Just recently all my devices in the ST App are showing I need to download a device controller in order for me to select that specific device. I have not seen this before so am confused (what is it?) if I should proceed with the download and if so will I need to do this for each device or just one time? Here is screenshot from my iPhone from what I see when I select a device. Thanks.
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It’s a bit of code that the smartthings app uses to control the way the device information is displayed in the app.
Whenever there’s an update to that code, you will get that message.
So you might not see the message for a particular device for a year or more, or you might see it a couple of times in a week if they are fixing bugs.
It’s not updating the device itself, just the displayed controls in the app.
We were just talking about this in the forum a couple of weeks ago.
As far as I know, the term “controller”, somewhat similar to a plug-in for the smartthings app, came into use with the V3 version of the smartthings app in 2018. At least that’s when it started to show up in the end user documentation.
I think the term may have come over from the old “Samsung connect“ app when that one was folded into the SmartThings app.
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I run my account in a “hub optional“ configuration – – no hub at all. And my devices all still have controllers with version numbers. For example, I occasionally see the “update controller” message for my Meross devices, which are Wi-Fi and have a cloud to cloud integration.
Here’s another discussion thread showing the update message
Update Device Controller (New App V3)
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