I was feeling the exact same way, with the added head spinning of the different variations I just tried to work through.
That being said, I used Alexa Guard tonight connected to a virtual contact sensor and it worked pretty well. Clearly there is a risk of the third party integration lag or instability , but other than that it was at least as good. Kind of pathetic we have to link to an external system like this, but it’s kind of where we are.
The random lights (we used vacation director/lighting too) was one of our primary uses, with it being killed off, we are struggling to find an alternative. There is one in the labs, but it is so ridiculous as it turns lights on and off even when you are not away. The vacation lightning worked perfect for years.
Also tried Alexa guard, but it seems like it will run all night, we don’t want that.
Need one at minimum that I can have certain light go on and off randomly but also all turn off and stop at a certain time. Again, vacation lightning worked perfectly and had great control/features. Really perplexing that there isn’t any even close that can do the same thing.
Extremely disappointing losing this and honestly quite frustrating that there isn’t an alternative.
Same boat as you. Such a fundamentally basic use case for a smart hub that seems to have been completed overlooked in the new development. Clearly no one making decisions at Samsung is actually using this hub for common functions, or listening to anyone that has or is.
You could still use Alexa Guard and have it turn off at a specific time as well as turn off all your lights.
If you can define criteria for the difference between being gone on vacation vs being gone for the evening, you could even have different routines to trigger different actions for the two different use cases.
Routines are far more powerful than in the past and when combined with devices such as virtual switches, virtual momentary buttons, and other virtual constructs, some complex scenarios are quite possible.
You might also want to look at Sharptools which handles complex logic and provides variables that can ease the programming of complex use cases.
I don’t like the shutdown of the Groovy platform either, but it was never Smartthings that provided a lot of the complex applications that made the platform so versatile. It was the 3rd parties that developed SmartApps and it seems that those folks have chosen not to migrate to the new platform leaving users of this apps hanging.
Alexa guard sounds like the answer. Unfortunately it is only available in the US I believe.
To be fair, on the original architecture someone could develop a smartapp for themselves, or to help a friend, and then easily make the code available to share for anybody else, and it would be hosted in the free Samsung groovy cloud.
In the new architecture, installing is easier for the new user, but the whole process is much more complicated and potentially more expensive for the developer. You have to provide hosting, either at a hosting service, or on a server device. The process for making it available is more complex, and there are even some legal liabilities around privacy regulations. So I understand entirely any developer who prefers to move over to a different open source platform where all they need is an Apache license statement. And there’s potentially way more tech-support required now in helping people set up their own server devices if that’s the path taken.
In some cases, the smartapp was written years ago and the original author may not even be aware of the architecture changes, especially if they themselves had already moved on to something else. 
This has been a very creative and generous community, and I hope that that will continue, but I do think that we are more likely to see shared community-created edge drivers than smartapps from now on.
On the other hand, we may also see people sharing rules recipes, which are hosted free by Samsung, we just all have a learning curve to get used to that option.
Is there a starter post or topic for Rules? I’ve been reading more and more about them but don’t know where/how to get started.
This part gets a big confusing:
“… virtual switches, virtual momentary buttons, and other virtual constructs, some complex scenarios are quite possible.
You might also want to look at Sharptools which handles complex logic and provides variables that can ease the programming of complex use cases.”
Also, I did try Alexa guard the other day. Of course I had to manually enable it, but it did turn all the light on I had in the guard list….and over a 3 hour timeframe….that’s all it did. Turned them all on and left them on. We got home, they weee all on. Checked the history, and yep, no random at all.
We lost a huge feature here, well at least to those that used it.
And…I will admit, I am a bit out of practice here. Set all this up a while ago. With step by step instructions. Just wish there was something similar to what we lost. Doesn’t make a lot of sense why that doesn’t exist.
I’ve been looking into routines and accomplishing a random on/off via the Virtual Mirror Switch linked below.
Making a mirror switch and then using it to trigger lights on/off seems like a viable option.
I may be mistaken, but doesn’t Alexa guard take a week or two to learn your regular routine before it starts controlling the variable lights? I know it did when I first set it up.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=G8W367YLULTRSB2S
Also, it has a few quirks. You have to turn on the “away lights” selection under settings. And it will only work with things that show up as “lights” in the Alexa app— not smart plugs, or other devices.
You can tell Alexa that a smart plug or switch is a light and then you can use it in Alexa Guard.
I was looking at that. My issue there is I didn’t want to use community drivers unless I have a gap. Kind of gun shy that Samsung might decide to cut those off too. So far with this transition if you stayed simple and away from community stuff, you aren’t losing much. Missed out on a lot along the way too if course.
Do you have Labs available in your app. There is an app that should be alternative to Vacation Lighting
This app has to be turned on and off manually when you are away, otherwise it will come on when you are home. I feel that is not a reasonable replacement option.
It doesn’t work nearly as well as the other option we had. The Labs one has to be manually triggered off and on (which makes no sense based on the title) and you have far less control. Doesn’t have sunset option, only set time intervals, lots of less abilities compared to what we have.
Again, biggest shortfall is if you have it on, it comes on regardless if you are away or not. If this at least worked only when SmartThings was in away mode it would be usable. Lacking, but usable.
I also use a custom Alexa routine to say “Alexa, I’m Home” to turn off guard when STHM is disarmed.
I’ve been using TAustin’s virtual contact sensor connected to Alexa Guard and been working pretty well. Something I’ve come across is I originally tried to use a switch, but that didn’t show up as something I could trigger Alexa guard with, so went with the contact sensor. Now when I leave home and the hub goes into a way mode I get the notification saying the contact sensor is open since it being open is what I use to trigger Alexa. I know I can select which sensors are used in which modes, but I like to just keep them all selected so I don’t have to remember when I add new ones, but if that’s the right choice not that big a deal. I could always inverse that and make it when closed, but then it stands out on the smart things side since it spends most of its life “not armed”. Does anyone know how to get the virtual switch to show up in Alexa or have another device type to suggest?
If you use @ygerlovin “vDev Controller” to create your virtual switches they will work as triggers in Alexa. They contain a hidden contact sensor, but they don’t show up in ST.
Hello @farlicimo.
You can remove the contact from being monitored by Home Monitor. The SmartThings app menus are not very intuitive, so many people don’t know they can do it!
Hope that helps, and you don’t have to change drivers 
.
