Hub Offline and Low Battery Alerts

In addition to releasing the new SmartThings iOS version 1.5.2 to the app store today, we’re also going to start sending customers two new types of valuable notifications: an alert when your Hub goes offline, and an alert when the battery levels in your devices are low.

That’s pretty much the gist of it, but we put together this handy FAQ guide to tell you more about it because we think FAQ guides are fun:

Why would I want to know if my Hub goes offline?
Because knowledge is power. More specifically, here are three reasons why you’d want to know this: a) because you should know that you won’t be getting notifications from SmartThings that you find important until your Hub comes back online–such as when a child comes home, when there’s unexpected motion in your home, etc.; b) because you should know that you won’t be able to perform actions with SmartThings until your Hub comes back online–such as automatically unlocking your front door when you arrive, turning on lights, etc.; and c) because if you’re away, you might want to know that your home, cabin, office, etc. has just lost power.

That’s good.
Yes.

How will I know when my Hub comes back online?
We will send you a follow-up push notification when your Hub comes back online.

Got it. What’s the deal with the low-battery alerts?
We’ll send you an alert if the battery power in your devices drops below 15%, and then another if it drops below 5%. Because battery levels fluctuate, you may get a first alert that your battery power is at, say, 12%, and then a follow-up that it’s at 3%.

Why? Why would you do this?
Well, the last thing we want is for you to be relying on SmartThings to send you a valuable alert or notification–like, there’s a flood in your basement–and for you to not get this message because, lo and behold, your 2 AAs are dead.

Makes sense.
Yea.

Sometimes I sleep. What if I don’t want these messages to wake me up at night?
We will only send you the low-battery alerts between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time. We will send you a notification about your Hub going offline about 30 minutes after it loses Internet connection–as you’d want to know that your system is down in case, y’know, there’s an intruder trying to break in at midnight.

Cool. Will these two new notifications be available to all customers?
Yes.

Will they still get them even if they don’t have their SmartThings app open?
Yep.

Got it. Is there anything else I should know?
Yea, one more note on the low-battery alerts: All batteries lose power in very cold weather, and then regain this power once the temperature warms. So if you happen to keep, say, a SmartSense Presence tag in your car’s glove compartment outside… and live in a place like Fargo… you may get a notification saying your battery level is low, and then notice that it’s back up above 15% as the weather warms. No big deal. We won’t bombard you with messages: just one below 15% and another when it’s below 5%.

Promise?
Promise.