Smartthings Addon configuration

[Alexandre_Gomes]

Hi all;

First of all… I am a newbie here at OH but a old player on Smartthings Hub.

I want to get rid of the hub and start to change the base of my home automation with the OH and use the ST hub as a “zwave” hub alone.

Even though the wiki documentation is very rich on the Addon, I am confused regarding the part with the .things file.

I have done all configuration on the smartthings ide side (smartapp and device handler) and installed the Addon on OH. So I added a thing, manually, from the UI, using the Smartthings Addon and manually selecting on the device the “Smartthings Hub”. I configured that Thing via Paper UI and shows for me as Online at the things tab.

However if I look for more things using the Addon it doesn’t find anything more. Another thing is that I didn’t find the .thing file to insert the “Bridge” config as the how-to says.

Can anyone help me on that?

Thanks a lot in advance.

[Dome]

Welcome! I came over from SmartThings several years ago and haven’t looked back.

@Alexandre_Gomes

I want to get rid of the hub and start to change the base of my home automation with the OH and use the ST hub as a “zwave” hub alone.

If I were you, I’d rethink this approach. Doing it this way means you’ll lose a lot of local control of your stuff, which increases point of failure and latency. I remember the first time I flipped z-wave switch in software after coming over to openHAB - I couldn’t believe how fast it was after the delay I got used to in SmartThings.

I know SmartThings has implemented some local control but I don’t think that works with the openHAB binding- I think the cloud is required.

It’s also going to be a lot more work to set up all your z-wave devices in SmartThings and then set them up again in openHAB via the SmartThings binding.

I use the aeotec z-wave controller. It’s usb and works great with a Pi (my former openHAB server) or with a desktop/server (where it lives now).

[Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 Z-Wave Hub Z-Wave Plus USB to Create Gateway (Ordinary White) Amazon.com]

Hope this is helpful!

[rpwong (Russ)]

I completely agree with @Dome. Unless you have SmartThings devices that rely on the hub, you’ll gain a lot from a Z-Wave USB stick in response time and overall simplicity. It’s annoying to shelve hardware that seems perfectly good, but it’s worth it.

If you live in North America, I use the Zooz S2 USB controller.

[Alexandre_Gomes]

Thank you guys for the fast reply.

Unfortunately I live a little far from US - Brazil- and considering the actual dollar rate, it would cost me a kidney to buy one. The Zooz one is a little cheaper and being honest I would love to see that little green led from the hub off for good.

However, I have many zwave switches, door lock, IR remote for the air conditioning and some Zengled zigbee lamps.

I am using now Domoticz with node-red to talk with Smartthings. It works… But it is a huge mess and it is another man in the middle…

Also I am terrible programming and Domoticz blockly UI is very very limited. Doesn’t even have a “while” statement which I need to deal with IFs and variables to get me the same result.

But regarding the cloud/speed thing I can’t agree more…

Coming back to the .things and the bridge thing. Do you guys know or have a example? My system is an OdroidXu4 with Armbian 20.04 and work OH installed from the UI tool in there on Armbian.

[Sunny]

Here is an example that I use:

Bridge smartthings:smartthings:Home “SmartThings Hub” [ smartthingsIp=“192.168.1.1”, smartthingsPort=39500 ] {

// Entrance Way
Thing lock GF_EW_STLock_Yale_Lock “EW Yale Lock” @ “Entrance way” [ smartthingsName=“Front Door” ]
Thing battery GF_EW_STLock_Yale_Battery “EW Yale Battery” @ “Entrance way” [ smartthingsName=“Front Door” ]

// Living Room
Thing colorControl FF_LR_STLight_Lamp_ColorControl “LR Lamp Colour” @ “Living Room” [ smartthingsName=“Lamp”]
Thing colorTemperature FF_LR_STLight_Lamp_ColorTemperature “LR Lamp Colour Temperature” @ “Living Room” [ smartthingsName=“Lamp”]
Thing switch FF_LR_STLight_Lamp_Switch “LR Lamp Switch” @ “Living Room” [ smartthingsName=“Lamp”]
Thing switchLevel FF_LR_STLight_Lamp_SwitchLevel “LR Lamp Brightness” @ “Living Room” [ smartthingsName=“Lamp”]
}

[Alexandre_Gomes]

Hi @Sunny, thanks for the reply.

I have 3 main questions:

• where is that file located for me to include those lines?

• on the “things” tab on OH I included a thing “Smartthings HUB”
  

  

is this something needed? Does that already creates a “.things” file?

• If I need to add a device from smarthings, do I use the web UI addon? Should the devices be found in there?

[Sunny]

You can create .things files in the user configuration directory under the ‘things’ sub-directory.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much experience with Paper UI as I did most of my configuration using a files based approach and hence I don’t know if the binding will scan for items and show them in the Inbox.

[Alexandre_Gomes]

I think the point here is that I am using the PaperUI instead of plain text.

I am a terrible programmer so if I could do that via Paper UI I would be the most happy person on earth.

Can you explain then the fields in here so I could understand what is what?

Thing lock GF_EW_STLock_Yale_Lock “EW Yale Lock” @ “Entrance way” [ smartthingsName=“Front Door” ]
Thing battery GF_EW_STLock_Yale_Battery “EW Yale Battery” @ “Entrance way” [ smartthingsName=“Front Door” ]