I recently received the SmartThings Hub v2, as well as several sensors and light bulbs. It’s been a gas putting all the things together, trying them out with my Amazon Alexa, as well as trying out the different SmartThings smart apps.
I connected IFTTT to my ST hub, and it turns on my bedroom and office lights at sunset. Another app has a motion sensor monitor the basement at night and if motion is detected, every light controlled by the Hub is turned on and a text sent to my phone. If I’m away from home, the text message also includes a one minute video clip of the intrusion.
If my front door isn’t locked at 10, it’s automatically locked. When I get a garage relay installed, if the garage door is open at 10, it’s automatically closed.
It’s fun, useful, and fascinating to see all the pieces come together. But it can also be frustrating, too, especially for a ST newbie, such as myself.
Today I was experimenting with a smart app to use a light as an alarm clock—having it come on gradually over 5 minutes. I ran a test case on my light in my office, just to see how it worked. It seemed to work fine, but something I did triggered it to run again. It turned on the light, I used the ST app to turn it on again. The app immediately turned it on again, and I turned it off again.
This on-off-on-off battled continued to happen for another five minutes, as I tried to figure out how to turn the smart app off. Eventually, I uninstalled the app.
As I wrote in Facebook:
It gives one pause in one’s enthusiasm for a smart home when one realizes that one has been having a heated argument for several minutes with a light bulb.