Sunset automations are not adjusting (3 March 2021)

I have an automation to close all the blinds at sunset - but I’ve noticed that it’s not updating the time each day - despite in my smartthings account I can see the sunset time is shifting daily.

if I delete the automation and recreate it - it will pick up the new time, but it’s not adjusting it for the daily shift. I searched and saw others having the same issue and apparently I need to request a change be made to my account?

Sunset automation not adjusting - SmartThings Community

That one is a years old topic. The issue what you are referring to is a quite new one, and many people faces it.

Some heads up what you are facing:

Otherwise other topics with the issue:

Otherwise, @Brad_ST, @jody.albritton, @garrett.kranz, @blake.arnold could one of you put out a sticky announcement, that ST is working this issue. Multiple topics are popping up day-by-day since the previous app update.

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Thank you for your reply - I clearly wasn’t searching the right terms as I hadn’t seen those - I really appreciate the info.

I’ll await a fix - in the meantime I’ll use Alexa to manage the routine

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Of course, the reports of Sunset/Sunsize not updating for people starting coming in over 10 days ago. Why is there still silence from SmartThings?

FWIW, Automations are screwed for sunrise/sunset. Smart Lighting is still handling sunrise/sunset correctly.

I have a (local) virtual switch called “Daytime” which is turned on by Smart Lighting at sunrise, off at sunset. This is working correctly and the time is correctly adjusting day-by-day.

I have another virtual switch that I turn on at sunrise via an automation. It’s all in the cloud, of course. This has been stuck for 2 weeks or so.

I have a third one that used to be triggered via a Routine, but the new-app migration switched that over to a scene+Automation.That is now wrong for sunrise/sunset, of course.

Why do I have more then one of these? I created Daytime over 5 years ago originally just as a Routine. But it was in the cloud. I wanted something local, and eventually created the one controlled by Smart Lighting. When Automations came along, I created that one to see how it worked. I didn’t trust the Automation to work correctly all the time, and it was just back in the cloud anyway. It was funny how often the switch controlled by the Automation didn’t match the other two (until the Routine went away, then the two controlled by the Automation didn’t match the Smart Lighting).

I used to trigger some other things by the status of the Daytime switch, but that was before (1) I realized that’s what Modes were for and (2) I moved all those devices and automations over to Hubitat.

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Indeed a good question. But you see, that there wasn’t even an Official Announcement regarding the v1, ADT and Nvidia Link devices, just @Automated_House posted his findings.

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The sunrise/sunset issue is a known bug with work ongoing to address it. Not that it makes a difference in this case but I believe the bug is in subscribing to the updated sunrise/sunset times and not with those times updating. With Graham’s help I’ll expand on that below.

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The sunrise/sunset times that you see in the IDE when looking at a location are accessible by Groovy SmartApps, predominantly used by Smart Lighting. Those values updating is dependent on the Groovy SmartApp “Weather Station”. Long time users might see that SmartApp installed under “Hello Home” which is where Routines from the Classic app were also nested. The sunrise/sunset values are updated twice a day. For example when a sunset event executes tonight (3/4), tomorrow’s (3/5) sunset event will be scheduled.

As part of the Classic app retirement, starting a year or so ago, Hello Home and therefore Routines and the Weather Station stopped being installed when a location was created. As Smart Lighting has not been retired this created an issue with sunrise/sunset events and Smart Lighting automations. To work around this, when a sunrise/sunset automation is added in Smart Lighting there is a check to see that Weather Station is installed and if not, it is installed. Note, Smart Lighting isn’t available in all countries/regions. Custom automations should cover the same use cases but if you find something you can do with Smart Lighting but not a custom automation, please let support know so we can work to address feature parity.

While not a publicly documented endpoint and subject to change, currently sunrise/sunset times used by custom automations can be viewed via https://api.smartthings.com/services/coordinate/locations/LOCATIONID/capabilities?name=weather as described by @orangebucket: Is there a way to see what you sunrise/sunset times actually are? - #17 by orangebucket

These values are also dependent on the geocoordinates set in the mobile app. They pull from a different source than Weather Station so there might be slight variation between the two. It is also worth noting that sunrise/sunset events for custom automations are typically rescheduled every few days as sunrise/sunset naturally drift earlier or later, depending on the time of year and your location on the globe. If you are seeing sunrise/sunset events trigger at the exact same time for a week or more, such as the current situation we are seeing, you should contact support.

As an additional note, daylight savings time will be starting soon and some users may see sunrise/sunset events misfire by an hour. In my experience this seems to only impact some users of the legacy Weather Station and usually only when there is a time offset. If there is a misfire, sunrise/sunset should reschedule correctly the next day. If you are seeing multiple days of incorrectly firing sunrise/sunset events, please let support know. Also I can’t promise but would would expect the sunrise/sunset issue impacting custom automations to be resolved prior to DST so you may choose to move away from Smart Lighting ahead of that if you have concerns.

Legacy sunrise/sunset:


Example of sunrise/sunset from weather capability endpoint:

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They’d just tell me to uninstall and reinstall the app. It’s not worth my time or level of frustration to contact SmartThings support.

At least you know about this issue and are working on it. Maybe put up an outage on status.smartthings.com?

In other words, workaround for now is using Smart lighting app for sunrise/sundown automations?

If it works for you, sure.

(Even better, then the processing would be local to the hub rather in the SmartThings cloud)

Ok…I am using an automation in the new app and my events consistently fire one hour before they are supposed to. I have the automation set for 30 minutes before sunset and they have been going off early for more than a week (more like months).

I’m in line with the other readers…contacting support is futile.

Any other suggestions other than using Smart Lighting?

You could hack a workaround by having SmartLighting to turn on and off a virtual switch at the times you want (based upon Sunrise/Sunset and an offset), and then set the Automation to trigger off that switch being on/off.

As of the end of last week sunrise/sunset is rescheduling properly.

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Has anyone confirmed New App automations for Sunrise/Sunset are now working properly?

Since @Brad_ST proclaimed:

and since the new outages in Smart App are happening with alarming frequency (and equally alarming ST doesn’t seem to know when they happen other than everyone complaining Help: Smart Lighting App Issue with Error "Something went wrong. Please try to install the SmartApp again") I want to start moving off Smart Lighting

I’ve switched back to the native sunrise/sunset triggers in my automations and they seem to be working again. Just need to watch them for a few days to make sure it adjusts daily.

Confirmed to not be working properly.

Same issue here.

I fiddle with the settings a bit and the next sunset is accurate for that day. But then it doesn’t update again until I fiddle with it again.

And I live in a place right now where the sunset times are changing more than 3 minutes every day, so it quickly matters.

I am seeing the same and contacted support. I received the usual response, reinstall the app and recreate the automation. The 2nd didn’t help. The first is a PIA to regroup/reconfigure the Home Screen in the app. It seems like it should be relatively easy to track down the problem, especially since they claim it is fixed.

I just ignore that advice from support. It’s useless and doesn’t accomplish anything.

As I noted in the other thread (I linked to above), it appears the sunrise/sunset times update once a week on Monday. At least, they have for me the last 2 weeks. It’s hard to tell from the &^!% stupid app, since it only shows you 7 days of history. You have to have looked ahead of time to know what it used to be.