[ST Edge] Virtual Things Edge Driver

Devices & Integrations Community Created Drivers
,
121

Hi all,

Driver v1.6 was released
Timestamp: 2022-02-07T20:47:12.309967

Change log:

  1. Add ability to display all virtual devices, created by this driver, in Info field.
    See Controller section for more details
122

Hi guys,

Any feedback on 1.6 release?
Would be great to hear wether the new controller works smooth, especially for people with more than 20 virtual devices on iOs.
Any feedback, wether it is performance, font size or may be color, would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Yakov

123

I just tried your updated virtual things edge driver. It is very cool. It shows that I have 24 of your virtual switches and it list the names of all 24. I would have never guessed that I had that many virtual switches. It should help to keep track of things.

Thanks for all your hard work and sharing with everyone.

Screenshot_20220209-011627
Screenshot_20220209-011627576×1280 72.6 KB

124

@Paul_Oliver , thank you very much for your feedback.
Is the list of switches updated fast enough?
If you have other virtual devices, have you tried
“Show all virtual devices” option in Controller’s settings? It will show all devices, sorted by type and name and mark devices of selected type in color and bold.

125

I played with it some more this morning. I currently only have switches. It updated very quickly, but it may vary depending on the processing power of your phone

The show all function does not work. I get the spinning dots then network failure.

I am using an Android 11 phone.

EDIT: I just tried it on an old Android 7 tablet and the show all function does not work.

126

@ygerlovin
Just out of curiosity it’s great, with what custon capability and type of presentation did you get such a wide field of data?
The most I got is 2 lines of text

127

@Mariano_Colmenarejo

I format the string as HTML table and send it to capability. This was @TAustin and @philh30 's idea.

Capability

id: amberpiano10217.object
version: 1
status: proposed
name: Object
attributes:
  data:
    schema:
      type: object
      properties:
        value:
          type: object
      additionalProperties: false
      required:
        - value
    enumCommands: []
commands: {}

Presentation:

dashboard:
  states:
    - label: '{{data.value.state}}'
      alternatives: null
  actions: []
  basicPlus: []
detailView:
  - label: 'Info'
    displayType: state
    state:
      label: '{{data.value.info}}'
      alternatives: null
automation:
  conditions: []
  actions: []
id: amberpiano10217.object
version: 1
128

@ygerlovin
Gracias,
I will try

129

@Paul_Oliver ,

Thanks for testing and sharing.

Is it possible that you changed the driver for one of the virtual devices you have?
May be you created the devices with other driver and then switched the driver to this one?

Anyway, I pushed a small fix that should show such devices as “Unknown”, if using “Show all devices” option.

130

I tried your updated driver and “show all” is working. Now it shows 26 virtual devices and 2 are shown as unknown. I deleted 1 unknown switch that I was not using, and I will fix the other one tomorrow. I have been using both yours and taustins virtual devices, so I might have tried to switch drivers at some point.

Thanks again for the drivers and taking the time to fix them when I break them.

131

I’m finally diving into this Edge community and enrolled my Hub with this driver. I created a vSwitch device, and it set off my STHM because the vSwitch (not vContact) is seen as a contact device in the STHM, and even Alexa shows the vSwitch has contact capabilities as well even thought the SmartThings vSwitch device page only shows it as a switch with no Open/Close contact features. Is this by design, or a bug???

132

@DaWeav
This is by design. The list of supported capabilities for each device type is summarized here [ST Edge] Virtual Things Edge Driver

Hidden contact capability allows vSwitch to be used as a trigger in Alexa routines. Regular switches can not be used in “When this happen” part of the routine, only in action. So the only purpose of contact capability inside vSwitch is to workaround this Alexa’s limitation. It seems there is little to no benefit to show it in the device detailed view, hence it is hidden

133

It will be a deliberate design for use with Alexa, but as you have discovered the price you pay for that is that you can no longer let STHM default to using all your contact sensors.

The mobile app can also show a status tile when contact sensors are open so that would also be something to consider.

Generally speaking, adding stock capabilities to devices has costs as well as benefits. The costs can be the mild inconvenience of having to choose from irrelevant devices in lists, extra events flying around and potentially getting in the way, unwanted notifications etc etc. Often the cost is worth it.

134

I would appreciate if a contact sensor was optional. Because it appears in every security application and adds noise to the event log.
I don’t own Alexa

135

This is great work, would it be possible to have a virtual power meter as well?

This way, I could sum in webcore the power consumption of multiple devices, and then use the virtual power meter to show a total consumption!

136

@veonua
So the request is to have a virtual switch with switch capability only? Did I get you right?
Have you considered to use vDimmer and just ignore switchLevel capability?

137

I am using switches to control sub-switches and momentary to control the lock from Google

138

@sulisenator

Do you need only powerMeter or also energyMeter?

139

@sulisenator There is virtual power meter already,done by @TAustin. It actually measures power usage. You have to enter connected load value in watts, and mirror switch/dimmer/bulb etc.

Screenshot_20220501-183105_SmartThings
Screenshot_20220501-183105_SmartThings972×2934 125 KB

I have it connected to bulbs, plugs, hvac.

For bulbs I have entered wattage value for all bulbs on the same load.
For plugs I have entered wattage of device that is plugged in (humidifier, heater, fan, etc.)
For hvac I have automation that changes Wattage to one when furnace is used and different wattage when a/c is used.

140

Remember that Webcore itself, like all other custom groovy smart apps that run in the Samsung hosted groovy cloud, will be going away once the transition to edge is complete. So you may want to reconsider a design that relies on a combination of Webcore and edge drivers and start looking for other ways to do a similar automation. :thinking:

Webcore has its own forum, you can check there to see what people are planning to do in the future.