the migration of the Samsung smartthings classic app is underway but you need to
be prepared for what this process is going to look like and you probably want
to understand why this is going on hello Automators thanks for tuning in again
I'm Brian from automate your life and today I'm going to take the frustration
out of automation in what could be a very scary process as we go through one
of the most significant things to happen not just to the Samsung smartthings
platform but to home automation in the smart home industry in general we're
talking about over 50 million users having to navigate a transition process
from the old classic application to what is the new Samsung smartthings
application and still have their whole smart home continue to work correctly
there are many reasons why this is starting right now and frankly the
Samsung smartthings app the new one is basically ready it's at about 90% of the
functionality that I think most people expect and they are working on the last
testing components now for that other 10% or what they can bring across from
the old application and that's really the basis for this is that old
application is not ready for the new realities of the smart home industry and
the new realities of the SmartThings platform in general we have the
connected vehicle coming into the new application we're seeing connected
appliances so Samsung's connect service coming in to the platform and being
managed through the new app as well we're seeing all kinds of new device
types and a ton of new companies connecting into this ever-expanding
platform and the old application just isn't able to handle it and the way it
was developed initially wasn't ready for such an explosion in the smart things or
in the smart home industry in general so they have to move and it's not just
because they want to provide this better interface which I do think the new app
has a much better interface they need to deal with some of the back
issues that are causing them a lot of headaches and causing reliability issues
for you and that's part of the why here today but let's move on to what you can
expect the first thing you'll notice and this is what's prompted me to start
creating this video is an email that says it's time to prepare and if you
don't have this you will soon but what you will next see is either an email in
the same account that you have used to register your smart things a whole
account or platform here system and you will get that if you've been using the
classic application in about the last year now that email will actually say
it's time to get moving with the migration process and when you go to the
Samsung SmartThings classic application you'll actually see a banner at the top
of that application that says it's time to migrate let's go to the tool now this
will only happen once you they have all of the products and services and the
different smart apps and everything ready for your smart home within the new
application and this is only happening in small groups so you're not going to
see every person on the planet get this at the same time it's based on
complexity and also just releasing to smaller groups so that they can deal
with the questions and the issues that arise out of this so if you don't have
that email if you don't have a notice in the Samsung classic application don't
panic it just means you're a hardcore Automator and that's what I see you as
as well as Samsung okay so good on you don't worry just wait your turn one
thing about this migration process will be that you have to update your actual
smartthings account to a samsung account now again don't go running off you don't
have to do anything today but this will be part of the migration you'll have to
actually move to that Samsung account as well as any people in your home that are
connected or you've shared your smartthings account with they will have
to upgrade to a Samsung account as well because of that slow ramp-up in terms of
releasing it to different groups of people and the ramp up to complexity
this process is going to take months don't think that you're going to have to
necessarily do this tomorrow I'd love to hear if you do have to do it tomorrow
because I still don't have an invitation to actually show you all of this process
today so you're going to see this take a long time and be rolled out over time
and this is part of how Samsung wants to manage the process they want to deal
with the little bugs as soon as they can with a small group of people so that the
next group of people don't run into the same issues and I think this is a great
way of managing it and I really like what I'm seeing out of their support
system in their FAQ pages already so once you as the owner and it's only the
owner that has to go through this process once you see that in the Samsung
smartthings classic app it is time to start the migration process now what
will that be like and what are the little hang-ups that you might see I've
got a few prepared for you here one of the goals of this migration is to get
rid of many of the custom device handlers that are out there and Samsung
has done a lot of work on this and it doesn't mean that suddenly you're not
going to have access to your devices calm down calm down
you go ahead write that comment down below but I'm gonna call you a little
bit silly when I have to respond what you will see is the opportunity through
the migration tool to actually convert to one of the 100 default or standard
device handlers that are basically ready to go into the system and what's
important about this is they're saying it will work just as good as your custom
device handler if we identify it through this process you can move to that very
safely and the other component to it that I think is the most important is
that it will be dropped in locally onto your hub and available for local
execution and this is obviously one of the biggest things within the Samsung
SmartThings platform that we know is going to change over time here this is a
major component so in a lot of cases I'm going to personally recommend even if
you might lose one specific function from a device you're going to get all
that local execution capability and I think that's the most important things
now I've been using the new application for a long time and I'm not recommending
necessarily that you go and install that today because
it will generate a little bit extra complexity when you go to do the
migration nothing major so you can go and use that new app today if you'd like
to get familiar I will have a video out later this week that is a full
walkthrough of that app it's a 30-minute walkthrough so you don't need to go do
that I'm going to prepare you as best I can for this migration now the new app
does have one thing that I've had to deal with for a while here and that is
you have this ability to create an infinite loop and they don't want this
because it has caused problems with the platform and it actually can cause
overall outages in a number of ways when people do this so they want to eliminate
that and so the new application if I go and I create if switch is on in its 6
p.m. in the evening turn switch off and if I do that and it's the same switch on
both sides the application actually won't let me save that automation the
reason for that is because they don't want infinite loops created now I
already have a couple workarounds I'll tell you virtual devices or virtual
switches are a wonderful thing for a workaround with this but really what
they want you to do is use the custom lighting smart app instead because that
manages in two ways number one it goes local in terms of the execution and
number two it also allows you never to create that infinite loop it's being
managed so that's what they want you to do instead of using the custom
automations they want you to use basically these smart apps that they
have created routines in the classic app during this migration will get split
into both scenes and automations and you're actually going to have the
ability to choose as you go through that so your routines they will be saved and
they'll go in a couple of different routes and so I would suggest that
you're just a little bit familiar with those routines before you go through
this process this is a big one for a few people but if you're using web core to
change the status of your smart home monitor when you migrate that is no
longer going to work so that's an important one for a few people
that smart-home monitor itself is getting some back-end changes to work
more reliably to be better integrated with the smartthings platform and there
are already some workarounds that you will see if you watch our smart things
app walkthrough on Wednesday you'll see the automation that I created already to
manage my smart home monitor in an automated way so as soon as all the
phones leave the area it'll turn that system on and then it'll turn it off
when anyone comes back it's a very similar thing with the lock code
management system which is kind of moving to a smart app called lock
guessed code access or something to that effect so you're gonna see these little
changes in naming and how those systems work but in general that migration
process will be very easy and simple now the other component here is you're going
to see new features there's a lot of new features coming in we're seeing the
connected car service start to be talked about in the news and how that's going
to get integrated but a great example of a new smart app that they've created is
called the home care wizard and this is meant to manage your Samsung connected
appliances and devices like that help you purchase different components if
they need new components or if they need some you know for a robot vacuum maybe
you need a new brush or something like that they will have that ability and
then we'll show you some of that management how many hours you have on
those devices things like that over time and this is a new smart app that you
will see in the new app once you're done the full migration process the Samsung
SmartThings Classic app is basically dead you're going to be able to manually
control your smart home over there for a little bit and they will kill that app
over time this is the end of the Samsung smartthings classic application it's
going to take a long time remember you're going to have a lot of time to do
this and I'm going to put out a guide as soon as I can
with this migration process showing you that migration process but once you do
this that Samsung SmartThings Classic app is basically done for you and you
should move to the new app now I have noticed a couple of things as people
have talked about their migrations and Life360 is a great
example basically that's not coming across just yet it's not in the new app
so if you don't have it in the old app or if you are using it in the old app
it's not showing up in the new app they want you to use their geolocation and
their phone sensing capabilities and instead of something like life360 and
the other thing I've noticed is virtual switches and this is just something that
in general I'm telling people go create a virtual switch in the Samsung
smartthings classic application if you don't know how to do it feel free to ask
down below it's a very simple process we have these things on our community
boards as well so you can head over there do a quick search on how to create
a virtual switch and it's very simple those two things are examples of things
that basically haven't shown up in the new app yet so let's get prepared
Automators for this transition process here go ahead leave your comments down
below your questions about the process I can't answer everything in in this video
but I can leave some resources down below - great FAQ and great forum board
conversations that are going on on Samsung SmartThings in in their forum
boards and on their web pages I have those resources down below otherwise
watch our full app walkthrough of the new smart things application that's a
great walkthrough of that full application as it stands today and will
prepare you for this without you having to go and install that app otherwise
watch our other smart home news which is up on screen right now and of course
guys thanks for watching and don't hate, automate