My wife has a clock on her nightstand. I have an iPad. Sans my glasses or contacts, I can’t see her clock. Wouldn’t it be cool to build an app that would interact with the SmartThings hub? Think about any clock app you’ve ever seen. They chew the hell out of battery life. An app that could sense motion via the SmartThings hub (hub connected with a motion sensor as a connected thing) would be able to turn on and off the clock screen. Finally I could have a clock that wouldn’t chew through my battery that I could see. I know, just go buy a clock…that’s not much fun though is it?
I am not sure about the limitations of SmartThings, but I have a feeling that it could be done. If you go back to some of the original ideas, then you will see an app that sends a notification to your phone that the dog has left the house. So there is a feedback to the phone that could be used to turn on the clock. However I am not sure how ideal this solution is - if you move in your sleep you might trip the detector, your clock will turn on, and you might wake to the light. Where as a clock is a constant light and you will be accustomed to it.
Hope that helps.