Update to SmartThings Groovy Transition

I never used those apps from RBoy but have used others over the years. The following is posted on his website.

  • Will all the SmartApps and Device Handlers be migrated to the new platform?

Our goal is to migrate as many SmartApps and Device Handlers as possible to the new platform starting with the most popular apps and devices. We are working with SmartThings regarding the migration to the new platfom and are waiting on them to implement the planned/missing features/API’s.

  • Hosts using RLA/LUM/LMAPI

In preparation of the migration:

  1. Create a few “Permanent” backup manual user codes that can be used by guests.

  2. If a lock/device shows up as “Thing” after the automated device migration try to exclude and re-pair the lock/device with your hub.

  3. Consider installing Smart Lock Guest Access (SLGA) from the Life tab in the SmartThings mobile app. This app will allow you to manually create/delete users on your locks after groovy apps stop working.

So he gave users some options for temporary solutions in case this day came before his products were ready. It also sounds like the ST backend didn’t have all the promised features live that allowed for replacement of the legacy smartapp functionality.

What features were missing? Maybe I’m just jaded from past experiences, but it feels a bit like shifting the blame. Especially considering the other community devs who actually took the effort to move to the new APIs.

2 Likes

You will have to ask him. As stated, I don’t use the legacy smartapp and only reposting what is on his website.

I speculate the new backend was supposed to support monetization or license key support for smartapps but it doesn’t.

There is some misunderstanding of the term SmartApp going forward. The Rules API has some characteristics of the legacy SmartApp to allow for some business and automation logic to exist within the ST cloud

However, the SmartApp API only provides a two-way communication path to the user devices. All logic that would of existed in the legacy SmartApp must be done somewhere else…where that somewhere else is…is completely open ended to the developer. So in fact it really is not a SmartApp, just a pipe. Everyone that had legacy SmartApp solutions would need to figure out how to host (and pay for) all the business logic in their own environment (like AWS) or find solutions like a Raspberry Pi’s for you to install and run. ST got smart and figured out that hosting legacy SmartApps was very expensive. And super SmartApps such as webCoRE and Echo Speaks cost them too much to maintain.

Please don’t shoot the messenger, this is just how it works.

8 Likes

Keep on mind the SharpTools updated there system months ago and the have both free and premium tiers that work great. That is what many webcore people are using. So they figured it out.

It looks like Rboy dropped the ball.

2 Likes

:person_shrugging:t2: Just regurgitating vague ideas of what I have been reading about rboy across this board. I personally have no idea why rboy hasn’t done anything as they have rarely responded to any of my numerous emails.

4 Likes

It looks as though @SmartThings had promised @RBoy and other devs a way to monetize as part of the new platform (makes sense, good apps take time and expertise, and should be paid for), and now they are saying no such thing is even in the works. See… Monetizing Edge Drivers - #4 by RBoy

2 Likes

But they were already monetizing groovy DTHs so what’s stopping them with edge drivers? Sure it would be nice to have better ways to limit distribution but they already had an even bigger risk with Groovy as their code was out there for anyone to copy/modify. At least with drivers the code is hidden so if anything thats a good reason to move to edge drivers.

my thought exactly! there’s nothing stopping Rboy from putting his edge driver install links behind the same login system he has now for his groovy code. Same with any smartapps like LUM that he needs to host in AWS or wherever. SharpTools and Action Tiles are both behind paywalls and running as endpoint apps perfectly fine on the new architecture (including the ability to update lock user codes).

3 Likes

As I understand it from the various public conversations, there are supported features missing from the edge driver implementation which were available with groovy DTHs which have so far made it impossible to recreate all of the same functionality to the new platform. We’ve seen this in some of the stock drivers that have been released, so I think it’s a real issue. And I know that the community developer who was working on the free Hue integration had to wait on some features from smartthings which were in development, but not yet delivered.

If you just look at the comparisons by users between the new smart guest lock official feature and the legacy Rboy lock management feature, you can see some of the very significant differences.

I may be wrong, but my understanding, again from public comments, is that Rboy has been waiting on promised updates that have not yet been delivered, so that he could match the prior functionality of his most popular apps. :man_shrugging:t2:

2 Likes

And there is a big difference between a tool like SharpTools that is running AND configured in their environment via the web vs having an Webhook Smart app that you install on your phone like Smartlighting and SLGA where the config happens in the ST App but the backend runs somewhere else.

And since ST controls the channel for installing Webhook apps, it could be a simple as they don’t have a publishing mechanism that allows 3rd parties to make their apps available or as others have mentioned, having a way for 3rd parties to monetize their app through the channel. If they were counting on ST for that, perhaps they are going to have to rethink their implementation to somehow include a license key or something such as that in order to control access and collect revenue.

1 Like

I agree that it’s a big lift to move from SmartThings hosting your code to hosting it yourself, but wasn’t that part pretty clear for quite a long time now? You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want to monetize, you gotta pay the bills.

Some developers who offered paid licenses made the decision not to go to the new architecture, but continue to offer their work on other platforms which don’t require a separate server, like hubitat. The author of one of the popular ecobee managers, for example, made that choice. So did the author of one of the free Nest managers. (For that matter, Webcore is now a built-in feature of Hubitat.)

So different developers will make different choices, but I agree, it would be better if each individual developer made it clear to their customers both what their goal is, and what any obstacles are to reaching that goal.

1 Like

How come my Homebridge Smartapp plugin still works??

Well, most of the outcries stem from lack of communication on part of @RBoy and that alone is enough for all this hue and cry. Communication failure begets uncertainty and frustration and for that rboy is to be blamed for, whatever tech difficulties he may be facing.

2 Likes

@JDRoberts is hubitat the old smartthings? Since hubutat came out, it seems like more & more its become smartthings 2.0. Or maybe 1.0… you get what im saying.

Hubitat from the beginning was very different from smartthings because it was designed to run everything completely locally, except for some third-party integrations like voice assistants. So you were always allowed to run your own custom code on the hub. You also saw a lot more customers with multiple hubs in order to distribute the processing load.

But from a developer’s point of view, there were a lot of similarities because it uses the same version of Groovy. It just runs it on the hub.

Each system has its own pluses and minuses, and you will see people moving in both directions, as well as quite a few people who run both smartthings and hubitat. :sunglasses:

6 Likes

I remember when hubitat stated & i also remember how member after member in smartthjngs started leaving. I came here in 2016 & this place was kicking. All roads in the internet about smarthomes lead to this address. Then slowly it started emptying out & now it seems like because of hubitat mimicking the old smartyjings… thats where all the roads are leading to.

1 Like

Welp RLA stopped working today which was not fun for myself or my guests. Negligence on the part of rboy to not at least send out a heads up. I don’t mind paying for software totally fine, but I like a little bit of professionalism in return.