The Samsung SmartThings home automation thread

[IndyColtsFan]

Official Lutron support went live today. You need a Lutron Smart Bridge or Smart Bridge Pro to use it, but early reports say it is incredibly fast. I bought a new Smart Bridge on eBay for $52 shipped and intend on removing Lutron stuff from the Wink hub and selling all my Wink stuff.

 

[peterskm]

Do you happen to know if this support allows for a pico to control smart bulbs? I am still on my StaplesConnect hub because of this. Also, is it local?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Do you happen to know if this support allows for a pico to control smart bulbs? I am still on my StaplesConnect hub because of this. Also, is it local?

My understanding is that the Pico remote will not show up in the SmartThings app at this time. However, you can use the Lutron Connected Bulb Remote (LCBR) to control certain smart bulbs (GE Link and Cree Connected) even without this integration. There is a SmartApp which allegedly allows it to control ANY bulb but I haven't been able to get it to work and the developer really couldn't offer much assistance.

 

[peterskm]

Thanks. That's what I was afraid of. Currently, with my StaplesConnect hub, I have 2 buttons on the pico controlling a set of GE bulbs in a fan and the other 2 buttons controlling lamp lights in the same room. In my reading, it doesn't saound like the LCBR will do this either.

 

[peterskm]

There's a SmartThings community project that allows the pico remotes to be used as button controllers to control anything assuming you have the pro version of the Lutron hub. You do need a computer running to marshall the messages between the SmartThings hub and the Lutron hub. I got a raspberry pi and my Lutron hub should be here tomorrow. I am totally jacked to get this working.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

There's a SmartThings community project that allows the pico remotes to be used as button controllers to control anything assuming you have the pro version of the Lutron hub. You do need a computer running to marshall the messages between the SmartThings hub and the Lutron hub. I got a raspberry pi and my Lutron hub should be here tomorrow. I am totally jacked to get this working.

Yeah, I just got the standard Lutron bridge (not the pro) so this won't work for me. I may go ahead and use the community project if I don't like the official integration, as I can install the code to run on a VM on my server.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I just got back from vacation and set up the Lutron Bridge and integrated it with SmartThings. Some thoughts/observations:

The good:
1. Setup was painless and very straightforward.
2. Controlling my Lutron Caseta switches from the ST app is incredibly fast - they're on or off in a fraction of a second.

The bad:
I have a somewhat unique use case in that I have a bar in my house which, at one time, was a porch. Anyway, I have two sets of lights (one on the exterior wall and one one the interior wall) which are controlled by two separate switches. I want both sets of lights to come on when I'm walking into the bar and press the switch on the interior wall, and vice versa - I want them both off if I leave the bar and press the interior wall switch. With Wink, I had a robot which performed this action relatively quickly - the second set of lights would come on within a couple of seconds when I pressed the interior wall switch. However, I've tried both CoRE and Smart Lighting and could not get the second set of lights to come on in less than five seconds, with the more typical time being closer to ten seconds!

Obviously, that isn't acceptable and I could not find a fix in SmartThings. So at the suggestion of a member of the ST community, I configured my old iPad 4 as a HomeKit hub, added the Lutron bridge, and created the automations there. I'm now getting response times equivalent to what I had with Wink. I may end up just mounting one of the Pico remotes to the wall next to the interior switch and calling it a day, as those are instantaneous.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I added my 131st device last night. Woohoo!

Back to my Lutron stuff, I abandoned using HomeKit because when my iPad fell asleep, it stopped working and I didn't want to force it to stay on. I bought the adapter and switchplates to install a Pico on the wall to control the lights, but then I had a thought - why not use a CoRE rule which turns both lights on when the door to the room opens and turns them off when the door closes? I implemented that and it is extremely fast. I threw a motion sensor (device #131) in there too and am testing some different rules with CoRE so that the motion sensor will eventually be the device responsible for turning the lights off rather than the door closing.

Devices #132 and #133 (an Enerwave in-wall outlet with metering) and an Iris motion sensor are up this weekend. I still have a ton of devices in my closet to add as well - if I added everything I have in the closet, I think I'd be in the 150-160 range, if not a little more.

 

[lsd]

New Hubs out
http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/1...uter-announced-smartthings-price-release-date
Limited information but has me interested.

 

[cliftonite]

If I want to start purchasing home automation stuff ahead of time for our house that will be done in about 8 months (want to take advantage of hot deals, instead of buying full price) where do I start? Should I start buying switches when they go on sale? Which ones would you guys recommend?

 

[Kaido]

Are you still using this? How's it been working out so far?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Are you still using this? How's it been working out so far?

Yes. ST >>>>> Wink

 

[Kaido]

Yes. ST >>>>> Wink

#1 - just realized I didn't specify "Action Tiles" (in terms of still using it & if you're happy with it), that's what I was asking about. Soooooo, still using that?

#2 - I've been very happy with my Wink system, as it's meeting all of my current needs, but I've been seeing some recent installs of Action Tiles & have been pretty dang impressed.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

#1 - just realized I didn't specify "Action Tiles" (in terms of still using it & if you're happy with it), that's what I was asking about. Soooooo, still using that?

#2 - I've been very happy with my Wink system, as it's meeting all of my current needs, but I've been seeing some recent installs of Action Tiles & have been pretty dang impressed.

I used SmartTiles quite a bit and loved it. I bought ActionTiles and a Fire tablet to implement it on, but I just haven't had time to implement it the way I need to. My closet literally has a pile of HA gear that I still need to install, and that doesn't include the partially-filled shelf in the closet and the stuff I have sitting on my bookshelf (Ring Pro and Ring Chime) among other things.

 

[Kaido]

I used SmartTiles quite a bit and loved it. I bought ActionTiles and a Fire tablet to implement it on, but I just haven't had time to implement it the way I need to. My closet literally has a pile of HA gear that I still need to install, and that doesn't include the partially-filled shelf in the closet and the stuff I have sitting on my bookshelf (Ring Pro and Ring Chime) among other things.

Yeah, I wish Samsung would just buy them outright & provide better support. I really like the live camera feed feature, and think it would be cool to pair something like a Synology up with that (the security cam module), or a Ring doorbell, although apparently Action Tiles currently only does MJPEG video stream via a direct URL, so it's limited for closed systems like the Ring (for now). While I wasn't a fan of the Tile interface in Windows (other than tablet mode, I guess), I do like it for the smarthome stuff because it lets you easily customize your display. I mostly just use Alexa for an interface now (VUI FTW!), but for some things, like camera feeds it'd be pretty nice to have that on a visual display. I'm just very hesitant to jump into a halfway-supported system (for the specific items I want) after having gone through that initially with my family with the original Wink Hub...I like to tinker, but they need it to work, every single time, so if Samsung could buy them & integrate all of these awesome features, that'd be mint

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Bumping my old SmartThings thread instead of posting in the Wink thread. Now that the holidays are over, anyone want to share any HA acquisitions or stories?

I have bought a few sensors recently but haven't done much in terms of new integrations or webCoRE code, though I've identified a few needs. Some more recent things I've done (nothing terribly interesting, I'm afraid):

1. I ordered some additional Zooz 4-in-1 sensors to monitor humidity in a couple of rooms.
2. Deployed a couple of additional Blink outdoor cameras.
3. I've had to replace a couple of ZigBee contact sensors with Zwave contact sensors, as the ZigBee sensors were losing connectivity often and killing the batteries. I'm not 100% sure why, because both had repeaters fairly close. I suspect it might be wi-fi interference but I've been gradually moving towards more and more Zwave devices anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Things I still have to do:
1. I STILL haven't installed the Ring doorbell I bought in December 2017.
2. I've got 2 Fire tablets and have yet to build out my ActionTiles dashboards so I can mount them on the wall.
3. Finish Blink camera deployment (only 1 or 2 left).
4. Complete several webCoRE projects I've thought about.
5. Deploy remaining sensors/lights/etc or sell them in order to clean out my closet.