Variable in notification?

SmartApps & Automations
1

I have an automation that notifies me when any of a list of my battery devices’ battery goes below 20%. Is there a way to include a variable like $TriggerDevice in my notification so it tells me which device triggered it. NB I have already rejected making a seperate automation for each battery device as I have too many of them. Currently it just says “A device battery is low” and I have to check each one to see which it was.

2

In default built in automations or using something like WebCoRE? (The answer is Yes in WebCoRE)

3

I’ll have a look into WebCore then, not used it before. Thanks! Oh - assuming it’s available to me now, and not part of some closed beta?

4

The stock ST app send a standard notification at predefined battery levels. If you want a custom solution either look into WebCoRE if you’re already familiar with it or check out this app:

2 Likes
5

Thanks both, but WebCore requires me to grant SmartThings access to my github repo without telling me just what privs it will get (I don’t want it editing my existing projects by an accidental mis-type), and the low battery smartapp wants me to enter a username and password I don’t know. It’s probably simpler to just check which device pinged me when the time comes :smiley:

And a request to the SmartThings devs to maybe include variables in their inbuilt notifications feature on native automations. In the meantime if I can rely on ST to send me one of those standard notifications that will probably do fine - thanks for letting me know about that.

6

I don’t remember WebCore requiring access to your github.repo? I do know you can connect SmartThings to github to allow it to download projects… But AFAIK it was read only - Happy to point you to the webcore thread to have them answer questions.

7

@Inge_Jones

The ST GitHub integration is two-way, if you have the correct privileges on the Repo.

However, to have a change show up in GitHub, one must push the update from within the ST IDE. Likewise, to receive updates from anyone’s GitHub, including one’s own, you have to pull in the changes.

So, it takes some effort in both directions. I’ve never felt nervous about pushing the updates to my GitHub repo accidentally, as you can review the list of changed files, and even deselect them before making the changes permanent.

Also, just enabling GitHub in SmartThings does not mean ST will have direct access to your GutHub Repositories. You have to manually add each repository individually to your ST Web IDE environment. So, if you just want the WebCoRE repo added, then that’s all ST will be able to see. It just makes installing SmartApps and DTHs much, much simpler. And it helps in keeping your copy of that code up to date, if you so choose.

8

RBoy sells that SmartApp; you pay for it and then he sends you the username/password.

9

This works well for most devices, however for a few “hungry” devices such as locks which put a lot of load on the battery, it may not be always true. We’ve seen some locks like Schlage deadbolt suddenly shutdown at 50% battery. This post explains it more detail.

You can purchase access to all of RBoy Apps on the website. It’s definitely useful to create a separate rule for different device classes as each brand/class of device behaves differently based on the type of battery and the design of the product. Some ZWave devices die at 30% while other go onto report upto 1% and still continue to work.

10

Well I found lots of different sets of instructions, many of them conflicting and almost all apparently out of date. Mainly directing to an app menu option that doesn’t exist for me. The instructions that let me to the github involvement were the only set of instructions I was physically able to follow.

Eg:

  1. Open the SmartThings app on your mobile device.
  2. Tap the Marketplace icon at the bottom of the screen. …
  3. Tap the SmartApps header at the top of the page.
  4. Scroll down and tap My Apps .
  5. Scroll down until you find webCoRE and tap it.

Nope, it wasn’t there.

There was one that told me to use the Groovy IDE and click on Settings under My SmartApps but there was no such option…

Here is a set with the github stuff: https://www.smartdevicelife.com/how-to-install-webcore-for-smartthings-beginners-guide/

Tell me - do I really need my own forked copy of the entire development in order to run anything under webcore? Or is this a complete misunderstanding on my part?

RBoy, sorry, I do appreciate and respect that you’re bringing useful content to the community but right now I don’t want to get involved in pay content for various reasons.

11

You do not need a complete forked copy. Also what locale are you in - it affects what options are available. (Many European shards don’t have git hub integration at all)

12

I am in the UK. Just a few minutes ago I found an instruction video with a link to a menu option on the IDE (which is not navigable to you have to have the direct link) you have to fill in if you’re in the EU shard, and that page does tell you to give SmartThingsEnterprise access as a collaborator to your repo and fork webcore. Eventually the instructions fizzle out with a link that gives a 404. It all feels very uncomfortable. I could spend the weekend trying to work around it and get it running but I think that will just lead to future headaches and upgrade unreliability. In my experience if you have to kludge too much to get something working it ends up coming back to bite your backside.