- Sep 22, 2007
- 33,655
- 687
- 126
Hello everyone,
We were taking up space in the Wink thread, so I thought I'd make a new thread for us to discuss the SmartThings platform and our automations. For those who are unfamiliar with SmartThings, it is an open platform which houses Zigbee and Zwave radios and allows you to connect various home automation devices so that you can create automation scripts, control the devices with your phone, etc. Because the system is open, if a device isn't supported out-of-the-box by Samsung, the SmartThings community often will create device handlers or SmartApps for those devices. First, let's define some common SmartThings terms:
Terms:
IDE (Integrated Development Environment): This is the web-based environment where you can paste device code, SmartApp code, change device types, etc. The URL is https://graph.api.smartthings.com/ and you would just log in with your SmartThings account.
Device Handler: A device handler is basically a device driver for SmartThings. It tells SmartThings how to use a device. The Official SmartThings Community (also linked in the next section) is the place to go to find out if a device is natively supported by SmartThings and if not, if a device handler has been written.
SmartApp: A smart app is an application which allows SmartThings to perform certain tasks. SmartApps are available from Samsung or can be developed by the community to augment features in SmartThings. The best example of a complex SmartApp created by the community is CoRE, which is explained below.
I wanted this initial thread to have links to some of my favorite SmartThings resources on the web. So, I've compiled a few key links:
Links:
Official Site: https://www.smartthings.com/
Official SmartThings Community: https://community.smartthings.com/
SmartThings Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/713465198796558/
Additionally, no SmartThings system is complete IMO without integrating a few key components. Two of the key components are linked here:
1. CoRE (Community's own Rule Engine): CoRE is a very complex and sophisticated rules engine which allows you to perform complex automations, scheduling, notifications, etc. I'm sure we'll discuss more about CoRE in this thread, but here are some good links:
About CoRE and install instructions: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=CoRE
Get peer assistance with CoRE pistons: https://community.smartthings.com/t/core-get-peer-assistance-here-with-setting-up-pistons/50187
2. SmartTiles: SmartTile is a free SmartApp which gives you the ability to create web-based control dashboards for SmartThings. Note that SmartTiles will be replaced with ActionTiles at some point in the future, and ActionTiles will require a payment of some sort, which is to be determined. A typical SmartTiles dashboard looks like the example below, but you can theme it differently using CSS and other tools:
SmartTiles: https://community.smartthings.com/t...notes-etc-follow-this-topic-for-updates/48641
I think that's it for my initial post. I will try to make some posts later detailing hardware recommendations.
We were taking up space in the Wink thread, so I thought I'd make a new thread for us to discuss the SmartThings platform and our automations. For those who are unfamiliar with SmartThings, it is an open platform which houses Zigbee and Zwave radios and allows you to connect various home automation devices so that you can create automation scripts, control the devices with your phone, etc. Because the system is open, if a device isn't supported out-of-the-box by Samsung, the SmartThings community often will create device handlers or SmartApps for those devices. First, let's define some common SmartThings terms:
Terms:
IDE (Integrated Development Environment): This is the web-based environment where you can paste device code, SmartApp code, change device types, etc. The URL is https://graph.api.smartthings.com/ and you would just log in with your SmartThings account.
Device Handler: A device handler is basically a device driver for SmartThings. It tells SmartThings how to use a device. The Official SmartThings Community (also linked in the next section) is the place to go to find out if a device is natively supported by SmartThings and if not, if a device handler has been written.
SmartApp: A smart app is an application which allows SmartThings to perform certain tasks. SmartApps are available from Samsung or can be developed by the community to augment features in SmartThings. The best example of a complex SmartApp created by the community is CoRE, which is explained below.
I wanted this initial thread to have links to some of my favorite SmartThings resources on the web. So, I've compiled a few key links:
Links:
Official Site: https://www.smartthings.com/
Official SmartThings Community: https://community.smartthings.com/
SmartThings Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/713465198796558/
Additionally, no SmartThings system is complete IMO without integrating a few key components. Two of the key components are linked here:
1. CoRE (Community's own Rule Engine): CoRE is a very complex and sophisticated rules engine which allows you to perform complex automations, scheduling, notifications, etc. I'm sure we'll discuss more about CoRE in this thread, but here are some good links:
About CoRE and install instructions: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=CoRE
Get peer assistance with CoRE pistons: https://community.smartthings.com/t/core-get-peer-assistance-here-with-setting-up-pistons/50187
2. SmartTiles: SmartTile is a free SmartApp which gives you the ability to create web-based control dashboards for SmartThings. Note that SmartTiles will be replaced with ActionTiles at some point in the future, and ActionTiles will require a payment of some sort, which is to be determined. A typical SmartTiles dashboard looks like the example below, but you can theme it differently using CSS and other tools:
SmartTiles: https://community.smartthings.com/t...notes-etc-follow-this-topic-for-updates/48641
I think that's it for my initial post. I will try to make some posts later detailing hardware recommendations.