STHM and webcore, bidirectional status change connection, how?

[btrial (Bartek)]

I am trying to create bidirectional connection between STHM and webcore using virtual switche as suggested in most cases around forum in here. I would like to be able to change my Virtual switch “Alarm” to on/off when STHM changes in new Smartthings app, and reverse to change STHM in new smartthings app, when VS"Alarm" changes by webcore piston.

I created one virtual switch named “Alarm” and 4 automations in Smartthings new App like following:

1. if VS “Alarm” is on, change STHM to Arm(away)
2. if VS “Alarm” is off, change STHM to Disarmed
3. if STHM is Arm(away), change VS"Alarm" to on
4. if STHM is Disarmed, change VS"Alarm" to off

The problem with those automations is that they do not work reliable and often STHM status goes back to previous state even if I tries to change it in smartthings app. The status jumps back and forth.

I believe it is due to those 4 automations not being correctly parsed as I would expect.

Have anyone overcome this problem and have been able to create bidirectional STHM status change between SmartThings New App and webcore?

[nathancu (Nathan Curtis)]

Which DTH are you using for your switch? Are yiu using ‘virtual switch’ or ‘Simulated Switch’

[JDRoberts]

As @nathancu mentioned, there was a platform change recently which broke some of the virtual switches, particularly those that were stateless. Changing to the DTH which is called “simulated switch“ solves the issue for most people.

See the following discussion:

Outage Affecting STHM and some automations (19 Jan 2021)

I have virtual switches that are supposed to Arm and Disarm the STHM and they are still not functioning. I have recreated them as well as removed and reinstalled STHM. The only way to change the status of STHM is to manually click the status on the STHM. @vlad can you look into this, the STHM is useless if you can’t automate changing it based on presence (which also has been flaky lately). I am seriously about to throw in the towel on this platform.

[btrial (Bartek)]

I am using “Virtual Switch”.

[nathancu (Nathan Curtis)]

Swith it to simulated switch. Virtual switch is stateless and leads to a race condition when you try to do these two way synchronizations. After yiu make the change see if the ‘unreliability’ on the sync gets better.