@noahm,
One of the problems with SmartThings is that is still relatively new and they are ironing out some issues. Many of the apps you want already exist, some of them have been created for others and are shared apps. Because SmartThings hasn’t fully evolved to the point where users can submit their apps and you can simply pull them down to your device, you have to go through a few more steps. Essentially you’re going to copy someone’s shared app (their code) and “re-create” their app in your apps. To do this you’ll go into the area and act as if you’re creating a new app. After giving it a name a description go to the code area. Now in the top right corner there is a link browse existing SmartApps, including ones shared by other users. Here’s a quick cheat sheet I wrote a while ago: Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life
Generally, even if there isn’t a specific app that does what you want it to do, there’s often something pretty darn close that’ll work with just a little code modification.
Now, on to your specific needs:
manual turn pump and heater on/off with 1 button remote or dummy switch
If you have a Dummy Switch (ie, a z-wave switch that isn’t wired to anything) than you should be able to use the existing “The Big Switch” app in the convenience section.
cycle pump (no heat) 30 mins twice a day on a timed basis
This one is easy. Simple using the existing “Once a Day” app in the convenience section. Setup your start and end times and install. Then, go back and do it again with your second start and end times. So you’re installing the program twice.
turn on heat and pump for 5 mins every half hour when air temp is below 32
This is definitely going to need a custom app. I think I’d start with av8rdude’s “Porch Fans - On…It is Hot!” app (The MyApps section of shared apps) as a good template for how to schedule an app and how to interact with different devices.
turn pump and heat off after 10 pm if no activity in the area for 15 minutes
Again, you’re going to need a custom app for this. A quick look through the existing apps doesn’t turn up one that would be super easy to modify, but this shouldn’t be too hard to do.
We rent the house frequently, so having controls that are easy to use for guests, but give me control when remote are important. Down the road, I would also like to be able to have a simplified tablet-based UI to allow guests to control things as well, but mask the ‘edit’ capability so that it’s really just a switchboard
What you probably want to do here is setup an Android tablet with Tasker commands for these things. It’s a bit complicated, but there’s a nice tutorial to get you through it. I use this to place an icon on my kids tablets so they can control different things. They have one icon for each switch/outlet in their rooms. Tap it to toggle on/off.
I’m technically proficient but not a coder. Further…I don’t really want to have to get into code to accomplish things like the above. Am I heading down the wrong path with SmartThings? Am I better off switching to Vera?
Do people ever hire out services? Can I pay someone to write a smart app like the above?
Have you do any coding ever? I took some classes “way back when” and did some real simply coding in Basic, Visual Basic, and Pascal. It’s been more than a decade since I did any coding. But I was able to do some simple and even some moderate level coding just by looking at examples and modifying existing programs. If you’d done any coding in the past I’d urge you to take a look… I think you’ll find that you can do more than you thought you could.
You can always ask for help in the developers forum too if you get stuck with anything.
Finally, I’m sure if you offered that people would do some coding for you. I have no idea what price they’d want, but if it’s easy stuff I don’t imagine it would cost too much. Again, I’d ask in the developer section.
And I don’t think I’m alone…it’s a pretty big gap for ST to leave between canned apps (albeit with a degree of configurability) and writing code. The rules-based UI ninja blocks is working on seems much more flexible and easy to use
Obviously I’ve never used the rules based stuff from ninjablocks. My concern with stuff like that how complex can it get with the GUI before you have to dig into the code anyway? For example, I think it would be relatively easy to say: At 10pm, turn this off. But how easy would it be to say: Between 10pm and 8am, check every 15 minutes and turn off if it’s on? Next can it handle using a motion sensor to “disable” the automatic off? Maybe I’m wrong… maybe this is something that can all be done with the GUI drag and drop stuff, but I tend to think you’d have to get into the underlying code real quick with something like this.