, before making the update widely available.
I was just looking forward to it hopefully fixing more things than it breaks.
I have never seen this “downloading” popup before, and after the update it’s occurred several times on touching a device icon. No issue, but curious to know what has been changed.
Does anyone seem to have access to this unannounced feature? For me it’s missing.
Supposedly in version 1.8.26.21 they added a new widget called “Screen Remote” for TVs and Monitors that are 2022 or newer. First screenshot below is from a news source reporting on the new SmartThings version and second one is of my widgets.
The problem is I don’t have it; and I have a fully up to date S24 Ultra and S95C TV from 2023 and only have 3 “Routine” widgets.
If only we were as lucky as iOS, at least they got the feature. Like I said in my post earlier, which I CLEARLY STATED; I DON’T HAVE THIS FEATURE AND I SHOULD. I asked if anyone else did and no one answered my question. I’m on Android with a full Samsung ecosystem that includes Samsung S24 Ultra with Android 14 aka One UI 6.1 Dec. Patch, Samsung S95C 77" 2023 Model year with the latest firmware aka 2011 Tizen 8, and Samsung SmartThings Version 1.8.26.21 and I don’t have this feature.
I get offered the same widgets as you. I don’t have a 2022+ Samsung TV so I didn’t see any point in my commenting. I also note that the screen shot shows a 4x1 widget with a Location label where there should be a 4x2 Routines widget.
A different article rather improbably suggests the TV has to be called ‘Living Room TV’ or ‘My TV’ but more plausibly suggests it is a gradual or regional roll-out. That goes beyond what seems to be the original article.
Not only that. The very useful double tap back gesture for TV remotes is now gone out of nowhere. Not sure if this is a bug or feature removal but I hated not being able to use the double tap back command in the TV remote plug-in. Finally uninstalled
it to go back to the downgraded version 1.8.21.28.