Thanks for asking . See my ‘Buy-me-a-coffee’ link in my profile.
I can only speak for myself here. I think in order to be able to implement anything like that you’d probably have to first go down the path of getting your driver/SmartApp “certified” by SmartThings, which is a process I have not really explored. Maybe there is some mechanism that SmartThings provides once your stuff is on the officially supported list (and showing up in the app in the manufacturer’s device listing), but likely not, as most sw just comes with the purchase of the device.
But for run-of-the mill community-developed drivers, I can’t see an easy way of implementing or enforcing something like this. It would have to be a manual process, and a big hassle to manage and maintain.
Cloud-based drivers and SmartApps are another matter: because they are running on the developer’s platform, there may be more possibility to implement some kind of key mechanism.
It’s a good topic, and if you want to continue a discussion it might be best to create a separate dedicated thread.
I think you have already taken the most important step, which is to consider the implications of using community/third-party software. Just about every day, sometimes several times a day, naive users are being redirected to community Edge drivers as if it is no big deal and it pains me to see it.
Thanks to both of you along with many others who have taught me, albeit slowly, what I’ve needed to know to do the simple things that I use I SmartThings for. I was an Assembler mainframe programmer for 40 years, and am doing my best to understand the concepts and basics, of this “Edge stuff” and nothing else…K.I.S.S.
The “future” comment was relative to my thought process that conceptually “I’ve been in bed” with SAMSUNG for about 10 years and it looks like I’ll be at least inviting TAustin to join us. As of now it looks like I’ll be using/converting all my virtual switches(15-20) to the vEdge driver, and I’m ok with that….it just made me think
I do need to see what the “matter” discussions are here and maybe start a thread about opinions and maybe facts on its future and directions….for instance, is it Edge drivers.
Thanks for all the help, the reply, and for supporting us community members.
From another topic discussing Matter, we’ve already seen that just because Matter is a “standard”, it doesn’t mean each implementation will support all capabilities of a given device (just like today). The Third Reality Nightlight has the ability to turn on/off, change dimmer level, and change color. ST as a Matter controller can only control on/off and dimmer level. Echo devices as a Matter controller can control all three. We also know that ST hasn’t committed to provide bridge support as of yet. So at the moment, I still see there may be a need for 3rd party developers just like today.
Here are a couple of threads discussing Matter you might find interesting.
I hold out hope that Matter will make things simpler for the home user, but I’m only cautiously optimistic at this point in time given what various manufacturers have delivered to date.
Just wondering, has anyone found a way to supress the Alexa multi trigger contacts from the contact tile in the smartthings dashboard? With all the added contact sensors it’s very busy now. You can filter them but the filter dosen’t appear to stick after exiting and returning.
Interesting. Mine are showing up after a state change despite being hidden initially. What I notice is that virtual contact sensors created using the Alexa Multi Trigger Method are not showing back up (which is as intended), however virtual contact sensors created by turning on "create seperate contact sensor’ in the driver ARE showing back up despite being hidden. So the latter approach built by TAustin seems to be having this issue. Do you see the same if using the “create seperate contact sensor” method?
For me, the Separate contact sensor devices only show up in both the mini-tile and in the Select devices if they are “turned on”. And since the majority of mine have the auto-revert setting enabled on their corresponding switch, they don’t ever show up. This is the same thing behavior I see for door locks and physical contact sensors where they don’t show up when they are closed/off.
If one of the Separate contact sensor devices is “on” and I remove it from being displayed in the mini-tile, it will stay “deselected” when I turn it “off” and then back “on”. And it also remains “deselected” if I exit the ST app and restart it.
Funny. I am not seeing that behaviour. Only the contact devices created with Alexa Multi Trigger seem to stay deselected. I guess I can just move over these all over to this approach.
I’m using the Alexa multi-trigger to run my robo vacuums. I thought to use the auto revert settings to turn the switches off 90 minutes after turning on, since the vacuum jobs completing will not turn the switches and contact sensors off on their own. The problem is, if I use a routine that turns those switches to off when they are already off (such as turn off vacuums when I arrive home but they were not already switched on), 90 minutes later the auto revert feature will turn the vacuums on. That’s not what I expected. I thought auto revert reverted the switch to off and the contact sensor to closed, but it seems to revert to the opposite of the last command, be it on or off.
. See my ‘Buy-me-a-coffee’ link in my profile.
