SmartThings Groovy Update

SharpTools.io (web) Announcements
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As you may be aware, SmartThings plans to start the shut down of their legacy Groovy platform starting October 15th, 2022. To this end, SmartThings has been working to enhance their ‘next generation’ platform by introducing new solutions like Edge Drivers and enhanced APIs.

What about SharpTools?

Our (now legacy) SmartThings integration was built on the Groovy platform, so we’ve been doing our part behind the scenes to build out a next generation integration that uses the ‘new’ SmartThings APIs.

As of Friday, August 12th, the next generation connection is now the default for new users. For existing SharpTools users with legacy connections, those will continue to operate as expected and we plan to release our migration tools and next-generation connection to everyone in mid to late September. This staged approach ensures that new users get a smooth experience while existing users are given time to migrate to the new platform.

:test_tube: Do you have a legacy connection and want to get access to the next-generation connection today? Find out how in the Next Generation SmartThings thread.

What about Migrations?

SmartThings

For migrations within the SmartThings platform, I would keep an eye out on the Announcements category in the SmartThings community. SmartThings has been building out new Edge drivers to replace many of the core ‘Device Type Handlers’ that were used in the Groovy platform. They’ve rolled many of these out to production already which means that a variety of Z-wave, Zigbee, and LAN devices will already use the new platform if you reonboard a device… and if you’re part of the SmartThings Hub Betas, you may have already had some devices migrated for you.

SmartThings plans to automatically migrate as many devices as possible to Edge drivers, but there are cases where you will need to intervene or may want to in order to retain custom functionality. You can find more details in the Platform Transition FAQ. The device migration process is expected to start on September 30th, 2022.

:link: SmartThings Platform Transition FAQ

While this isn’t an immediate concern with respect to the SharpTools integration, you may want to start thinking about what devices you have with custom DTHs and what transition options you have for when the Groovy platform is completely shutdown. The SmartThings community has started really engaging with Edge Drivers and we’re seeing lots of cool drivers created!

SharpTools

The next generation integration is considered it’s own connection / location from the SharpTools platform perspective, so we’ve built out migration tools existing users with legacy connections as well.

The migration tools guide you through authorizing the next-generation connection, then migrate your dashboards and rules which have things using the legacy connection to the next-gen connection. You can find more details in the Next Generation SmartThings thread.

Other Resources:

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Thank you for the post - do you know if this will impact Hubitat integration in any way?

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There’s no impact to the Hubitat integration.

Groovy, the language, is still alive and well. This was a choice by SmartThings to drop support for running third party SmartApps and Device Handlers in their cloud. I suspect it was quite expensive for them to run all this third-party code (some of which could be poorly written an impact the platform as a whole). For SmartApps, they’ve moved to an API first model where they better control how apps interact with their platform. For Device Handlers, they’ve been moving to ‘Edge Drivers’ which are Lua code which runs directly on their hub (and API connected devices).

Hubitat, on the other hand, has been all in on Groovy and hasn’t indicated any concerns over that choice. It’s quite a different architecture where everything runs locally on the hub though, so even if someone installs a community app/driver that is poorly written, it only impacts that one person’s hub.

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Any idea how this might impact virtual/simulated devices?

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That’s not completely clear yet. We’ll have to wait until SmartThings reveals if they will automatically be transitioned from the current Groovy DTHs to Edge drivers. There was just a commit to the SmartThings official Edge driver repo the other day for a virtual switch so some of the community members are hopeful that SmartThings will automatically transition them, but right now there’s no statement from SmartThings.

Worst case, you could manually recreate virtual switches with their Edge driver equivalents.

Edit: There also appears to be some distinction between Virtual Switches created via the Labs SmartApp and via the IDE that may impact if SmartThings can migrate them or not.

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Thanks Josh - appreciated

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Virtual switches might migrate, but there’s a lot of users using community written DTH that have virtual switch with contact or motion sensor built in (Alexa Switch was a common one). Since there’s no default version of those provided by Samsung, you’ll need to manually migrate them to an Edge device. I’ve found this Edge driver to create virtual devices to work very well.

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So, if I had a Hubitat Hub, is there an app for SharpTools that interfaces between Tasker and Hubitat using SharpTools like the Tasker Plugins do now? Thanks.

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No, the Tasker Plugins were only for SmartThings. The SharpTools.io platform supports Hubitat and Home Assistant in addition to SmartThings.

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Hi,

I have another question about EDGE drivers, if I install the driver and its author will release an update, will it also update itself for me or do I have to do something?

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Edge drivers automatically update. I believe they auto update every 12 hours.

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Hello everyone

So I’m using Trend Setter smartapp on ST to group my devices… With the new SmartThings integration, how can I group devices ? Thnk you

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My gut feeling is to wait and see what comes of the Smart Lighting changes SmartThings has planned. SmartThings mentioned that they plan on migrating Smart Lighting to use a SmartApp + Rule API setup so it will continue to work after groovy and said they would include the mirroring functionality. If that’s the case, then I think some of the core features of Trend Setter could be accomplished with that.

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Awesome great to hear. Thank you!

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Hi there

I already upgraded sharpytools since 1 fully week, and looks like working fine with no comment…

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I’ve just spent an hour setting up virtual generators, thankfully I had a good look at this thread. I think I’ll wait to see what’s available later instead of doing any more work.

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Virtual Switches are available as Edge drivers via the community, but you have to have a SmartThings hub to use them. It’s yet to be seen if SmartThings introduces next generation virtual switches that don’t require a physical hub.

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The migration tools for those of you with existing SmartThings legacy connections attached to your SharpTools account are now available. Please see the following post for more details:

:link: Next Generation SmartThings Integration - #7 by josh

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So I used the tool here to migrate. It told me that X number of rules and X number of dashboards cannot be migrated. Now how do I know exactly what will continue to work and what is broken (without having to test every single connection)?

Thanks in advance!

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If there are any errors detected, you should see a link next to the Toggle Details link that lets you see what the errors are.

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