What happened to Smartthings app?

[Lun_Jiang]

Hi all,
What is happening to smartthings? The app has lost so many functionalities compared to the classic:

1. The classic allows you to choose what sensors the home security uses, now it either all or none. I had to delete my garage door opener simply because it doubles as a contact sensor.
2. The device presence of location literally do not work. Both mine and my wife’s phone are home and none could be detected. This previously worked flawlessly.
3. The confusing security.home/location.home difference that makes setting up home security so much harder. Why in the world would someone want a location scene of home mode that independently functions with exactly the same name as home security system’s home mode.

I just advised someone else to use smartthings, he couldn’t even buy the hub, now I’m wondering if openhab is a better option.
Any suggestions?

[jkp]

@Lun_Jiang

The classic allows you to choose what sensors the home security uses, now it either all or none. I had to delete my garage door opener simply because it doubles as a contact sensor.

you can individually select the sensors in STHM…

look at @JDRoberts post with images on how to accomplish this…

How can I set only one door sensor to activate at a set time?

No, he’s referring to the app, but there are a lot of steps to get to the screen he’s referring to. Before we get to that though, there are three different kinds of notifications that you can get, so the answer to your question will depend on which notification you mean. SmartThings Home Monitor standard notifications. These are the ones that you get when you arm the smartthings home monitor (STHM) feature. For this category you select a list of sensors that you want to get STHM alerts for. It starts out assuming you want all of them, but there is a way in the app to remove some of the sensors from that list, which is what @Automated_House was referring to. More on that later. But the main problem with this category is that there’s only one list for each mode. SmartThings Home Mon…

@Lun_Jiang

The device presence of location literally do not work. Both mine and my wife’s phone are home and none could be detected. This previously worked flawlessly.

have you enabled location for the phone in menu > settings > use location for this device?

[troy_owens]

You can use which sensors and or cameras you want to use in STHM… simply turn the toggle off and then click beside it and it lists your sensors…checkmark the ones you want to use and done.

[orangebucket (Graham)]

@Lun_Jiang

The classic allows you to choose what sensors the home security uses

So does the new app. It just isn’t always obvious how to do it.

@Lun_Jiang

The device presence of location literally do not work

My experience is the opposite to yours. The Classic app was so unreliable that it was unusable for presence, but the latest version works beautifully.

@Lun_Jiang

Why in the world would someone want a location scene of home mode that independently functions with exactly the same name as home security system’s home mode.

I don’t suppose they would. However the Security modes are Armed (Away), Armed (Stay) and Disarmed and the Location modes default to Away, Night and Home, which is pretty much the same as with the Classic app.

@Lun_Jiang

he couldn’t even buy the hub

There I agree with you. The transition to third party hubs hasn’t been particularly well communicated.

[JDRoberts]

@Lun_Jiang

Hi all,
What is happening to smartthings? The app has lost so many functionalities compared to the classic:

1. The classic allows you to choose what sensors the home security uses, now it either all or none. I had to delete my garage door opener simply because it doubles as a contact sensor.
2. The device presence of location literally do not work. Both mine and my wife’s phone are home and none could be detected. This previously worked flawlessly.
3. The confusing security.home/location.home difference that makes setting up home security so much harder. Why in the world would someone want a location scene of home mode that independently functions with exactly the same name as home security system’s home mode.

I just advised someone else to use smartthings, he couldn’t even buy the hub, now I’m wondering if openhab is a better option.
Any suggestions?

Different systems work work for different people. You can find a lot of discussions in the forum about what alternatives might be.

As far as your specific questions:

1. As @jkp said, you can still do this, it’s just really hard to find it in the app until somebody has shown you the examples. So see the link he gave.

2. Many people have reported that presence is not working well for them in the current version of the app. There are lots of threads about it. It’s not clear why it does work for some people and not for others, it may depend on the specific phone, the OS, something else we’re not aware of. But you’re not alone in this and it’s not clear what the workarounds are.

3. This issue, of having “home“ be a value for two different variables (Security and Geopresence) was actually introduced before the new V3 app was. And it’s been confusing people for a long time. It was part of the old smart home monitor, and then it was part of the new SmartThings home monitor for the first two years.

There’s a community FAQ about this which is from the old version of the app. You’ll see the question was first asked back in 2016, so it’s not a new issue.

FAQ: Armed/Disarmed states vs Away/Home modes confusion

However, as @orangebucket mentioned, sometime in the last six months they actually improved this in some languages, although I don’t think it’s been fully globalized yet. But at least now in the US version and the UK version of the app, the values for smartthings home Monitor have been changed to be “Disarmed” instead of “Home.”

As far as suggestions, there are a lot of home automation systems out there, each has pluses and minuses, and, again, different things work for different people. Openhab is a good choice for a lot of people with a strong technical background. Xioami Aqara might be a better choice for someone just looking for a simple system with a nice app. And smart things (with the new Aeotec hub) might still be the best choice for a lot of people. There’s good discussion in the following section of the forum:

Other Hubs - SmartThings Community

[nathancu (Nathan Curtis)]

@Lun_Jiang

Why in the world would someone want a location scene of home mode that independently functions with exactly the same name as home security system’s home mode.

I do -I use the built in HOME location mode as a default ‘landing’ mode when other things change modes from ‘away’ to ‘home’ so the other logic doesn’t have to determine exactly which of my 8 location modes the system should actually be in. When the system switches to the ‘home’ location mode, (usually triggered by security being disarmed) another automation kicks in and changes the mode to what it ACTUALLY should be (based on a complex set of rules and a few lookup tables) and changes it.

[orangebucket (Graham)]

@JDRoberts

sometime in the last six months they actually improved this in some languages, although I don’t think it’s been fully globalized yet. But at least now in the US version and the UK version of the app, the values for smartthings home Monitor have been changed to be “Disarmed” instead of “Home.”

Oddly, I have no recollection of either SHM or STHM ever using anything but Disarm or Disarmed in the UK.

SHM did once say Armed (Home) instead of Armed (Stay) but the attribute values were always stay, away and off.

Since I’ve been using it, STHM has always said Armed (Away), Armed (Stay) and Disarmed, matching the armedAway, armedStay and disarmed attribute values.