Good answer. 
Hmmmm… any chance you have a power strip where you aren’t using all of the sockets? I use that instead of a virtual switch in some cases. But it will only help if the device is already on your device list.
2 Likes
This changed a few months back on Android and IOS to 300 devices. There are tricks to get around that limit as well. If your only using a single hub then you will have issues long before you hit the limit, especialy if you have a lot of Zigbee devices!
1 Like
Most of my physical devices are Zigbee.
But I’ll try to port one or two of these channel change items to being triggered by a virtual switch and see how it goes.
1 Like
Also, be mindful of how many drivers you have loaded and remove any you’re not using. I know you have made a lot of changes recently and drivers eat up a lot of memory on the hub and you mentioned you have close to 200 devices.
1 Like
Been doing that diligently, with drivers and devices and routines. But adding the Bravia and other items recently, with the need for virtual devices to control much of that, has taken my device count high.
Who knows? Perhaps the powers-that-be might see a use case like mine, and see fit to enable some sort of delayed execution in manually started routines. They certainly don’t want to fall behind Alexa…, right? 
2 Likes
They don’t, but in this case they haven’t. 
I know this is super technical, but it is what most home automation platforms do.
Alexa has the wait option in their routines, which are the equivalent of the smartthings “automatically run” routines. And the smartthings “automatically run”routines do already have a Delay feature.
No home automation platform that I know of offers a delay in their scenes. Instead, in every case, you include the scene in an automation which has the wait option. Same way It works in smartthings.
4 Likes
I didn’t understand this was a manually run Routine. In that case I would setup a virtual button device as a trigger for a Routine with the same actions in order to use the Routine’s action delays if the delays fit your workflow.
3 Likes
Interesting. Thanks!
I guess this is one of those “push me, pull you” situations where consumer demand changes the original engineering concept.
In which case, sure: if Smart Life (Tuya) does it, it’s reasonable to expect SmartThings to eventually follow suit.
2 Likes
@nayelyz: would adding the ability to wait some seconds between steps in a manually-run Routine be something that could easily be accomplished? I have a slew of use cases for it, and can think of many more….
Hi, @Glen_King
I’m not sure, I asked the engineering team about this to see if this can be a feature request. However, it’ll depend on the team’s workload and its feasibility, so, there won’t be any estimate on when it could be added if approved.
3 Likes
For lack of a Wait in ST, each Alexa cable channel change routine requires
- one reusable ST switch
- two reusable ST http switches
- one reusable ST scene
- one unique ST scene
- three Alexa waits.
Here’s what it looks like:
The Volume switch is Off for volume requirements on my preferred channel, and On for those of my wife. ‘Off’’ actually still provides volume; it is sending the HTTP volume level to the Denon. It allows me to use a single switch to do two different volume levels.
Note that each Routine supposes the entire system is off, and/or all inputs and settings other than what’s desired, as a starting point. It works well enough, both for starting from “all systems OFF” to something already running. It will have to do for now.
1 Like
Hi, everyone.
I shared @Glen_King comment with the engineering team and they confirmed adding “wait/sleep” commands in manually run routines isn’t available in the app but it’s possible to add a sleep command if we create it through the API using the Rules endpoint as mentioned in this post to create a “manually run routine”
However, they mentioned they would bring this case to the table to see if it can be considered in the future.
4 Likes