I'm a founding and former user of SmartThings coming up on my two year anniversary on Hubitat. I moved all my automation over a long time ago and powered down my two SmartThings hubs but the platform still has value for me. Using webCoRE I setup several pistons all having countdown timers. I call the endpoint of these pistons from different systems inside (and outside) my network. I use it to monitor my internet connection which is also part of my security system. If I lose my internet connection the countdown timer(s) timeout and send out text messages. One thing people may not realize that if your internet goes down and your phone is connected via WiFi, you won't receive push notifications because your outside connection is down. Because SmartThings allows texting for free, it's a perfect way of getting a message. I use mine to let me know and immediately turn off my phone's WiFi (via Tasker) instantly restoring my phone's connection. I use this same technique on some of the servers I run in the cloud. If any of them go down I get a text from SmartThings letting me know.
Anyway, just wanted to share some uses for that old SmartThings platform that many don't use anymore. As long as they allow free text messaging it still has value even though your hubs are unplugged and in the closet.
sms stopped working for me for smartthings a LONG time ago. One of the first changes that "they" made which completely removed one of the original reasons for buying it.
Wonderful it works for you. I trashed mine months ago.
I have never used Smartthings but I still see it as the stepping stone from Smart Assistants, due to their UI and ease of use. A lot of people will then venture onto Hubitat. I don't know where ST is going, but their UI and usability is miles ahead of HE.
I agree. Just such a shame about reliability and support. Used to be a fantastic product. But I’m now using Hubitat. Not as flexible as ST, but with local processing well worth persevering with.
I'm still using my ST hub for a couple Ring automations, and have also found it useful when excluding new devices (I always do an exclude on any new device before joining it to HE) that I have trouble getting HE to exclude.
BTW - just curious why you need the Tasker automation to enable mobile data connection on your phone when Wi-Fi goes down...AFAIK all modern smartphones automatically switch to mobile data when a Wi-Fi connection is lost. Doesn't your phone automatically switch to mobile data when you leave your home or Wi-Fi is turned off? Have you disabled mobile data manually on your phone?
EDIT: Ignore above - I mis-read his post. He's referring to the internet going down, not Wi-Fi. My bad.
If the internet connection goes down without the wifi going down (e.g. cable modem offline), many devices won't auto switch because they still have their connectivity to the local network.
Yeah, that makes sense...he had referred to Wi-Fi going down, which would result in auto-switch to mobile data. But just losing internet via cable modem down would be a problem...
EDIT: My mistake - he referred to internet going down, not Wi-Fi. DOH!
My post referred to losing internet connection and not WiFi connection. You are correct if the phone loses connection to WiFi it will automatically switch but that is not the condition that was explained in the original post. The value of SMS text is it is robust and is one of the last services that go down in the event of cellular disruptions. Been there, done it, lived it.
