Updates to the SmartThings Platform

The Ring Alarm system is completely different technology than the doorbells and cameras. Instead of WiFi it is state of the art Zwave, and quite a nice system. (The Keypad in particular is a great device.) For the last year it has consistently scored #1 rankings for low cost DIY security systems everywhere from the Wall St Journal to Consumer Reports. So as always, the first rule of home automation applies: the model number matters. :wink:

Anyway…I’m not sure what specifically you wanted to do with the cameras/doorbells, but you can always use Amazon routines and get a similar level of integration to what’s available with SmartThings. (In fact, the Amazon method works with a few more models than ST.)

Just saying if you choose any system which is primarily local you sometimes need to go out of system for integration with cloud based devices, whether it’s IFTTT, Homebridge, or Alexa routines.

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I just set up a ring alarm system and am quite impressed. i was already using a couple of the ring alarm keypads (2nd gen) with my ST system and @RBoy device and app handlers. The only thing missing for me so far for the ring alarm is a very loud external siren. which i can put together with a ring dome siren and a relay to either trigger a ST contact or pass thru 12v for a siren horn.

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I almost gave it a shot when I bought my current house and was debating what security system to install. I was hoping Ring’s alarm system would be more open (e.g. an API) but it isn’t. I also don’t see any particular benefit in its use of zwave-based sensors, since Ring only supports their own sensors.

Home automation is cool but it isn’t critical. Security for me is. Not even so much the intrusion part, but the fire/smoke alarm part. We have pets and I want to know if something bad happens at home, and I’m willing to pay more for a professional grade alarm system that I know will be reliable, even if I have to give up some automation features I’d like to have. Ring’s alarm infrastructure may be better than their doorbells & cameras, but my confidence level in Ring as a whole is not enough to trust the safety of my family to them.

In my backyard, I have a Ring Floodlight cam as well as some regular light fixtures, with ST zigbee bulbs. On my back door I have a ST button that toggles all of them on or off when pressed. My dog likes to go out in the middle of the night, and I want the lights on before I open the door. The lights on the Ring floodlight wouldn’t go on otherwise until it detected motion, and if I set the motion sensor too high they go on and off when the wind blows.

On the front of my house I have 4 fixtures. My wife doesn’t like the lights real bright, so they’re on a zwave dimmer. When my ring doorbell detects motion between sunset/sunrise I set the lights to 100% until there’s no motion for 3 minutes, then they dim to their previous value. Not only is it convenient to have the extra light when we come come, a few times I’ve seen lowlifes trying our car doors late at night so this serves as a deterrent.

I consider these to be fairly basic automations, and were easy to accomplish with ST and webcore. I don’t see any easy way in Hubitat. I really don’t want to rely on reverse engineered APIs and the like. Using an intermediate like Amazon routines or IFTTT might be possible, but I’m not crazy about adding yet another cloud system in the mix.

If I had the time and money to do it all over again, I’d certainly make different choices and pick devices that could be controlled locally, or at least had published APIs.

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while out mowing the bigger then average suburb backyard around the pool and shrubs on this very cool morning (waited all week for the cold front) I reset all the outside bosch motion sensors. They have been out there for almost 3 years now in the cold of winter and heat of summer and the batteries still say 100%. I did rotate the 4 batteries around.

Just set up our new Q70T 75” and have had numerous problems. Connected via the smart hub and set everything up. Alexa won’t open Netflix or Prime Video with out saying “Alexa tell the TV to open Netflix”, same thing with Prime. We should be able to say “Alexa open Nextflix” right? She keeps saying we don’t have any connected video skills. Alexa won’t turn on the TV (though she will turn it off). Tonight we couldn’t even turn the TV on via the remote without power cycling.

We are very disappointed with this Tv and it’s our first in 8 years. If Samsung can’t correct this we are going to take it back.

I know with the Firesticks and a lot of other devices and skills, you have to link them to an Alexa device in the TV and Video settings in the Alexa App.

Rontally we are using the HMI ARC input with a sonos beam on our Q70T. Netflix isn’t listed as an option on TV and Video settings. Also since Netflix will open when we use a specific phrase that seems very odd it won’t when we say it another way. Alexa keeps saying we don’t have any enabled video skills. It’s the same when we try to open sling or spectrum Tv apps, in fact hose aren’t even listed in TV and Video. Thank you for your help.

If you’re looking for help with Samsung brand appliances, vacuums, or televisions, including how they work with the SmartThings app, see the official support forum, which includes assistance from Samsung staff:

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Get-Help/ct-p/get-help

They may just send you back over here, but the people over there are much more familiar with the televisions and what you can do with them.

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Still no update from Smartthings regarding giving blanket access to google and amazon? its been some time now and would love to know if we are moving away from smartthings or waiting!

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Yes it’s a bit weird, nothing is really changing or improving visibly, yet there are apparently things happening in the background.

This sort of change isn’t something I’d expect to take very long as it’s just a filter on the list… Strange!

While I agree it SHOULDN’T take long, if they (errantly) made feature / case assumptions elsewhere in thier code based on not having to care if a device is visible in Amazon / Google or not, they would then have to review the entire branch to see what they break when they start changing it… Every time I’ve been involved in feature requests, this exercise took (MUCH) longer than the actual code change.

They’ve already said it’s coming - but I don’t expect to see it for at least another month (at least). I’d be happy to be wrong.

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They’ve known it was a problem since the release of the New Alexa Skill back in Spring 2020. It should not take 6+ months to add this basic feature back in. Since all there has been is silence in response to requests for status updates, I wouldn’t hold my breath on it ever coming back… Just like the old Contacts feature… and the ability to choose which default attribute to display on the small device view… and the promise of local processing… and SMS messaging for most of the world… and SmartLighting in some regions… and more than 20 rooms… and the ability to buy a hub… and the ability to buy sensors… and Echo Speaks… and the built-in battery backup of the v2 hub… and… and…

SmartThings Giveth… and Samsung Taketh Away :wink:

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This is the problem with modern technology. Companies have way to much flexibility via software. When I bought smartthings, I did my research and knew I could restrict certain devices. So i bought the dam thing with that impression but smartthings / samsung do not care how or what i feel or felt when i made the purchase and they can change or delete any function at will.
Its like buying a car with automatic windows then 2 years later the manufacturer deciding to make it manual and u have no choice, that would never happen in that world but in this new world , somehow it has become ok or normal for a person to buy something with xyz functions and later lose such functions with zero repercussions to the company. Ok smartthings i want my money back for the hub and the 70 smart devices now since you decided that the function you gave to me when i made the purchase is no longer an option, if u had told me that 2 years ago i would not have bought it. sounds fair, yes ?

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Don’t forget your phone presence sensor being an actual device (Remember the Family Tab?) and an App that doesn’t take two minutes to load before you can click on something (Remember Classic?). Oh and ordinary people being able to make custom DTH without needing a PHD in Nerdism oh and easy to find utilities and easily knowing what Mode your system is in. What about knowing what triggered an Event?

Oh, and Apps that used to work like SmartLighing that’s despite being rock solid for years, now is unreliable.

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Unfortunately it isn’t this easy. The proper fix requires re-working how permissions are granted at the device level. I can’t go into more detail than that for obvious reasons, but suffice to say it’s a big engineering lift that is being actively worked on.

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Blake, will we ever get device page access to conected automations ? Please say yes, its a killer at the moment

Trying to find where an automation for a device is located can be a total ball ache, especially if the automation was not labelled well at time of creation, I end up scrolling through automations, then smart lighting, then back again trying to find which automation or smart app is connected to the device I need to adjust or change

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The IDE shows which automations and smartapps apply to a given device. Not as convenient as the app, but works as an alternative.

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It does not show automations from the new app nor does it show scenes.

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See, that’s where product management went wrong. The “proper fix” for the moment is to achieve parity with Classic, and meet the needs of your user community and stop hemorrhaging customers. Fix it fast first, fix it proper later. @cjcharles is spot on, it’s just a dumb filter on the back end service integration with Amazon.

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they may be hemorrhaging power users, but there’s no indication that they’re hemorrhaging the 95+ percent of their users who aren’t in that group. The people who have bought a smart refrigerator or washing machine or robot vacuum and never used classic.

Classic had 1 million downloads
7,300 reviews
2.9 star rating

Current app has 100 million downloads
577,000 reviews
4.3 star rating

I expect the product managers are pretty happy with those numbers.

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Smartthings

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