Ok, so I’m seeing with the new update that I have an automation that’s listed as local. So is it doable / safe / recommended to start moving my SmartLighting rules over to Automations instead? They did say at some point, I think, that SmartLighting would go away in favor of everything being an automation. It’s definitely been good to have the SmartLighting stuff running locally, just haven’t heard how well the local automation stuff works in comparison.
I didn’t spend too much time with it, that will have to wait for Mark, but voiceover navigation is still terrible. Seriously, unusable.
Note: All of the images below are screen captures of the SmartThings app displaying an example of the problem discussed in the text above the image. The small black box on the image shows which element had focus at the time the screen capture was taken. If you are using a voice reader, just skip the images, you will be able to experience the issues yourself when using the smartthings app. Unfortunately.
There are pages where every single image has the description “image,” such as this example from the “how to use“ section.
There are some images which have the description “image file“ and nothing more than that. This one is on the favorites screen.
A number of the action elements are in fact not actionable by voice, so you can’t get to those pages at all. In this example from the favorites screen, it’s that little arrow at the top of the smartthings home monitor tile.
The tips pop-ups that come up over other elements usually don’t get read.
Also, good luck figuring out how to get off of this screen from the “add a device” process. It doesn’t take you to “done“ after you’ve done the selections. It doesn’t take you anywhere. If you try going down, that won’t work. If you jump to the top, you’ll land on the cancel, but if you select that the changes you just made won’t be saved. You have to try jumping up to the top, letting it read across, and then selecting done. I’m not saying it’s impossible, I am saying it’s definitely not intuitive. Or easy.
One of the most annoying is that when you switch from one page to another, the focus of the navigation is supposed to start at the first field on the new page, but it doesn’t. It sits down wherever you were before. So, for example, if there is a sequence of pages with a “next“ button, when the next page comes up you’re still just sitting on the next button. So if you are just listening to the page it sounds like there’s nothing there. This is not standard practices, let alone best practices. This one is from the initial tutorial sequence, but it happens other places as well.
And I suspect because of the same issue on some pages you just start with focus randomly in the middle of the page, and someone who is using a voice reader may not even realize that they were other options above the “first“ item. This one is when looking at devices listed by brand.
There is absolutely no way this went through an accessibility review before release. Just sayin’…
Since nothing I’ve been saying for three years has had any impact on the accessibility of the releases here’s my new suggestion.
Before Samsung is ever allowed to say anything about accessibility again, they have to hire Kyle Coon (a triathlete from the US paralympics team) as a consultant and any person who signs off on a future UI release as being accessible has to complete a full training sequence with him if it fails an independent National Federation for the Blind accessibility review. Blindfolded, of course.
Note: pictures in this post are just some pictures of Kyle Coon competing for a spot on the US Paralympics team as a triathlete. The point is if developers think delivering an app with voice accessibility is hard they can try spending a day with someone who needs it and see what can be accomplished when you do the work. And I would really like the developers to get a sense of the teamwork you need between the people creating the accessibility options and the people using them. You’re not doing accessibility so you can write a nice webpage about how advanced you are. You’re doing it because there are real people who really need it. Heck, I wouldn’t mind if the developers just sat and watched a training session and understood that they themselves are in the position of the guide for the paraathlete. And that the tiny details matter.
Because this page:
Is just embarrassing in the context of the SmartThings app.
No more broken promises. Game on.
Am I able to manually change the mode like I could in the last app?
My suggestion is yes. Simply because we KNOW Smartlighting has a shelf life in its current form - don’t be caught behind the 8-ball when they eventually decide they’ve got feature parity with Automations and it’s going bye-bye. A lot of people take the approach - hey I don’t like that, so I’m not using it.
What that means is there currently ISN’T Feature parity between Automations and SmartLighting right now - there’s some very important stuff Automations can’t do. (Mirroring, for one, there’s others) My unscientific assessment says about 70% parity… So for those, no don’t migrate them. Considering the requirements for local automations between SL and Automations are basically the same - you should have significant success moving over basic automations. Light / dim / color based on triggers etc. no problem. Sunrise / Sunset - got it. Location Mode triggers - yep. Works great. Mirroring… well. not yet.
Finally - my opinion of course… and for some this is some tough love - and I’m sorry if those people feel offended.
Guess what, it’s going this direction (away from SmartLighting to Automations) whether we LIKE it or not. They’ve (ST Dev teams) been planning things behind closed doors MONTHS before we ever hear about them. Those plans don’t change without SIGNIFICANT user feedback. (Read: what happened with the Alexa skill) So try it, see if it works for you and submit feedback early and often if it doesn’t work while there are still alternatives to fall back on. If you don’t try it and don’t submit feedback, then - you just get to live with what happens.
It’s buried under the location - but yes. you can.
Anyone else lose their ST widget in ios after the upgrade? Says it is still enabled in the ST app, but it’s not there or able to be added in the ios widget settings.
edit: ios 14.6
Is anybody else having trouble with the SmartThings iOS widget? I’m in iOS 15, so it very well could be that. I have it enabled in settings, but don’t see it at all.
Change the size of the smallest default font in phone settings
Yeah, isn’t showing there either. Looks like they updated it to the new iOS 14widgets that can be placed on your home page?
I have mine on my widgets page
Just remember @Automated_House is on iOS 15
I’ve heard of a couple people having the same issue on iOS 14.6 now
I have 14.7 and widgets are fine. Just checking… you tried uninstalling/reinstalling the app?
They magically started working, although the scene icons don’t match between the widget and the app.
How do access an offline device to delete? Also, if a device is showing offline, is there way to get it to update? I have devices that are now online including showing online in the ide, but still show offline in the app
I’m not really a fan of how accessing a scene from the widget automatically opens the ST app. I don’t think it did that with the last app.
I noticed that too, and that is so not what I want. But I thought maybe I had just made a voice error.
For me the whole point of a widget is that you don’t have to open the app. Or, you know, close it again.