Future of this project

[vervallsweg]

Hey there!

As many might have noticed already, I didn't really have the time on hand to take care of this project. Also a lot of things have changed in my life that make this project useless to me personally.

Some context

The only reason this project exists is Samsung Smartthings. Personally I have almost completely migrated from ST and I can only urge anybody using this project to do the same. I will post more on that somewhere else though.

Now there's no reason for me to use this project anymore. I don't believe that 3rd party developers will be welcome on the new ST platform (if that ever happens). My programming skillset has vastly improved over the years. I'm not proud of this code anymore. It needs a mayor revamp so that it is something that I enjoy maintaining again.

That also means that some changes need to be made to move this from a ST centric API, to a more generell one.

The future

Google Assistant removal

This library has never really worked well. To make it clear, this is not the libraries fault. From skimming the Google Docs from time to time, it seems to me that Google doesn't really care for this type of integration. That's fair and if you look at it as an optional feature it doesn't need to be reliable. Why remove it then? Native dependencies. Tldr for non developers: this introduces mayor hurdles when installing this and most install issues arise from this. More detail: This is the cause for crude hacks and workarounds in the installation. This is also not really in the spirit of using js if you rely on natively compiled code imho. Considering this is caused by the grpc lib that runs mostly fine in a browser for other things. Even Google figured that out and deprecated the lib this year and replaced it with a pure js implementation. Whenever this lib is used in google-assistant lib, I might consider bringing this back.

Smartthings integration

As ST is not a primary focus anymore, this will break. I might find the time to adapt the DTH's. I might not. Groovy might go away completely.

This uncertainty in the ST API is the reason for this decision.

Should they ever come up with a decent groovy replacement integrating a standard restful api should be no problem though.

For non devs: just keep on using the current version if it works for you. This won't go away.

Technical details

• switch to ts
• bump node version
• complete typing of the api
• generated api spec
• fully restful endpoints
• websockets
• testing
• full ci/cd
• remove all native dependencies
• more robust storage backend

PS

This platform, this project has really shaped me as a developer and my professional development. I would like to thank anyone involved and the ST community in general.

You guys are awesome! Even if I don't see my future with this platform anymore, I'll be around, and it should still be useful to you.

So this is not really a farewell, but a much needed update and refocus of this project.

[joymyr]

Please don't remove Google Assistant. For me this is the only reliable function, ref. #155

[jiffyjaff]

@vervallsweg thanks for all your hard work on this! Having these alerts over the years has made a huge difference around my house. In fact, it's the main reason that ST had any value at all for me.

I'm looking at migrating away from ST. Where did you land?

[montyfert]

cast web api is great for what i need thank you. smartthings is getting rid of groovy .next month and it would be great if cast web api could work with the new smartthings edge as in my opinion its great .thanks

[dgibb2000]

cast web api is great for what i need thank you. smartthings is getting rid of groovy .next month and it would be great if cast web api could work with the new smartthings edge as in my opinion its great .thanks

Same here. Just got through setting up custom fire alarms with notifications to speakers and it works great. Only to have groovy being taken away. Also use this to reset speaker volumes every morning and quick access to volume of all speakers using action tiles. Understand that it's not a priority any longer but would love to continue using this in the future.

[toddaustin07]

For anyone interested I'm working on a port of the SmartThings components to the new Edge-based platform. I'm already about 85% there but am running up against a few issues:

1) Frequent device disconnects; maybe this is the known issue with Nest mini (my test device) dropping wifi connection?? 2) Google TTS doesn't appear to be working; device beeps but never plays message 3) Google's change to oath process breaks the assistant support. I think the Assistant setup app and process will have to be rewritten to get this working again. This is secondary priority at the moment.

If the original author is still reading this, and if you are willing to answer a few questions (without getting dragged back in!), I'd really appreciate reaching out to me at rpi.smartthings@gmail.com