It is very easy to have a device automatically turn off after being on for a certain period of time. What I want to do is the opposite. I want to turn a device on after a period of time of being off.
My refrigerator is very loud. I want to be able to turn it off and then after it’s off for an hour I want it to turn back on. Is this possible?
I’m aware of the scheduling feature, however I want the plug to automatically turn on after a certain period of time initiated by turning the plug off.
I do not think that you can initiate a scheduled “on” based on the time it was turned off. Not in ST anyway. I know that it can easily be accomplished with webcore.
This is definitely possible in several different ways.
Some people will immediately suggest webcore, and you certainly could do it in Webcore, I just think that’s probably overkill for this. And it requires that you be using the classic version of the mobile app.
Building a Daisychain Timer
A simpler method which you can use with either the new version of the app or the Classic version is to create a virtual switch which will act as a timer. You’re going to set this timer up so it always turns itself off after 60 minutes. And then you are going to set up your refrigerator so that it follows the virtual switch in a “daisy chain” where it turns itself on whenever the virtual switch turns itself off.
Note that doing it this way still allows you to automate your refrigerator any other way that you want to as well. But anytime you turn on your virtual timer, then one hour later, your refrigerator will turn itself on. It’s up to you if you want to turn on the virtual timer every time the refrigerator turns off or if you want to automate turning on the virtual timer in some other independent way.
Setup Steps Required
create a virtual switch.
create an automation so that the virtual switch always turns itself off after it has been on for 60 minutes. (There’s a bug right now in the new app if you try to set this up with the custom automation creator, so it would be better to do it in the official smart lights feature.)
create an automation so that the refrigerator turns itself on when the virtual switch turns itself off. That’s your daisy chain.
So now you have a virtual timer. Every time it turns on, there will be a countdown for 60 minutes, and then your virtual timer will turn itself off and your refrigerator will turn itself on.
So that leaves two more questions which different people will do differently depending on the details of what they want to have happen.
decide how you want the virtual timer to start the countdown. It could be on a time schedule, it could be every time the refrigerator turns off, it could be anything you want. But set up some automation to start the virtual timer when you want it to start.
decide how you want the refrigerator to turn itself off. Again, there are lots of different ways to do this. It could be on a timed schedule, it could be every time the virtual timer is turned on, it could be manually, it could be at a certain temperature reading. Again, anything you want. But set up some automation that turns the refrigerator off.
Once you have those five things then something turns the refrigerator off. Something turns the virtual timer on. The virtual timer runs for 60 minutes and then turns itself off. The refrigerator turns on because the virtual timer turned off.
If you need more help figuring out how to set this up in the new app, I’m sure there will be other members who will be glad to give you examples. 
I was not aware that Smart Life would do automations. I learned something. Granted, setting up webcore just for this might be overkill. But here is my piston…
You probably meant this, but just to be clear…
“Smart Life“ is a Chinese home automation app which has nothing to do with the Samsung smartthings platform.
“Smart Lights” is an official feature of the Samsung smartthings platform and there is a version of it available in both the new app and the classic app.
My post is referring to the official Samsung feature. 
The reason I like to use a virtual timer for this is that then you can automate the actual physical device in other ways. For example, there might be times when I want to turn the refrigerator off and not have it turn itself back on in one hour. Using the virtual timer allows me to do that.
Admittedly, that better fits the use case of someone who wants to set up a timer for a light. I think this comes up most often when people say they want the porch lights to automatically turn on when They get home and then turn themselves off after 15 minutes. But if they are home and they hear a noise outside and they turn on the porch light with Echo, then they don’t want it to turn off after 15 minutes, but rather to stay on until they turn it off themselves.
So it’s just one of those cases where details make the difference. But the virtual timer trick is good to know about if you do want to separate the automatic off from other situations.
I love this community. I am learning things all the time. @JDRoberts has a great solution using Smart LIGHTS. Yes, I thought he meant Smart Life. After looking at his option, I definitely agree he has the easier option.
The link for ‘How to create lighting automations with Smart Lights’ gets a not-found (404) message.
Any idea what the link should be?
They are updating a bunch of pages in the official supportbase to match the massive changes to the new app that came out this week. You’ll just have to try again later.
Thanks …
