Thanks, yeah I know I have just wanted to test the edge drivers before the switch.
Michael
Has SmartThings got an open position for Phil Harrison? He could do a good job regarding thatā¦ And even more!!!
I see a lot of complaints about how terrible the SmartThings app is, usually comments about it being slow.
Just want to throw in here that my experience is very different. It may be that my implementation is simple and small (under 70 ādevicesā total, under 50 physical devices, 70/30 mix of Z-wave/ZigBee, 100% stock DTHs, no Edge yet).
For me the app is ready to go within 2 or 3 seconds of opening. This is on Android 13 on a Google Pixel 4a-5g phone and Android 11 on a Samsung S5e tablet.
Iām also seeing greatly improved performance on my meshes. One of the most used things I do is turn all lights off at bedtime (almost all my devices are smart switches/dimmers). Used to be I had to use a fairly complicated Alexa routine with multiple pauses and careful control of the number of device commands sent without waiting. Over the last few updates Iām able to blast pretty much all my devices in one go and get near instantaneous response.
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Much like you, I have zero issues withe the app and like it and I know Iām the outlier here when I say the old app was atrociousā¦ Not much better than the Hubitat app which is absolutely bottom of the barrel.
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@troy_owens I agree. I much prefer the new app, it performs and works well for me with no issues.
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Meanwhile, Google has announced the ability to script automations (prob. next year).
Sounds familiar???
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Anyone willing to go through this hassle could write an edge driver instead. Iām actually optimistic that ST will create something pretty nice on top of Edge for advanced automations. It just doesnāt seem like a big user base. The existing automations are pretty powerful. Add virtual devices to that and you have almost everything you would need. Plus, why would you want to involve the internet when you can run things locally?
I recently published this Virtual Hub Kit for edge that allows me to accomplish more āadvancedā setups.
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Are you trying to make a routine that turns something on at sunset and then off at 9pm? If so, you need to create two separate routines (one that triggers as sunset and the second that triggers at 9pm) rather than trying to use a period in a single routine.
Lucky, definitely jealous here.
I have a routine that turns on a lamp 2 hours before sunset and the lamp turns off at 11 PM.
Iām using the Smart Lighting app to turn on the lamp
I use the built-in āturn offā setting for the actual device.
Itās a kludge, but it does what i need.
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I have read thru the email I received from ST as well as the transition FAQ and also browsed thru a bunch of threads on all this here in the ST Community. At this point Iāve decided to go with Option 1 and just wait and see what breaks and then try to fix those items. But how can I easily tell how big of a problem I might end up having? Is there some way to just look thru my list of devices in Groovy and get a general feel for which ones might be a problem? My devices are just run of the mill z-wave or zigbee devices. Device types are listed in Groovy as - Z-Wave Dimmer Switch Generic, ZigBee Switch, Zigbee Metering Plug, SmartSense Button, Fibaro Motion Sensor ZW5, Z-Wave Switch Generic, ZLL Dimmer Bulb, and SmartSense Moisture Sensor. How do I know if any of those will be a problem? Seems to me the guidance and instructions to prepare for the transition could be a bit more specific.
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Did you install a custom device handler for this device or is that built in? All the others look like stock DTH, which means they should (should!) transition gracefully to a stock Edge driver during the migration.
I did not install any custom drivers for any of my devices.
Then you shouldnāt need to worry about anything.
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Thanks for that and that is what I was thinking/hoping but the way the ST folks are communicating about this is really unnerving. For instance the email I received from ST states that 1 - āYou may have one or more devices using legacy device handlersā and 2 - ā You may be using a SmartApp automationā without providing any indication of which ones or even how to determine which ones. And then it goes on to say that MOST will be automatically transitioned. But no guidance as to if the ones Iām using, which they didnāt identify, may or may not be and no guidance as to how to know. The email may have just as well saidā¦āall your stuff may stop working, or it may keep working, good luck!āā¦
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Itās a little more complicated than has been suggested. For example, if you manually changed your device to use a stock DTH in the IDE, it may not be transitioned.
See the following for the details of some of the special cases that might affect you
What do I need to do to get ready for Sept 30? - #2 by JDRoberts
TAustin has a very comprehensive Edge Virtual Devices driver that supports lots and lots of different device types. Check it out [ST Edge] vEdge Creator: a virtual device generator for end users
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I read thru that post early on and it provides lots of good info but honestly just created more confusion than clarity. It just made me even less sure of the size of the problem I may or may not haveā¦
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I recently switched from using SmartLighting, where you can mix specific time and Sunrise/Sunset for time periods, to using virtual devices as precondition to control when a trigger is allowed to happen. I then set the On Time and Off Time for the virtual device in its config dialog. I thought about using Location Modes, but there are too many various combinations of when I change modes for various situations to keep things straight. Using virtual devices to represent specific states that you want to detect is easier to manage. This is a straight forward and simple to use method until Routines support mixing specific and relative times.
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