What is Reddit's opinion of
SharpTools?
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Why no love for SharpTools? :)
It maps to step 6 from your setup:
- To get a widget, long press on your home screen, click "Widgets", touch and hold ~~Tasker Task~~
A Thingto put on your screen, then select the ~~task~~Thingyou want your widget to control.
Better yet, if you use the 'A Thing (Widget)' option, it will set the widget up so it displays the current state of the selected device (eg. on/off, open/closed, motion/no motion) with push events!
PS. I'm the developer of SharpTools, so I might be a bit biased, but it does make things easy!
Edit: Oh, and you can dim or run any command with SharpTools. :P
I've used the SmartThings Outlet with SharpTools and Tasker and it works really well. Then again, I'm the developer of SharpTools. :-P
The SmartThings Outlet shows up like any other switch device and allows you to turn it on and off easily. Using the SharpTools Tasker integration, you could use the A Thing action to either toggle the device or turn it on or off.
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You can find some examples here of other integrations:
http://sharptools.boshdirect.com/examples-list
There's a number of other cool integrations depending on what you want to do. For example, you can subscribe to the switch attribute of your outlet and have that trigger an event in Tasker any time the attribute changes. Some people use these events for things like subscribing to motion sensors (or even contact sensors connected to doorbells) so they can trigger an action in Tasker whenever there is motion.
Another frequently used feature is the Thing: Get Attribute which lets you get the current state of your device. Some people use this to create voice automations so they can say things like "OK Google, is the bedroom light on?" or "OK Google, what's the temperature at home?"
If you literally want SmartThings integration with Tasker, then I would look at SharpTools (an app I developed). SharpTools provides Tasker integration and widgets for SmartThings. It has support for controlling Things, Routines, and Modes and has the ability to subscribe to Thing attributes and location mode changes so you can react to those events in Tasker.
You can find some examples here: http://sharptools.boshdirect.com/examples-list
If you're looking to Tasker enable your SmartThings, check out SharpTools which is a set of SmartThings Tasker plugins I wrote.
Here's a few examples for using the Tasker plugins: http://sharptools.boshdirect.com/examples-list
Since it's Christmas, I sent you a PM with an unlock code for the SharpTools tasker plugin.
And for the Redditors reading this post, I've included a few SharpTools Tasker unlock codes below:
PDLPQLDZQ3ZJBKV39U5K8WP
~~
DXTE6D2RGVKXS14LSJYF98N
~~
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2GZ4RP7A3VEFCGNGL3QJA50
~~
Back to your question: >My question is, to get the house to do things like read my google calendar, check the weather, etc. what device actually processes these requests?
It depends on how you want to use that data. SmartThings has it's own weather provider, so you can do that natively.
How do you want to use the Google Calendar data? If you want to ask Alexa what's on your calendar for example, you can do that with an Alexa skill. If you want to integrate it with SmartThings, you can either go the IFTTT route or a SmartApp route.
Very cool - are you using SharpTools for the SmartThings Tasker integration?
If not, it's a set of Tasker plugins I developed for making integration with SmartThings much easier and I would recommend checking it out -- then again, I might be a bit biased!
You could accomplish this using SharpTools and Tasker. SharpTools is an app I developed dedicated to integrating SmartThings with Tasker (and creating widgets).
You can subscribe to events by long pressing on a device in SharpTools and subscribing to a desired attribute. From there, you can use the Thing State plugin in Tasker to react to those events.
Here's a tutorial with more details, including a video walking through the steps (with the old UI):
> I don't know if ST integrated directly into Google but I presume it does, at that point your automation may be handled by Google directly.
Depends on exactly what you mean, but Google Assistant can control SmartThings devices. So you can say "OK Google, turn the kitchen light on" from your Google Home, Google Mini, phone with Google Assistant, etc. As you touched on earlier in your post, the SmartThings hub acts as a Z-wave, Zigbee, and IP hub. So with SmartThings, you can just pair new devices to the hub without the headache of having to manage a full stack of OS, USB sticks, integrations, configurations, etc, etc.
The tradeoff is, as /u/standardtissue noted, SmartThings has a dependency on the cloud for a number of things. Basic lighting automations like triggering lights based on motion sensors can be done locally, but other more advanced integrations might have a dependency on you having internet connectivity. For example, my app SharpTools (Tasker plugins for SmartThings) requires a connection to the SmartThings cloud to control things.
On the other hand, with HASS you get local control, but you'll have to manage the whole stack and handle all the configuration. For some people, hacking away at things and getting their hands dirty in the CLI and configuration files is fun and for others they'd rather the core stuff just works. That's not to say that SmartThings isn't customizable as you can write custom device handlers and custom SmartApps. For example, I recently wrote a custom integration to connect a Wink Relay touchscreen into SmartThings.
> What I want to accomplish is when my alarm on my Galaxy S8+ goes off, I want the fan switch to power off and some lights to come on.
Sounds like what you want is Tasker and SharpTools. Basically Tasker is an android app that let's you add some automation to your phone itself, and SharpTools is a set of tasker plug-ins for integration with SmartThings.
SharpTools also has a TV mode which supports Android TV devices like the Shield TV, Nexus Player, etc... as well as the Amazon Fire TV:
I don't care much for the SmartThings android app. It has gotten better as of recently though. I use SharpTools on Android for manual control when I need it. Although I bought an echo dot recently and that has taken over a lot of the control. I'd definitely recommend an echo or Google Home. It's awesome to be sitting on the couch and say "Alexa, set the living room light to 10%".
SmartThings relies on the Samsung's servers (cloud) for a lot of the processing, although there are some smartapps that have the ability to do local processing. I've never had an issue in the 6 months I've been using SmartThings but that is a potential weakness.
> someone will see it.
Yeah, eventually. How many people's accounts do you think they'll get before that, though? SmartTools has 5-10k downloads. Do you know anyone that's looked at their source code?
> someone will spot code that's sending data somewhere remote
It only has to send the data once. If you miss it that one time, you wouldn't see it.
> either way, this will be fixed soon
Sure. But the fact is that a company that has been going for what, 4 years now, and is supported by Samsung has dropped the ball on security. It makes it even more laughable that they have been trying to market themselves as a home security system, and then this happens.
If your main goal is to react to certain events from SmartThings in Tasker, I would encourage you to check out SharpTools which is a set of Tasker plugins (and widgets) that I developed.
Using SharpTools, you can subscribe to status changes of a Thing's attributes and then react to those events in Tasker with the Thing State event plugin.
http://sharptools.boshdirect.com/examples/event-thing-state
What kind of notification or event in SmartThings are you trying to react to?
I am using Tasker and Sharp Tools for setting modes and displaying values in widgets. Can also together with Tasker control things. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.boshdirect.stwidgets
I don't know if it helps much, but I just found this Android app called SharpTools that will connect to SmartThings and let you control your devices and can integrate with Tasker (I prefer Automagic to Tasker but not sure if ou can get it to talk to this app.. it does have some kind of Tasker compatibility but I havent' messed with it). https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.boshdirect.stwidgets
Also.. again, haven't had a chance to play much yet, but just got an Almond+ router that supports zigbee and z-wave and just had a firmware update that allows for "rules".. while I love my SmartThings system, having an additional option or two for rules might be helpful.
Lastly, there's lots of good people on the SmartThings forums who might be able to help you set up a SmartApp or something to do what you want. And the SmartThings engineers have (or used to, haven't check recently) Google Hangout discussions where anyone can ask questions about if something is possible or if it's something they'd consider adding to the road map.
The whole ST system is extremely customizable.. if you or someone else is willing to put in the work. The things you describe are sort of already done in certain fashions, but just not in the specific ways you mention so I'm sure it's possible, just more complicated than someone has already engineered.
If your garage door is accessible to a Smarthings hub, you should check out Sharptools. It has a Tasker and widget interface which make this sort of function easy to implement.
Update: Apparently there's something called webCoRE for SmartThings which turned out to be a bit laborious but not otherwise difficult to "install" and you can make http calls to it similar to using IFTTT webhooks. So the problem seems to have been re-solved for me again knock on wood
If you use Tasker specifically, there's also a plugin for it called SharpTools that I've heard good things about for interfacing with SmartThings, though I use a different automation program called Automate myself so I need the pure HTTP requests.
After that it's just a matter of using something like Tasker or Automate to monitor your battery level and then call the device via said HTTP requests or plugins once it goes below or above a certain point. (20% - 80% is the sweet spot for me.)
While not the simplest integration, I use Smartthings with the Sharptools app to integrate with Tasker. I realized the presence functionality of the Smartthings app is mediocre so I use Tasker to send a command to Sharptools (a variable is flipped when we've connected to our WiFi) which then communicates with Smartthings that we've arrived and to disable the alarm. You can also control the lights and other items.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.boshdirect.stwidgets
There's a plugin called SharpTools for SmartThings integration with Tasker (and the developer is active on this subreddit if you need help). I haven't used it personally but I'm sure it can do what you're after.
>Products I plan to use: - Nanoleaf aurora - Smartthings - LIFX/Hue LED strips and bulbs - Non iot connected starry night ceiling
> ...
> I have had more complex automations before but that was when I was using android + tasker.
If you end up needing Tasker integration for SmartThings, check out SharpTools. It looks like there's a community Nanoleaf integration for SmartThings and an official integration planned for later this year.
I haven't tried it myself, but Tasker has a number of events like "Screen On" which might work in this case. If there is an event that works in Tasker, then you should be able to use SharpTools to control your SmartThings devices from Tasker.
I'm not sure how that works with a TV which natively runs Android TV as opposed to a standalone Android TV box though.
The SmartThings app is really designed for portrait display with they way they've laid out the grid system for device details. Heck, they don't even have an iPad version of the app - not even just a blown up version of the phone app!
If you are looking for a native Android app with SmartThings control and a landscape layout, checkout SharpTools which also has widgets and Tasker integration (an app I wrote) or Home Remote which lets you build a custom layout.
If you want something that you can use on all your device (eg. Android, iOS, Windows), then check out SmartTiles as /u/lachadan mentioned.
Do you use SharpTools? It's a set of Tasker plugins for SmartThings I developed and one of the features is push events. You can subscribe to events from specific devices and react to those in Tasker without having SmartThings notifications show up on your devices. (example)
It sounds like everything is working for you now, so the usual "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" probably applies, but it might be something to keep in mind for a future project. :)
One of the nice things about using a native plugin is the data is easily made available in variables without having to spend time parsing things. So you can quickly grab the Thing Name, Attribute Name, or Attribute Value to use however you want.
I know nothing about SmartThings except what I've read in the last 5 minutes.
Given that you can control the SmartThings environment with Tasker using SharpTools I don't see why not.
- Tasker
- Sharptools for smartthings
- Spotify (set Spotify connect to play from Echo, or connect your phone via bluetooth), and sent intent like this:
> Action: android.media.action.MEDIA_PLAY_FROM_SEARCH
> Cat: Default
> Data: spotify:user:<USER ID>:playlist:<PLAYLIST ID>:play
> Package: com.spotify.music
> Objective: Activity
I'm the developer of SharpTools, so I would be happy to help you with SharpTools related questions!
If you have SharpTools questions, you might also refer to the examples on the SharpTools website first as there are a number of good examples listed: http://sharptools.boshdirect.com/examples-list
PS. A well crafted title will usually get the Tasker pros to help when the questions are around things like Tasker logic. :)
The good news is that SmartThings provides a decent set of development tools and the community developers are able to release some really cool projects like SharpTools, SmartTiles, and Rule Machine!
The other good side of that is the community is usually pretty quick about reacting to community needs and making the third party ecosystem better!
I would at least check out SharpTools... it makes it pretty easy to do some really cool things with SmartThings and Tasker: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.boshdirect.stwidgets
How is this better than LANnouncer (free, and dedicated to the same purpose), or SharpTools + Tasker.
Yes, SharpTools has a toggle feature for widgets. It also has the option to display the current state of your device. - for example, if it's on or off. (Full disclosure, I'm the developer of SharpTools)
It is a bit of a double-edged sword... having the programming capability in SmartThings makes it possible for the developers like me to create things like SharpTools (and other developers to make things like SmartTiles and Rule Machine), but the SmartThings team still has some work to do in making it easier to consume community developed SmartApps.
To your point, the more important issue is driving reliability. I've been in discussion with SmartThings about this (through their developer channels) and I'm hopeful that we are nearing a turning point. They are prioritizing efforts on improving reliability over requests for enhanced features and functionality. While we all want more features, I agree that focusing on platform stability should be a top priority.
Edit: I would also add that Groovy is based on Java. I saw your comment about how much you like Java, so this point isn't really for you. It's more of a clarification for someone who has developed in Java or a similar style of language (C#) that coding for SmartThings is a natural extension of what you already know.
What do you consider ugly and cluttered about SharpTools? Do you have specific recommendations/suggestions for improvement?
For reference, here's a few screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/19IVq
I'm the developer of SharpTools so I'd love to hear your suggestions for improvement.
For a traditional web dashboard /u/otto-mate has you covered with SmartTiles.
If you want to build your own custom dashboard on an Android device or if you are looking for the ability to create widgets on your Android home screen, then you might consider SharpTools which is an app I developed to provide widgets and Tasker integration for SmartThings.
Yes I have a bunch of "Ok google" tasker commands set to do things like turn off/on lights, and open/close garage doors. Here is the app you need:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.boshdirect.stwidgets&hl=en
Very cool! Is SharpTools being used as the glue between Tasker and SmartThings in this setup?
You can also connect Sleep as Android to SmartThings through Tasker (using SharpTools)
Have you considered using SharpTools with the Thing State event plugin?
The plugin is specifically designed to bridge the gap between SmartThings events and Tasker.
http://sharptools.boshdirect.com/examples/event-thing-state
PS. I'm the developer of SharpTools so feel free to ask any questions.
Edit: The following post and my replies to it may also be helpful: http://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/46cfko/help_use_sharptools_to_monitor_3_presence_monitors_and_flash_the_state_for_all/d0419m5
I've used Sharp Tools for years. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.boshdirect.stwidgets
Have you tried SharpTools or ActionTiles?
Very cool! Did you use SharpTools for the Tasker integration?
Paging /u/ZodiacPi (creator of SharpTools, which should be able to do what you need)
Really the biggest issue right now (in my opinion) is the app stability (on android) and Routines. I've solved one of those problems by replacing routines with Rule Machine. To fix the app issue I have been using SmartTiles- Its an elegant solution that makes everything work well (as long as 3rd party api's don't go down). I also use SharpTools for homescreen widget support. And finally by using SharpTools and Tasker (with some google now integration add-on) I have voice commands working.
So I agree and disagree on the "not ready for serious duties (security or otherwise). If you want to open the box plug some shit in and have it work perfect, yes its not ready. If you don't mind tinkering and working around issues, its a pretty complete system.
The description in the play store sounds like it's shutting down
Am i looking in the wrong place?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.boshdirect.stwidgets
Regarding the question about SharpTools, there are two different flavors:
- The SharpTools Android app is primarily designed for setting up widgets or integrating with the Android automation app called Tasker. It runs on your phone and pairs up with Tasker to build really cool automations. It's great if you're specifically looking to integrate with Tasker, but if you are looking for a general purpose rule engine, check out SharpTools.io below.
- SharpTools.io is the web based platform which has a Rule Engine and tile-based dashboard. The Rule Engine is a nice visual rule builder that is easy to use while still being powerful. We've had several requests for Sunrise/Sunset and it will be included in the next platform release - in the mean-time, you can setup time based automations.
My favorite tile is my house keys.
You need a smart home. In my case I have Smart Things and the "SharpTools" app, which will let me trigger all the usual smart home functionality via icons or quick settings tiles. The house keys unlock the doors and turn on the lights. I used to have a second smart home tile that would put the house to sleep, but now that's easier to do with Google Home.
SharpTools has everything you need to do this, but the tile is ugly, so I make a custom "Key" tile with Custom Quick Settings. Custom Quick Settings, by the way, is definitely worth picking through for everyone interested in Quick Settings stuff. You can do anything.
If you're on Android, check out the SharpTools mobile app which has a dark theme and customizable accent colors.
https://i.imgur.com/xIjtOCa.png
The SharpTools.io web dashboard also works well on mobile devices and provides more customization over the layout:
Why go through MQTT rather than straight to SmartThings from Tasker? eg. using SharpTools
Any reason you don't want to use the SharpTools Tasker plugins for SmartThings?
SharpTools + Tasker == awesome
It looks like /u/false_precision has pointed you in the right direction. Using SharpTools, which is a set of Tasker plugins for SmartThings, you can do a number of interesting things.
If I understand correctly, you want something on SmartThings to trigger a Tasker task? If so, you can use the Thing State plugin to react to SmartThings events in Tasker:
http://sharptools.boshdirect.com/examples/event-thing-state
The short version is you subscribe to a Thing by long-pressing on it in SharpTools, then setup the Thing State event with your desired filters, then pick your desired Tasker task.
And if you are interested, check out the SharpTools beta which has improved push event handling:
http://sharptools.boshdirect.com/installation-instructions#beta
What do you find limiting about the SmartThings API?
I developed SharpTools which is a set of widgets and Tasker plugins for SmartThings Android. I've seen some users put together some pretty cool dashboards using Tasker: http://youtu.be/VPjrV6tKPoE
The guys from The Home Remote have a pretty ambitious project to allow users to create custom dashboards with SmartThings. I haven't personally used it, but it looks like a cool project.