That is very strange indeed I’m sure quite aggravating.
So there are no other automations that are controlling your actual switch? I don’t see how your switch could be changing state all by itself like that. I wonder if it has something to do with the smart lightening mirroring function. Is the mirroring supposed to work both ways? In other words you are describing that when the actual switch changes, then that triggers the virtual energy meter switch. Is it possible that the actual switch is getting changed by the virtual meter switch? I’ll take a look to see if there are any unusual switch state changes that could even cause that. But I’d recommend you also look at the history of your virtual energy meter and see if it is showing any unusual activity of the included switch that corresponds to these random changes of your actual switch.
I have tested the sync function of smart lighting and it sync only one way. I.e. it syncs behavior of my actual switch. I will do further testing and update you if I find anything.
I have all my lights, plugs etc, being mirrored to virtual meters, and not a single issue
You should not mirror meter to lights and plugs, you should mirror device’s status to virtual meter.
Hi @TAustin. All my virtual meters function correctly, without any reverse issues.
I have suggestion for virtual meter, if is possible to hide button feom Dashboard view, and instead of On or Off to show current Power usage when On, and 0W when. Meter is Off. Something like I have Photoshopped below. This would eliminate accidental switching and it will provide current Power Meter draw (circled in yellow)
From this dashboard tile
Last thing to ask, is it possible to add only one decimal point to Wattage (circled in red), as some smaller loads like bulbs or PC fans can be point something watts, like 6.5 or 12.5 etc.
I verified that random on/off goes away if I don’t use the virtual energy meter. Also checked history and there are no triggers that shows up associated with this on/off behavior. I know it is weird but have replicated multiple times and wanted to report.
Maybe check new Smart lighting app. If SmartThings team converted some routines they could do something unpredictable. I was in Smart lighting beta where they were supposed to move everything from new to old app, and I am not even go and start on how they moved my automations from old to new app. I just had to redo all of them.
I didn’t join the beta for moving automations from old to new Smart Lighting.
I recreated a few of mine and left the ones doing mirror/sync for last. A week or two ago I discovered those had been automatically migrated and the old Smart Lighting has been removed from my account.
I didn’t have anything complicated and had less than 20 automations in Smart Lighting. I had no issues.
Yes, this is possible: I could display the power usage instead of the switch state, and remove the button. BUT, if I did this you would lose the ability to tell if the switch is on or off because the icon color highlighting would not work. It keys off of the state being shown and if that is the power meter value, then it will always be grey. Is this acceptable? I could make this a configurable option too.
You may recall that we tried this before and at the time there was a problem with the custom capability not displaying the decimal values. I had reported the problem to SmartThings. But that was back in July and it’s possible it has been corrected, so I’ll run some tests.
I think that icon would change between gray and color icon, and 0W for off or word Off, and any current Power Meter value for on status would be good.
This are example of On and Off status, with corresponding light bulbs
I’ll experiment with this, but it wasn’t just the display of the value, it was the ability to input. I think I will have to remove the slider control for setting the wattage if it is not an integer. So it will be just a plain input field.
I just tried it and it still seems to be a platform bug that you can’t enter decimal values in a numberField. Not sure if this is specific to iOS or not; it’s possible it works on Android.
Do you have any other devices that allow you to enter a decimal value?
I don’t mean in an automation configuration. That appears to be working ok. I mean do you have any devices where you can enter a number on the Controls screen that allows you provide a decimal?
Real devices don’t have a problem because the numbers are set by the driver, not by end user. In the case of this virtual device, it needs to be entered by a user, and that’s what appears to be broken.
I have tried some other devices and every single one goes gray as soon as I type “.”, except Local Hour Offset in Mariano’s drivers. However even I can enter decimal value it doesn’t let me save it.
I’ve got a driver update that allows you choose from 3 options for the dashboard: switch, powerMeter, or energyMeter.
As I suspected, when showing power or energy values on the dash, the icon no longer changes with the state of the switch. It is color highlighted, not greyed out.