Why latency increases when internet down

So I noticed that there is a significant lag when things run locally. Taking the ethernet out makes lights to come on with motion with 5 to 10 seconds delays. Why would that be, and is everyone else’s experience the same? My thoughts, that even locally processed, Smart Lighting still uses internet to make certain connections. Any thoughts?

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the new lux condition isn’t local…

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Yeah, alot of things don’t run local, but those that do, have a horrible latency. So, why is that?

Last firmware update gone bad?, no idea…
Was local OK before the last update?

I noticed the lag before. I don’t check the local execution regularly, is more accidentally. If my hub would’ve gone offline at 2 am last night, I wouldn’t have noticed that there is a lag.

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The most likely answer is that whatever runs local processing on the hub is just slow. That could be hardware or software inefficiency. They may just not of put the resources into fine-tuning local operation since it’s more of an emergency back up kind of thing.

You can see exactly the same issue with some non-smart things systems, particularly voice processing. If it’s only run locally it has to churn away for a measurable number of beats Before the processing is complete. Even with the round-trip travel time for the cloud processing, the cloud processor itself is thousands of times faster, and task completion time is less.

Report it to support as an issue, and maybe somebody will look into it eventually.

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I had a ticket when I first noticed. It was closed with no explanation.

Already been looked into. Annoyed by!

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If local processing is an HA requirement for you, then SmartThings probably isn’t a good match. Every system has pluses and minuses, so different ones work for different people.

Then this shouldn’t have been advertised as a big new feature of the new hub or at all. You can say I shouldn’t expect much because blah, blah, blah but when a company owned by Samsung says their new system can do XYZ I expect it to work. I shouldn’t have to learn about it in the forums months later.

There are a lot of things I like about Smartthing, I was just socked to learn that this feature didn’t work and no one seams to have noticed for 6+ months.

Local processing is a fall back. But given how crappy it runs as a stand alone feature, then it begs the question why not make it widely available to all developers to use, because in conjunction with the cloud it does perform better than what is available.

I agree. Many of us were pretty stunned when V two was actually released and it was so different from our expectations based on previous company communications. To name just a few things: the Bluetooth antenna was inside but not enabled; local processing was extremely limited; the two USB ports on the back of the device are not enabled; there was a new video feature but no way to either save the video or enable anyone else to watch it without giving them full access to our smartthings account (making it difficult to share with insurance companies or police).

In addition, there were number of significant problems, including the inability to add a second user, something we had had before, and the loss of shortcut groups. (We eventually did get multiple users back.)

People definitely noticed – – each of these was discussed in many forum threads. But in the end, the only question was whether the system as it existed provided enough value as it existed to justify the costs in time, money and effort that it required. And that’s something each person has to answer for themselves.

The following thread has most of the detailed discussions on local processing.

I don’t fault you in any way. But it’s about seven months after release and Bluetooth still isn’t turned on. I think you just have to look at what’s there now. So if local processing matters a great deal to you, SmartThings just might not be a good match. There are alternatives, again each with its own pluses and minuses.

I looked through the “Local Processing in Hub V2” post a while back. A lot of responses to review but I didn’t see anything about the local processing delay. I understand that local processing is more limited then people were expecting (only 2 apps and specific devices supported). I knew those limitations going in. I haven’t been able to find anything previously mentioned in the forums about how non-functional local processing is, even when you work within those limitations. 90% of my stuff works within those limitations but the delay makes this feature close to worthless. The forums are a big place with a lot of messages so maybe I missed that.

I already have a ST alternative. I’ve been running it as a secondary since the second day I installed smarthings. Like I said there are a lot of things I like about ST I just wish they would be more upfront about what the system can properly do.

As you know setting up and programming a network of dozens of devices is very time consuming to say the least, so I’m always kind of annoyed when people tell existing users to go find an alternate as an answer. As you can see I already contacted support and have an answer. Most of the time I’m posting this information to make sure that new people looking into this stuff can make good discussions.

I didn’t know about the issue with video and such. Those issues sound just as ridiculous.

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That’s only true if there’s a serious number crunching involved, which is definitely not the case here. I guess the reason is more mundane, e.g. sloppy programming.

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When the V2 first came out, people who tested it with Smart Lighting said it was noticeably faster for lights. However, at the same time we entered into a multi month period with lots of problems with time based schedules and plaform instability.

Several people, including me, during this period Suggested that there might be some issue with synchronizing the V2 with the cloud. In a number of cases, including one of my tickets, support recommended forcing something that was running locally back to running in the cloud as a means of stabilizing a schedule problem. (Hmmmmm…)

Then during this time period At least three major changes were made. An entirely new scheduler was introduced. Some architecture changes were made. And a number of things were done to improve stability.

My guess is that something in these changes has resulted in the new latency in local processing. It may be something that forces synchronization since that was an obvious prior problem. Or it may just have something to do with one of the other changes.

But when V2 first came out, I think local processing was faster. And I think there’s been a change in the last two or three months.

FWIW

I see. At least it’s good/annoying to know it once worked. Maybe give some hope for the future?

Unfortunately, Hoping for the future has not been a very effective strategy with SmartThings (see Bluetooth above).

It seems just as likely that their initial design when V2 was released failed to synchronize the hub and the cloud and that later solutions put in place to improve stability added latency. If that’s the case, improved speed is not likely to return unless they invest A lot of resources on just that aspect.

What they’re trying to do–run some things locally and some things in the cloud at exactly the same time–is really unusual. Most of the competitors either run only locally, run solely in the cloud, or run a periodic synch where everything runs locally but it gets updates from the cloud once a day or so.

People who want really really fast response time also tend to stick to one protocol so they can take advantage of the built-in protocol features that bypass the hub all together (Z wave Association, zigbee binding, Vizia+, Lutron ClearConnect) etc. they don’t mix and match the way SmartThings does.

All of which is to say I recognize that what they’re trying to do, offer a multiprotocol platform that runs some things locally and some things in the cloud all in real time, is very difficult to accomplish.

I definitely hope they succeed. I just don’t plan my network on the basis of those hopes. :sunglasses:

JMO