I have been working to try to get my smartthings to work the Wemo light switches for months now and I have finally figured it out. I was having issues with smartthings not correctly showing that status of my lights or not controlling them correctly at all. I used multiple apps to try to figure out other ways to do it and I finally came across a combination of apps that when used together let smartthings and wemo work together…sorta, I will explain. This is a long explanation since there are a lot of steps but once you get your first light switch working it will come second nature. I have 9 switches working now flawlessly. First off let me list the apps I used.
- Smartthings - no explanation needed why I need this
- Tasker - This app automates functions on your phone
- Sharptools - This allows Tasker to see and control devices in Smartthings
- Wemomanager - Allows Tasker to control Wemo devices
The first step is to remove all my Wemo light switches from Smartthings. Then you go onto the Smartthings IDE page (https://graph.api.smartthings.com) and set up virtual On/Off buttons to take the place of the Wemo light switches you just removed from Smartthings. You can go back into Smartthings and name the new virtual On/Off buttons like you would if they were regular Wemo switches since botht he Wemo and the virtual On/Off switches are just switches with either an “On” or “Off” state.
Next you need to go into Sharptools and in the menu options authorize it to interact with Smartthings. You have to tell it what devices in Smartthings it is able to interact with, I just select every device in Smartthings. Once you do that and refresh Sharptools all the devices in Smartthings should show up under the “Things” menu. Fight the virtual On/Off switch you are using to replace the Wemo switch and long press on it. I subscription option should pop up, subscribe to it. This tells Sharptools which variable associated with the thing it is to control or look for. You also want to select the option for Tasker and Widgets. This allows Tasker to use Sharptools and set up widgets for any devices in smartthings.
Next you want to set up Wemomanager. I used static IP addresses for my light switches. This program controls the lights like the default Belkin Wemo app but provides a lot more options and abilities. The setup is pretty self explanatory.
Now that Wemomanager is set up, go to your light switch and look for the down facing arrow to the right of the green refresh button on the main screen. It should be the 4th icon to the left of the refresh button. When you click on it a pop-up should show at the top the name of the switch and 6 other buttons including “Turn On Intent”. When you click any of these buttons they will copy the information automatically. The Handled Intents are the commands the Wemo light switches receive telling them what to do. The Extras UDN stuff is the name for the light switch that Wemo uses. The broadcast events stuff is what Wemomanager server or the Wemo light switches actually broadcast out. So, click on the On button under the broadcast events.
Now it is onto Tasker where the real magic is. You will be using Tasker to send and receive “intents” to the light switches. In Tasker start a new profile and select Events when you start the new profile. At the button is a search area just search for “intent” and you should see “Intent Received”. Select that and in the options that pop up under the Action category paste in what you copied from Wemomanager. It should look something like mpp.android.WemoManager.On.Lightswitch-1_0-then a lot of numbers and letters. This is sets up the profile to react to an On signal from the particular light you selected in Wemomanager. Once you do that hit the back button in the lop left of Tasker, it will now ask you for a Task.
Select a new Task. In the task pop-up select plugins and select Sharptools. Select the option “A Thing”. In configuration select the pencil icon and select On/Off Button Tile and the type and then select the name of the virtual On/Off button you created in the Smartthings IDE page. Under the Command section select On since this in response to the profile seeing an On state of the light switch.
Back out to the main screen in Tasker, select the options in the top right and save to save what you just did. Now if you test it when the light switch is physically turn on or turned on using an app the virtual switch in smartthings should now also be off. You would just repeat the same steps for the “Off” condition just selecting the Off options instead of the On that you just did for everything.
This has Smartthings now only responding to a switch turning off/on. To get the virtual switch in smartthings to turn on/off a switch you need just a little more in Tasker.
Set up a new profile and again make it an Events profile but this time select Sharptools under plugins or just search for it. Select Thing Change in the option that comes up. Hit the pencil by configuration and type in the name of the virtual on/off button you made. You will notice it will say certain variables are set, keep them in mind and then hit apply. Select a new Task and search “intent”. This time you want to send an intent so select Send Intent. Now, hit the home button on your phone and wire up Wemomanager, don’t worry Tasker is running in the background. Go the light switch you are working with and select that option with all the intent info again, the 4th button after refresh with the downward facing arrow. This time you want to copy the top intent copy which is Turn On Intent. Bring up Tasker again and in the Action section paste in what you just copied. Go back to Wemomanager and copy the Extras UDN information which should look like a light switch identifying information with a bunch of numbers. Go back to Tasker and in the first Extras sections type UDN: and after the colon paste in what you just copied. Now save what you just did. These last steps now tell tasker to watch for the light switch to turn on in smartthings and when it does it sends out an ON command to the light switch you were just copying/pasting information for. Again, to respond to Off commands everything is the same except select the Off option instead of On appropriate places.
Let me know if you have any issues with this. This was just shows how to work stand alone lights. I have my set up with 9 switches where some of them are working as three way switches sorta so when one light switch turns on another light switch also turns on. The only change is that required some global variables to be set to tell tasker the state of some lights. The only real downside I see in this setup is that smartthings and Tasker isn’t really querying the light switches to know exactly what state they are, I am setting variables to On or Off after I send the On/Off intent command from tasker. So there is a slight chance that I could send the command but the switch doesn’t respond, been working for 4 days with heaving testing and never happened so far. The only thing i notices is sometimes there is a lag in tasker of a couple seconds, but that is usually only in the 3 way switch setups I have. No real big deal.
This now allows dashboard (such as actiON/Smart Tiles) for smartthings to control wemo devices relatively reliably as before it really wasn’t possible.
I hope this helps, again any questions feel free to ask. I have worked on this for a while and feel pretty confident I can help or explain any step.
Forgot to mention above, you need one instance of the wemomanager server running on one of your home screens on the phone or tablet you are using.
