Samsung Hubitat TV Integration (2016 and later)

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714

Sort of exactly every 25 minutes. There is nothing in my driver that operates on a 25 minute cycle.

Check scheduled jobs at bottom of driver's edit page. Check if the device is connected to any other smart-home service - especially SmartThings - that might control the tv. Also, make sure you force a stop on your SmartThings app on your phone (this may stop the polling).

715

That was it. Hadn’t removed it from SmartThings yet.

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716

I’ve been having a lot of reliability issues with my 2022 frame TV. I can reliably turn the entire display off from hubitat, but it does not reliably turn back on. And often when it does turn on, it turns all the way on, instead art mode. I can sometimes get it to work if I hit the configure button and then turn it on, but this doesn’t always work either. Of note, the websocket usually reports as closed, which seems like a problem.

I’m not sure where to start debugging this. Any help would be appreciated.

thanks

717

Disable the art mode preference in the Hubitat driver. Samsung chose to change their art mode implementation on 2022 sets so that I can not detect what mode is is in.. Sorry for that inconvenience. I am still looking for a reliable work-around for the 2022 sets.

links:

718

Maybe not exactly what you are after (or maybe I don't understand what a movie poster app is) but can you just save the movie poster image and use that as your art mode photo? That would have the motion sensor trigger the art mode.

719

My 2021 Frame is again sending HE a signal that the Frame is off, when it is clearly on. When it does this, it triggers the automations that are supposed to run when the TV is turned off.

  • As with before, the TV does not actually turn itself off.
  • Unlike before, this time the TV does not immediately follow up by sending a signal that it is on.
    As I write this, the TV issued a signal about 40 minutes ago that it was switched off, and HE still thinks the TV is off. It is very much on...
    image
    Any suggestions on what I might do to resolve this?
720

Can the motion activation from the TV be disabled on the frame? That may be causing these problems.

I really got well away from a remote control in support of some smart features. That will teach me. I will put in a preference to disable smart on/off features. No more art mode/ambient mode on start. No more power off actions. It will be up to the user whether to use the smart features.

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721

I can look to see if motion activation can be disabled. I have it enabled only when the tv is in art mode, which I rarely use, and was not in use at yesterday evenings incident.

Perhaps I'm not understanding, but I don't think yesterday evenings incident was related to art mode or the motion sensor. The TV was on, in TV mode, and there was movement around the room, and suddenly the automations that are supposed to trigger when the TV is turned off triggered. When I looked in HE, the TV status was "swich:off, powerState: NC" TV was still very much on. And unlike when this happened about a month ago, the TV did not quickly resend a signal that it was actually on. It stayed reporting off in HE for the rest of the evening, including when it was actually turned off about an hour later...

Something causes this TV to report to HE that it is turned off when that is not the case. NOTHING has happened. I checked the log on the router, and the TV had been continuously connected for over 88 hours, so it is not an intermittent wifi disconnection.

Somehow, somewhere, the TV sends a signal (I presume it only sends such signals via wifi?) that it is off, and HE picks up that signal. Nothing else was going on in my house when this happened last night, and nothing was scheduled to happen in HE, nor was anything scheduled to happen in the only scheduling device in my house, a BondBridge. No remote for the TV or anything else was clicked. The TV just told HE it was off when it was not...

ETA: My HE had 4.0.3 of this Samsung TV integration installed when this occurred. I've updated to the latest version now. No idea if that makes any difference.

722

Power is determined by polling the 8001 port. The log is indicating the comms are failing. (I can never duplicate this at home.) This is the same method used in SmartThings. I actually allow one or two failed polls before turning off the set.

723

Thank you. I'm not really familiar with this stuff, so not sure I understand.

Power is determined by polling the 8001 port

Does that mean the HE looks, via wifi, for a certain signal? Where is this "port?"

The log is indicating the comms are failing.

What information in the log indicates this?
I presume that data is YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.SSS when the incident happened, then the name I have assigned to the device, then the version of the driver, but after that, I'm lost.
"onPollParse:" does this mean the HE constantly polls the tv for status? Does it only report a change?
switch:off Is this the power switch?
powerState: NC Does NC stand for no change or something else?

ETA: In preferences, perhaps due to previous direction, I have the following:
TV Startup Display: none
Power Polling Method: Local
Power Polling Intervals (seconds): 60
All the sliders are off except for "Enable information logging"

724

NC = no connection. It is actually a time-out from the poll of the address!

The port is 8001. example: http://192.168.50.10:8001/api/v2/

725

Thank you. That is good information, which I had forgotten, because reading through comments above, I see you told me that once before. Sorry to have forgotten. So almost every time my TV is turned off, it reports "No Connection" It has been doing that for months, looking at some of my previous posts...
The preferences are set to Power Polling Method: Local. Does that have anything to do with this?

Upgraded to the newest version of the driver, which did not go well at first, but after more than an hour of messing around, I got the TV reconnected to HE. Will see how that goes.

726

I will look at it again. The no connection implies the poll message (above address) timed out (i.e., HE could not reach the address). In my testing, I can cause the same event in SmartThings.

I will also add a user-preference to ignore on/off status (since it is so unreliable and HE is not the only one controlling the on/off (i.e., motion in room)).

Since I do not own a newer model nor Frame TV, it is really hard to capture the errors at home during even hours of testing. (HAPPY NOTE: Maybe I will buy a frame TV. Any excuse to spend my daughter's inheritance.)

It will take a couple of weeks. I will need to create an instrumented driver that does stronger logging of on/off selection as well as the status of other items (i.e., Source, if playing smart channel, what channel, etc.)

727

Something to try. I was looking at the code and the following change may (may not) fix the issue. It will, in effect, increase the time period to declare the TV off.

Code starts at line 395 in the driver. Explicit change is to comment out line 399.
"runIn(5, onPoll)" becomes "// runIn(5, onPoll)"

Before:

		if (device.currentValue("switch") == "on") {
			//	If currently on, will need two non-"on" values to set switch off
			if (!state.standbyTest) {
				state.standbyTest = true
				runIn(5, onPoll)
			} else {
				state.standbyTest = false
				onOff = "off"
			}

After:

		if (device.currentValue("switch") == "on") {
			//	If currently on, will need two non-"on" values to set switch off
			if (!state.standbyTest) {
				state.standbyTest = true
			//	runIn(5, onPoll)
			} else {
				state.standbyTest = false
				onOff = "off"
			}
728

Thank you. I will try this tonight (apparently the yard beckons today...).
And before I go on thank you for this driver/app and thank you for all your support. It truly is appreciated. This is definitely also the single thing, out of everything in my automation ecosystem, that is most appreciated by the family. When this one works, they deem "everything" working! Stellar FAF, and I am so grateful to you for it!

To be clear, my TV is turned on and off via the remote, and when it is off, it is totally off, and when on it is in TV mode. I rarely use art mode, unless there are guests (seems like a waste of electricity at other times). While I do think that it has a motion sensor that keeps or turns on art mode at those rare times I use it, neither art mode or the motion sensor have anything to do with ANY of my issues. My post about the art mode motion sensor was solely in response to @pugme's questions. All of my issues relate to the TV being on in TV mode and then just running the automations that are supposed to run when the TV is turned off.

I've checked my router and it claims the TV has 100's of hours of uninterrupted connection via wifi. However, I've finally wired ethernet to the place where the Frame TV box is, so I may try plugging it in to hard wire the connection to see if that makes any difference. The router reports the wifi connection as excellent with 5 bars, so I think its good, but it is an easy thing to try.

729

Are you able to share some examples of what you've set up that your family using the TV that is appreciated so much?

I have a two year old and I tried to set up an automation to load CBeebies from a single command but I think there were too many things going on with the TV at startup that impacted how long to wait each time and how accurate the button presses were received by the TV each step of the macro (not the fault of the driver) but I felt reliability was too low and I gave up.

I feel like I am really under using the capability that this driver gives.

730

Humble developer here.

  • Try delaying for one minute at startup before trying to activate the CBeebies command sequence. If that helps, then tighten up the delay. The TV can be busy at startup to check status, get new data, interface with SmartThings, and etc.
  • Put at least a slight (1 - 2 second) delay between TV commands when using rule machine. My design is based on the delay of a HUMAN activating a button via a dashboard, not the very low delay in rule machine.
  • Send an ArrowDown command and delay 1 second prior to starting the rest of the sequence. This will assure the WS interface is open.

Some notes in verbose mode. (This also helps me think out the changes necessary - so forgive please.)

  • Some features that may be underutilized.
    • Application loading. This can be done at / near startup to load detected SmartApps on your TV. If you have apps I do not have on list, tell me. (I am looking at adding a manual application add function. But it may not work.)
    • SmartThings functions. Work great in simplify rules. Commands start with Set: InputSource, SoundMode, Level, PictureMode, TVChannel. Attributes also actually work.
  • Samsung ethernet interface. This is mostly at port 8001. The interface is very quirky and appears to reject a command when processing a previous command. Since commands are coming from multiple sources this can make things interesting and slow. Additionally, the interface goes completely asleep when the tv is off and will start up periodically to talk to SmartThings - just to make things as complicated as possible. Driver handles the periodic start-up; however, the rejection of a command may be improved if I can capture the correct data.
  • I am looking at on-off processing right now to answer the questions above.
  • Websockets: I have noted (even on my set) a latency in the websocket communications when first turning on the TV (i.e., changing volume, etc.). I will look at trying to force websocket activation on start detection and not timing that out. - but it is really based on how busy the port at 8001 is (it is used for almost all comms and gets busy at startup).
    • I am thinking of adding a manual wsConnect command. It would only be necessary on sequences using rule machine. It will assure the interface is alive prior to sending commands. This will also allow you to check for attribute wsStatus = open prior to proceeding.
    • I may add a websocket queue. It would be used to assure commands are at least 1 second apart as sent. This adds complexity - so the functions will take a lot of testing on my part. Good news is I have had audio notification queing working in my soundbar driver for several years - so I know how.
  • HubiThing Replica. I have developed a HubiThings Replica version of the driver. It has the same local and SmartThings features - but better status reporting from SmartThings.
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731

@djgutheinz OK - I've made the change. Will keep you updated. Thank you.

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732

@djgutheinz I am very happy to report that since I made the change "everything" (in the language used in my home that means the automations associated with the tv) is now working flawlessly! This may have done it...

1 Like
733

@djgutheinz Dave, thanks for everything! I have a feature question/request. Your answer may well be that it is is impossible or simply not popular enough to warrant your time. Understand.

Due to some changes in our household, we find that we often have to connect two Bluetooth devices to our 2023 Samsung. The settings interface on the TV is cumbersome and i don't see a way in your app to control the sound menu. Would it be possible to include this setting? Thanks for considering.