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  • How to Install the SmartThings Edge Driver for the Third Reality Zigbee Smart Button

    To be able to get full functionality from the Third Reality Smart button featured in the following video on my YouTube Channel... You must first install the SmartThings Edge Driver for the Third Reality Zigbee Smart Button before installing the device to the ST App. Here are the steps: First uninstall your Third Reality Button from the SmartThings app if already installed. Click on the following link and accept the "Cstub Edge Drivers" Channel Invitation Then tap on "Available Drivers" and Select "Zigbee Button CS" from the list of drivers. Click on "Install" to install the "Zigbee Button CS" driver to your hub. Open your SmartThings app and re-install your Third Reality Button. Once installed, tap on the SmartThings app tile for the Third Reality Smart Button. When in the device screen, tap on the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Ensure that the word "Driver" is in the dropdown list. Tap on the word "Driver" and review the driver information to ensure that the "Name", Zigbee Button CS is the actual driver which was selected when you installed your smart button. If the Zigbee Button CS was not assigned when you installed your Third Reality Smart Button in your SmartThings app then tap on "Select different driver" and find and select the "Zigbee Button CS" driver from the list of installed drivers, then tap "Use this driver". Once you have confirmed that the Zigbee Button CS driver has been assigned to your Third Reality Smart Button then you are ready to setup the button functions. Please reference my YouTube Video for more detail about setup and features. Third Reality Zigbee Smart Button!! Find many more SmartThings compatible smart devices on my Amazon Store!

  • How to Setup Smart Phones as Presence Sensors in the SmartThings App

    In a in a previous video I demonstrated how my smart home automatically detected member presence when we arrived at our smart home. Setting up your smart hub to automatically detect your family’s presence or lack thereof is a very useful feature. Having this capability not only allows you to seamlessly arm and disarm your home, but you can also use presence detection routines to trigger a number of useful automations. Such automations include turning on lights, opening a garage door or unlocking an exterior door. Continue reading to learn how to setup smart phone presence detection in the ST App. Welcome to Bud’s Smart Home where we provide ST related news, practical smart home automations and reviews of compatible SmartThings devices. If this sort of content appeals to you be sure to tap on that subscribe button. This will allow you to receive notifications when I publish more smart home content. If I had to choose my favorite smart home automation I would have to say it is the routines that enable our home to be automatically armed when we depart and disarmed when we return home. Actually, I believe this is the single best automation for any smart home. Not only is it an awesome security feature, it is also provides the added convenience seamlessly setting the appropriate security mode each time members depart and return home. Now before I relay any details about the setup of presence detection, I want to make a brief disclaimer. Although the automations that I will share with you today work for me, I will not guarantee that they will work everyone. There are simply too variables that could affect successful setup, namely the vast number of smart phones and smart phone operating systems. Smart phones are a critical component of presence detection. Assuming that your phone can be used as a reliable sensor, there are other essential items which are important for successful set up. First, you absolutely must have a SmartThings or Aeotec smart hub. You must also ensure that the SmartThings App is correctly installed on each participating member smart phone. You must ensure that all permissions are enabled on each member’s phones. You must also have a compatible operating system installed on your phone. I will provide you with my experience with an incompatible OS in just a bit. So just know that there are too many variables that may affect your ability to set up reliable presence detection within the ST App and I cannot possible cover all those exceptions in this episode. So with that proviso made, I will now explain the ST setup that works for me. To enable presence detection I simply added a home location and then defined my geolocation in the ST app. Once my home’s location and geolocation were set, I then added each family member’s device to the ST App via an invitation link. Finally, I give SmartThings permission to get the location of each member’s phone. I will leave links below where you can access the steps for adding a location and a geolocation and also a link the steps for adding and managing family members in the ST App. It is vital that all members go into their ST App and allow the setting titled, Get your location from this phone. This can be enabled by going to the hamburger menu in the ST App, which is situated in the bottom right hand corner. Tap on the hamburger menu and then tap on the gear icon in the top right. Next tap on phrase Get your location from this phone and ensure that you toggle the switch ON for your location. It is also important that you find the setting titled notifications in the settings menu and ensure that you allow notifications as well. Finally, it is vital that you go into your personal smart phone notification settings specific to the ST App and enable the setting to Always Allow Notifications. Once the ST App is setup properly in all member smart phones, your next task is to write a couple of ST routines to arm and disarm your home based on the presence or lack of presence of member phones. I have four routines that I use to change the mode of my home. I have Good Night, Good Morning, Good Bye and I’m Back routines that switch my STHM between the available security modes of Arm, Disarm and Armed Stay. I am not going to get into the specifics of how I use the Good Night and Good Morning modes. Rather, in today’s episode I will only summarize the Good Bye routine, which arms our home and the I’m Back routine which disarms our home. Both my Good Bye and I’m Back routines use the ST Member location as the routine trigger. The ST and Aeotec-ST hubs are equipped to detect each member’s location based on each phone’s proximity to the hub's geolocation. The geolocation is simply an invisible GPS circle generated by your hub which encircles your smart home. The Good Bye routine is written to instruct the hub to use the location of all member phones. If all members are found to be absent from the home’s geolocation the routine instructs the hub to change the location mode to AWAY. It also instructs the hub to change the STHM to Armed away. Conversely the I’m Back routine instructs the hub to use member location to determine when any single member returns home. When member presence is detected by the hub, the hub sets the location mode to HOME and it also sets the STHM to Disarmed. You may have noted that I also have both routines setup to send notifications to all members. As such, every member is alerted when our home is disarmed or when it is set to armed away. Previously I mentioned that a phone’s operating system could affect your ability to use the phone as a reliable presence sensor. If you or certain members of your family have older smart phones, you likely will be unable to use them to establish reliable presence detection. I have found that older iOS devices do not work reliably within ST as presence sensors. I previously owned the iPhone 7. Presence detection on the iPhone 7 was extremely unreliable. However after I upgraded to the iPhone 14, smart phone presence detection now works flawlessly. I initially discovered this when my wife upgraded form the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 11. We noticed that her iPhone 11 worked extremely well as a presence sensor whereas the iPhone 6 was hit or miss. It is my personal belief that older Apple phones may not work reliably as a presence sensor because they do not have the ability to use the latest version of iOS. In June 2022, Apple announced that it would drop support for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus with the release of iOS 16. The maximum available version of iOS on the iPhone 7 is iOS 15.7.2. Now although I am not an authority on Android devices, what I can tell you is that the newest OS on for Android phone is also working reliably for presence detection in the ST App. Previously I made a couple videos about virtual presence sensors and that has lead to some confusion about their role within the ST app. Allow me to take a moment to talk about virtual presence switches. Some of you may be asking yourselves why I took the time to present virtual presence switches. You may also be wondering if you even need them in your ST App. Well, that my friend is a matter of preference. You certainly do not need them to change the modes of your STHM. You may however want them if you prefer the ability to use a member status with in a third party app such as SharpTools or Alexa. Let me explain. First off, I have an article on my website, to which I will link to in the description below this video. In that article you will find a channel invitation for accessing edge compatible VPS. That invitation will permit you to download a ST app that you can use to enable VPS within your ST App. When you add virtual presence switches you gain the ability to detect when specific members arrive or depart your geolocation. Each individual member must have a VPS and each VPS must be controlled by two routines. The purpose of these two routines is to turn the VPS ON or OFF based on each member’s arrival or departure. So when my virtual presence device which called iPhone Bud is away from our geolocation, the routine instructs the hub to turn OFF my virtual presence switch. And when I return, the second routine turns my VPS ON. So the usefulness of VPS in ST is to have a visual representation of which members are home or away. However, VPS become especially useful when they are used to triggers routines in third party apps, namely Alexa and SharpTools. Without VPS you will not have the ability to see a member’s status in these third party apps. However with VPS, you can instruct your Alexa App to make an echo announcement specific to any member. You can also use a member VPS in a ST routine to turn on specific smart devices or to run a scene that is personalized for that specific member. So I hope this has helped to demystify some of the confusion surrounding presence detection in the SmartThings. If this article was helpful and you consider it worth your time, I ask that you take the time to convey your appreciation with a like and a comment. Either way, please know that I appreciate each and everyone of you and I wish for you the best smart home on the block. Thanks for joining me today. And as always, keep automating and God Bless my friend. Steps for adding and managing family members in the ST App Steps for adding a location and setting your geolocation How to Add an Edge Virtual Presence or Contact Sensor YouTube Video: AMAZON STORE LINK - Source SmartThings compatible devices!!

  • Edge Driver for Zemismart Roller Blind

    Edge drivers for non-native devices can be sourced and downloaded from developer or manufacturer driver channels. Downloaded drivers can be immediately applied by removing device from the SmartThings App and then reinstalling the device. Alternatively, you have the option to wait to see if your device is assigned a stock driver. If a stock driver is assigned, but the device is not functioning as expected, then you may download the correct driver to update the device without the need to uninstall and reinstall your device. Since the Zemismart Roller Blind is not natively supported in SmartThings, it will likely be migrated to the ‘Zigbee Window Treatment’ driver which is a SmartThings Beta stock driver. I have tested and found that this stock driver will not provide all of the features and functionality that is currently available within the former Groovy stock device type handler. The edge driver which provides proper control of the Zemismart Roller Blind is the, ‘Tuya Window Shade’ driver. This edge driver can be downloaded from the Iquix Channel Invitation link Before taking any action, my recommendation is that you check your SmartThings App to see if your Zemismart Roller Blind has been assigned a stock edge driver. To confirm if an edge driver is installed, click on your device tile and then while in the device screen, click on the ellipsis to determine if dropdown list contains the word "Driver". The presence of the word ‘Driver’ confirms that edge driver is installed for your device. If the ‘Driver’ is in the dropdown list, click on the word ‘Driver’ to view the ‘Name’ of the installed driver. If the assigned driver is other than the ‘Tuya Window Shade’ edge driver, you should skip steps 1 – 5 in the driver installation steps outlined below, but follow and execute steps 6 – 10 to download the appropriate driver. After the completion of step number ten, click on the ellipsis, tap on ‘Driver’ in the dropdown list, and then tap the option to ‘Select different driver’. You will then choose ‘Tuya Window Shade’ edge driver to replace the former driver. If dropdown list does not contain the word "Driver", you will need to execute the all of the following steps: As mentioned previously, you must delete and reinstall your smart blind to be able to assign it the edge driver. However, before deleting your blind from SmartThings you will want to take a few extra steps to preserve any routines that you have written to automate your blind. If you have no routines or you are doing a new installation, skip to step #5. To preserve your routine(s), open the SmartThings App, click on your Zemismart Roller Blind. Once in the device screen, click on the word 'Routines' at the bottom of the screen. Go into every routine and add a temporary device to temporarily hold/substitute the place of the current Zemismart Roller Blind. Note: Replacing the Smart Blind with a temporary device in your routines ensures that your routines are not erased when you remove your Zemismart Roller Blind from your SmartThings App. Once you have substituted a temporary place holder device in every routine which contained the Zemismart Roller Blind you may then delete the blind from your SmartThings App. To delete your device from the SmartThings App, while in the device screen, tap on the ellipsis in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Now tap “Edit” in the dropdown list. Then tap “Delete device” at the bottom of the screen which follows. With the deletion of the blind you may now proceed to accept the ‘Iquix’Channel Invitation. Click on the link for ‘Iquix’ Channel invitation. Note: After clicking the driver channel link you will be required to sign into your Samsung SmartThings Account. Next you must then select ‘Accept’ to confirm your acceptance of the channel invitation. After accepting the channel invitation, choose your target hub and select 'Enroll'. Note: Sometimes you must to click the button multiple times. Next, click on “Available Drivers” and select “Install” to install the ‘Tuya Window Shade’ edge driver. Next, verify the installed driver by going to your SmartThings App, find your SmartThings Hub within the 'Devices' tab and then click on your Hub. Then while in your Hub’s device screen, select the ellipsis in the upper right-hand corner and then click on the word ‘Driver’ from the dropdown list. You will then be able to view a list of all of your installed Edge Channels and Edge Drivers. After confirming the installation of the new ‘Tuya Window Shade’ Edge Driver you may now add your device back into SmartThings App by scanning for nearby devices within your SmartThings App Once the SmartThings App discovers your Zemismart blind, click on your device’s tile and then while in the device screen, click on the ellipsis to confirm that the dropdown list now contains the word "Driver". The presence of the word ‘Driver’ confirms that edge driver is successfully installed for your device. If the Zemismart Blind selected the wrong driver, tap on “Select different driver” and select the ‘Tuya Window Shade’ Edge Driver All that remains to do is to remove the “temporary/substitution device” from each of your SmartThings routines and add the Zemismart Blind back into your routines. Remember to visit Bud's Smart Home Amazon Store for smart home devices which are compatible with the new Samsung SmartThings Lua architecture.

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  • Bud's Smart Home

    4 Steps to an Awesome Smart Home Click for Aeotec Hub Information. Source SmartThings Compatible Devices Link to Bud's YouTube Channel by clicking here. Click for Aeotec Hub Information. 1/4 Bud's Smart Home provides tutorials and reviews about Samsung SmartThings and Amazon Alexa compatible smart devices. This site provides practical and innovative ideas for starting and expanding your smart home ecosystem. Our home automation product reviews and smart home solutions will provide your home with enhanced convenience and security.

  • Contact Me | Buds Smart Home

    Contact Me or Say Hello Hi, my name is Bud! I help Smart Home beginners and established enthusiast find the best smart home devices for their SmartThings ecosystems. My site features compatible cameras, lights, thermostats, locks, and more. I enjoy adding and automating Alexa and SmartThings compatible devices around my home and want to show others how easy and simple it can be. ​ When subscribing to my YouTube Channel you ensure that you will never miss an instructional video. For smart home device collaborations, a product reviews or product inquiries, email me at budsmarthome@gmail.com

  • Plans & Pricing | Bud's Smart Home

    Choose your pricing plan Edge Driver Package $ 10 10$ Edge Channel Links, Driver Name & Installation Instructions Valid for 6 months Select Articles containing Edge Driver installation instructions

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