Hey, you start poking at things and clicking on options, it can be really nasty. That’s both the good and bad thing about WebCore… it’s just like the SmartThings IDE – it can be extremely powerful and useful or really, really confusing. Sometimes it’s both.
I agree that it could use some polish purely as a rules engine from the interface aspect when it comes to just starting off. Once you start the piston, just click in the “execute” portion, where it says “add a new statement” and you’ll be off to the races.
The more advanced settings like variables and restrictions will come in handy, but you have to get comfortable with how the whole thing works first.
I think most of us have been down this path. We see ads and hear about home automation. Decide we’re in. Go to review sites, most of which recommend ST as the best, not knowing that best is relative. It must be mentioned that review sites probably base the recommendation on something as simple as automating a light switch which really doesn’t require ST these days.
So we start with using it to turn something on. Ok, works. Then most of our minds go crazy with all the wild ideas we can think of and realize instantly that ST can’t do it alone. Then we hit the forums and Webcore starts coming up as a way to do pretty much everything we can imagine. And on from there.
It does take time, but Webcore is nearly limitless in it’s abilities. Were it not for it, I probably would have unplugged my Hub a year ago.
A few crazy, but not really, ideas that I think only Webcore can do:
If front door is unlocked, lock it after 10 minutes. But if door is actually open (door sensor), then text me (or any other notification, Echo Speaks, etc) every X minutes until it’s closed since locking the deadbolt is pointless. In our urban house, front door should never be open or unlocked beyond entry/exit.
If garage door is open, wait 15 minutes, text it’s open and close at 20 mins with confirmation text. But while there is motion in the garage (me messing around, etc), continue to push back the door closure by 5 minutes. If door fails to finally close (something in the way, etc), then continue to try to close and text error/success.
These are pretty tame compared to some of the automations I’ve seen people do in Webcore. If you can think of it, it’s probably possible.
I don’t like Ring buzzing my phone everytime it detects motion. webCoRE to the rescue! Oh yeah, while you at it, if it’s dark then turn on the lights. Well…might as well turn them off too.
Thank you all for the replies. I think I have cracked it with very simple logic and the uDTH.
So to recap. I wanted to have two motion sensors work together so the SHM would only trigger and alarm condition if both detected motion in a given period. Here is how I have done it and tested it.
Step 1 - Create two virtual switches using the ST virtual switch creator, lets call them VS1 and VS2
Step 2 - install Mike Maxwells uDTH and set VS2 to use that Device handler
Step 3 - Set VS2 to set motion to active if switched on … found in the VS2 settings. Ensure default of switch on/off is set to on
Step 4 - Using ST smart Lighting app create new lighting automation that switches VS1 on if motion sensor1 detect motion. You can also set times to operate, and modes to operate in , so set mine to away mode.
Step 5- Using ST smart lighting app create new lighting automation that switches VS2 on if motion sensor 2 detects motion and set only if switch VS1 is on. Again set times to operate and mode to operate in which i set to away mode.
Step 6 - In the SHM set the sensors to use in chosen mode to VS2 which because you set it in step 3 to set motion to active when switched on it appears as a motion sensor in the SHM.
I also set switch VS1 and VS2 to switch off when motion stops after 3 mins for VS1 and 5 mins for VS2. This may need tweaking, but my thought is an intruder would want to move quickly round a house and therefore is likely to trip the second sensor in the 3 minutes after they trip the first sensor. This can be changed off course.
Where this helps with pets is that I have found pets tend to go to one area like top of a radiator or place to sleep, and if you have a logical layout of motion sensors and apply the lighting automatons in the right order to switch the virtual switches it is much less likely (but not impossible) that a pet would trigger both motion sensors in the given time period.
Now Id love some feedback on this as I think this is simple logic and a few tweaks which I am hoping gets round another ST shortcoming.
Again, your unwillingness to learn how something works does not make it “awful”. It just means that it isn’t simple enough for the amount of time and effort you’re willing to put into learning how to use it.
I note that you never answered my question about what it is that CoRE could do that you claim webCoRE cannot. You also seem to still be ignoring the popularity and quite effective use of webCoRE by so many ST users, which should at least give you pause to reconsider whether the app is really the problem here.
Don’t take any of this the wrong way. Not everyone is (or needs/wants to be) a ST “power-user”, nor am I saying you should be. I’m talking strictly about your criticisms of the app, which are not founded on an understanding of what it is capable of or how it is meant to be used. Just because it’s not the right tool for your wants/needs doesn’t mean that it’s an objectively bad tool. In this case, quite the opposite is true.
I’m not a developer, I’ve had no coding training or education, find CoRE difficult to use, but find WebCORE an important and essential adjunct to SmartThings. SmartThings is lacking without use of IDE and WebCORE.
Webcore was a community project created by geeky tinkerers for geeky tinkerers. Not by Samsung for a mass commercial audience. It’s not an official part of the SmartThings platform and certainly not required for it. So webcore should be judged based on who it was intended for. And for that audience, it seems to work quite well.
The new app, “smartthings ( Samsung connect)“ is the official Samsung offering intended for its television and refrigerator customers.
It has a much better rules engine than the previous classic app, but it’s still only designed for people who have 15 devices or less and never use any custom code (not even a DTH). We’ve been told many times in this forum by SmartThings staff that that’s their typical customer. Not the power users who frequent this forum. So that’s really the one that the smartthings platform as a whole should be judged by.
If it meets your needs, that’s great. If not, you can move on to any of a number of competitors. They all have different pluses and minuses, so It just comes down to which one works best for you.
