SmartThings iOS app update 1.7.05 (August 24, 2023)

new iOS app update is out

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When did they change the layout for Routines from a list where I could read more of the Routine name to a ā€˜buttonā€™ style list now where the Routine names are cut off? Thatā€™s what Iā€™m seeing on my iPad now.

Also, when did they start calling Screens, ā€˜Manually Run Routinesā€™? Looks like you set the Routine trigger to ā€˜Manually Run Routineā€™ to make Scenes now. Iā€™m still not seeing any ā€˜localā€™ icon that they run locally even though they are calling them Manually Run ā€˜Routinesā€™.

It looks like I now have to open a Routine to toggle it On/Off now. EDIT: At least I can ā€˜toggleā€™ the Routine On/Off in the Devices Routines listing.

Looks like itā€™s the same layout on Android too now.

Looks like this Manually Run Routines happened a few days ago and I missed reading that threadā€¦

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yeah, mobile app changes usually hit Android several days before iOS.

Why would they get rid of Scenes in favor of ā€œManually Run Routinesā€?

Interesting the scenes are still listed in the Advanced API.

They posted a survey in here about it several months ago. I donā€™t know they results of that survey, but the feedback in the community from everyone was universally negative.

You can now create Linked Places in the iOS app, and create routines to use them for Android devices. But still canā€™t use routines with them for iOS devices :sweat_smile:

Strange thing. A group of three innr lights I can see and control correctly on my Android app, but my friend can view the same group, and he can only see Brightness, and ON/OFF on his iOS. No color controls.

We are both looking at the same lighting group. It has to be the app. He is new to SmartThings and has an iphone. I could not explain to him how it would be different across platforms. I am pretty sure he has the new update. Has this always been the case?

Sorry to derail the thread.

The only thing I can think of, although itā€™s probably not the real reason, is that because of the smartthings proprietary architecture that gets laid over the top of the independent third-party standards for Zwave, Zigbee, and matter, most devices called a ā€œscene controllerā€ by their manufacturer (itā€™s a pretty standard industry term at this point) donā€™t work out of the box with what smartthings used to call ā€œscenes.ā€

This has been an ongoing issue since before the Samsung acquisition (it was the subject of one of my very first posts in this forum). Itā€™s always been confusing.

Maybe they decided they just want to get rid of that customer support issue.

Like I said, that would be logical, but that doesnā€™t mean itā€™s true. :wink:

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Thanks @JDRoberts you are always helpful. :slight_smile:

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We can only speculate. My observation is that, under the bonnet, Routines are essentially a private version of Rules for the mobile clients. Scenes are managed in the same way as Routines and are clearly just Routines without conditions. However they predate Routines so are their own thing in the public API which is a complete anomaly.

It would appear that they have now decided to make it obvious in the client apps that Scenes are just a subset of Routines and ā€˜Manually Run Routinesā€™ is their attempt at doing so.

We are still left with the anomalous separate existance of Scenes in the API. Iā€™d like to think they will be able to migrate them fully to Routines. If they do then perhaps we will eventually see the name changed back again in the apps.

As @JDRoberts has pointed out, there is a source of confusion at the more technical level too. So removing the term ā€˜scenesā€™ from the API would offer an added benefit in that context.

Yes, some of the new ā€œEnhancementsā€ make no sense. Hopefully they will review customer feedback and change it again more in line with the previous versions.

One positive improvement that Iā€™ve noticed is the ability to ā€œManage devices to useā€. I have a lot of virtual devices that I use for various automations, but I never use them within the App. Itā€™s nice to be able to disable them. When these devices are not displayed in the App, they no longer count towards the 200 device limit. Which I was suffering from. Now that Iā€™ve been able to ā€œHideā€ quite a few virtual devices, I now have the option to add Zigbee/ZWave/Matter devices again.

@nayelyz FYI

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Thatā€™s nice for hiding devices that come from apps (e.g. in my case Sonoff) which canā€™t be deselected on linking.

Thatā€™s interesting. It could be a programming error or it could be more evidence it is actually all about the performance of the app.

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Iā€™m running mine on a iPhone 14Pro Max so Iā€™m not struggling with performance, however I do have an old 7 or 8 and the performance isnā€™t great. Android performance overall even on decent hardware is terrible. As this is one of the few improvements in this new version, you could be right. Itā€™s probably and error ; :rofl:

Well there it goes again. The dreaded, ā€˜not logged into your SmartThings accountā€™ is back since this morning when I opened the SmartThings app on my iPad it was no longer logged in with my SmartThings account. So all my SmartThings app customizations on my iPad are gone! Arrrgggg, thatā€™s one feature I thought they got rid of a while back since it hasnā€™t happened in months!!!

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I donā€™t find the new apps layout to be irritatingly different more along the lines of evolving. The performance is by far the fastest that I can remember. But we know how fast that could change. The clear icons for devices that are off made me think that they were different icons from the on icons for some of them, especially the one for a fan, until you take a closer look at it.

Noticed some awkwardness with the tiles for some of my custom Edge devices. Tagged @Mariano_Colmenarejo in another thread to let him know that ā€œConnectedā€ appears alongside the device value on the tile for some of the thermostat and temp/humidity devices using his custom drivers.

Rule #1 on UI updates/enhancements should be to add/improve functionality not remove functionality. Prior to the latest update their was a slider on the Routine (now called Automatic routines) icon that allowed you to enable/disable the Routine. That is now gone and to enable/disable a routine you now have to open the Routine (click on the icon) and then click on enable/disable on the next screen. Why remove very convenient functionality?

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I can think of two possibilities:

  1. On a small screen the slider would be rather close to the home icon indicating local execution. Rather than removing the home icon that looks messy, or merging it with the routine icon, they removed the useful slider.
  2. They seriously thought moving the toggle to the editor improved things.