Update on SmartThings Classic Shutdown

[Brad_ST (Brad)]

In my experience custom automations are even more reliable and there is also work well underway to allow them to run locally.

[mwav3 (Tim)]

@Brad_ST

Smart Lighting is a legacy integration that will eventually be deprecated. Most features of Smart Lighting can be performed via custom automation in the app

I don’t see any other option to mirror a device off another by custom automation. I’ve only seen this in Smartlighting. Button presses and recognizing any button beyond button 1 also doesn’t work outside of Smartlighting or Webcore. If it’s deprecated without a solution to these items that’s a pretty big problem for a lot of people.

[jamesonrw (Jameson)]

A little clunky, but mirroring works. And I can confirm the local execution is pretty awesome.

[mwav3 (Tim)]

Thanks, I have a dimmer though, can it set the level of one based on the level of the other?

[dotan_shai]

@Brad_ST

Smart Lighting is a legacy integration that will eventually be deprecated

Totally disagree. This is working MUCH better than the Official App automation. The official App. automation is unreliable and sometimes don’t execute. While Smart Lightning always works. Please don’t deprecate it… Let the users decide what’s good for them or not.
I have it since I had it in the classic app. But new users in Israel don’t…

[GSzabados (Gabor Szabados)]

@jamesonrw

A little clunky, but mirroring works. And I can confirm the local execution is pretty awesome.

Wait until you would hit the behaviour limit of the Automations. Those are a hell of a lot…

Otherwise, can you try to quickly turn on and off one of your switches physically if there any option for it. I am curious, that can you hit an infinite loop with it. (Because I cannot see any debounce option.)

[jamesonrw (Jameson)]

These control switches, so I have never tried to match a dimmer. I took a quick look and don’t see a way to match a dimming level, and didn’t see one. This may be a use case of the Rules API as opposed to the automation creator.

[jamesonrw (Jameson)]

Ya, I’ve heard there is a limit on the number of rules, but havent hit it yet. It took 3 rules in Smarr Lighring, so it wasn’t terrible to change it to six rules within automations. I have a 2 year old daughter who tests all my automations, I can guarantee she has pressed the button more times in a row than I would ever find a need for, there must be something causing it to not loop on the back end.

[orangebucket (Graham)]

@GSzabados

Otherwise, can you try to quickly turn on and off one of your switches physically if there any option for it. I am curious, that can you hit an infinite loop with it. (Because I cannot see any debounce option.)

It looks like a similar situation to the STHM status/control automations. The infinite loop is prevented because only state changes are getting propagated around.

[GSzabados (Gabor Szabados)]

@jamesonrw

Ya, I’ve heard there is a limit on the number of rules, but havent hit it yet. It took 3 rules in Smarr Lighring, so it wasn’t terrible to change it to six rules within automations. I have a 2 year old daughter who tests all my automations, I can guarantee she has pressed the button more times in a row than I would ever find a need for, there must be something causing it to not loop on the back end.

About a year ago some people were hitting race conditions by mirroring switches.

Smartlights problem (loop)

Hey guys! I’m using the mirror behavior function is the smartlights app, but it s not working properly. I tried with two brand switches, but doing the same. So i want to mirror 2 switch to do the exact same function (turn on/off) When i set up the mirror behavior, it is working, they are working fast and good. BUT, when you press it a little faster, for example accidentally. The switches going crazy, and they going into an infinity loop turning on/off themselves. Please check this video, so you guys can see it: I tried with z-wave switches And tried with zigbee switches as well Is there a solution for this problem? Thanks Andrew

So, it seems like there is a light at the end of the tunnel for that issue.

@BrianRain, have you managed to solve that infinite loop issue? There is some hope when local automations will be released publicly it can be solved.

[mwav3 (Tim)]

I haven’t tried a “two way” mirror lately. All I’m doing with smartlighting right now is to set one switch on/off (switch 1 mimics switch 2), including the level based on another, but last I tried to do it in reverse (switch 2 also mimics switch 1) it created a race condition where the light would rapidly switch on and off at times. In Homeassistant, I was able to do a template that compared the value of last changed and last updated between the switches to eliminate the race (last_updated>last_changed). Not sure how that would be possible on Smartthings.

The new automations part of the app doesn’t allow a set level to be duplicated to another switch, and even as pointed out above just to do simple on/off requires multiple automations, where the “mirror” in smartlighting was just one.

As for the rules API, based on the webcore community post here - webCoRE Optional Update v0.3.111.20210130 - Announcements - webCoRE Community Forum , it is still limited and only supports if/then, every, and sleep rules so doesn’t appear to be a solution for complex automations yet.

The bottom line is Smartlighting and Webcore are still essential to anything beyond a simple automation. A lot of their functions aren’t replicted in the existing automations of the new app or rules API. If these programs are phased out with no replication of the automations elsewhere, I’d have to move all automations to Home Assistant and Node red, and my Smartthings hub would just be a glorified Zwave/Zigbee stick only.

[JDRoberts]

Just a reminder that if both switches are Zwave at the same security level and support association, you can use Z wave direct association, and that’s normally a good solution for mirroring light switches. It’s very fast, it’s very reliable.

The annoying thing is that at present smartthings is one of the only certified Zwave hubs which doesn’t offer a native UI method for creating associations. they have long had a design preference for hiding anything which was protocol-specific from their customers. But then not always offering an alternative protocol-agnostic method for doing the same thing.

The other issue with Z wave direct association is you can’t put any filter logic around it. Once it’s set up, it always happens. That can be an issue for motion triggered lighting, but it’s usually fine just for mirroring two light switches.

So I know that doesn’t always apply depending on the specific brand and model of the switches being used, but it will work for both on/off and dim level between 2 zwave switches of the same security level as long as they support Association. And since you yourself have recently updated the zwave tweaker to work with the new V3 app, it remains an option as long as we can still use custom Z wave DTHs.

@jamesonrw @orangebucket @GSzabados

[BETA] Z-Wave Tweaker (See post #209 for new V3 app version)

[GSzabados (Gabor Szabados)]

@mwav3

I haven’t tried a “two way” mirror lately. All I’m doing with smartlighting right now is to set one switch on/off (switch 1 mimics switch 2), including the level based on another, but last I tried to do it in reverse (switch 2 also mimics switch 1) it created a race condition where the light would rapidly switch on and off at times.

That’s happened as well.

"Mirror" in Smart Lighting SmartApp seems to be inconsistent

A bit of a long post, but I have several behaviours that I need to outline in detail to get across what is going on… I use “Mirror” behaviour in three setups in my home. In each case, the “Mirror” acts differently. Two work well enough that I have no complaints but only one of those works exactly as I would expect. The third is completely broken when I enable it and I have had to change the rule to “Turn On (and also off)”. They are as follows: GE Zigbee Dimmer switch is mirrored by GLEDOpto RGBW strip (set up as a ZLL device). When I turn on or off the GE dimmer, the GLEDOpto strip follows exactly; it doesn’t matter if the action is at the GE Dimmer, through a Smart Lighting automation or just through the standard app (not classic) on Android. This is acceptable but if I turn the GLED…

If you look at the comments, setLevel throws a value in and that triggers the light to turn on again.

@mwav3

The bottom line is Smartlighting and Webcore are still essential to anything beyond a simple automation. A lot of their functions aren’t replicted in the existing automations of the new app or rules API. If these programs are phased out with no replication of the automations elsewhere, I’d have to move all automations to Home Assistant and Node red, and my Smartthings hub would just be a glorified Zwave/Zigbee stick only.

The way how HA handles Automations that is amazing. Especially the run type Single, Restart, Queued, Parallel.

Otherwise has the SmartThings integration updated for the new SmartThings API or still uses the Groovy code?

[GSzabados (Gabor Szabados)]

@JDRoberts

The annoying thing is that at present smartthings is one of the only certified Zwave hubs which doesn’t offer a native UI method for creating associations. they have long had a design preference for hiding anything which was protocol specific from their customers. But then not always offering an alternative protocol agnostic method for doing the same thing.

Indeed. No Zwave commands out of the DHs, nor Zigbee commands.

[mwav3 (Tim)]

@GSzabados

Otherwise has the SmartThings integration updated for the new SmartThings API or still uses the Groovy code?

Its using the API, so will continue working after Groovy, and works very well. Its a great way to link Smartthings and Home-assistant together. SmartThings - Home Assistant

[GSzabados (Gabor Szabados)]

@mwav3

and my Smartthings hub would just be a glorified Zwave/Zigbee stick only

A cloud connected one then…

[ogiewon]

@GSzabados

@mwav3

and my Smartthings hub would just be a glorified Zwave/Zigbee stick only

A cloud connected one then…

Yea, I’d have to say that it really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me to use a ST Cloud connection to Home Assistant for Zigbee and Z-Wave devices. I would much rather use an all local solution at that point, and not have to deal with multiple cloud hops just to control a local mesh network device.

[mwav3 (Tim)]

@GSzabados

A cloud connected one then…

Yes it is cloud dependent, and one might wonder why would you do this in a local home assistant instance? For me, I have a very stable internet provider. I consider Smartthings to be reliable with few outages (As a former Wink user my bar is lower then others here), and this is a hobby with no critical uses. Worse case scenario is I have to get up and flick a switch if something doesn’t work. So, cloud dependency isn’t as much a concern for me as it probably is for others. I also bought the Smartthings hub first though before installing Home Assistant, so I might as well put it to use for now. Anyone else reading this on here probably already owns a Smartthings hub too.

As far as using a cloud hub with a local Home Assistant server, The zigbee and zwave integrations historically in Home Assistant have not been great using local zwave/zigbee sticks. The cost to buy both a zigbee and zwave stick is comparable to buying a Smartthings hub. So, it could make sense (he did it and explains why in this video https://youtu.be/BfGz4RJMl_Q )

The equation could quickly shift though with the new recent zwavejs2mqtt improving local zwave Integration in Home Assistant, and what happens with the future of custom code here on Smartthings.

Getting back to this thread, the death of the classic app and loss of functionality it had is what drove me to install Home Assistant in the first place. I’m just in a wait and see on what Smartthings does next before doing anything else

[GSzabados (Gabor Szabados)]

@mwav3

The cost to buy both a zigbee and zwave stick is comparable to buying a Smartthings hub.

I just checked quickly, maybe if you are upgrading from a v1 Hub to a v3 with the extra discount coupon.

An Aeotec Gen5 Zwave stick plus a CC2531 dongle with printed cover and antenna, roughly 65 EURO.

(The version of the Aeotec stick, I haven’t checked it, might be the early generation which is not compatible with a RPi4 - funny, the USB standard was not followed by Aeotec. The Zigbee stick is only CC2531, not a CC2652 or ConBee, they would add an extra 20 EURO, plus shipping.)

[mwav3 (Tim)]

I should say the prices were comparable before the Aetotec deal, at least in the US where a hub was $60-70 for most of last year. Maybe they will be comparable again after the supply issues iron out and hopefully prices comes down.

I don’t understand why the Aeotec hub is so much more expensive in Europe though.