SmartThings Bridge v1.0

Bring your whole SmartThings home into RTI. Lights, dimmers, color bulbs, switches, locks, shades, garage doors, thermostats, air conditioners, fans, sensors, scenes — all in one driver, with real-time updates and a setup that takes about two minutes in your web browser.

What this driver is (and what it is not)

This driver is not for your Samsung TV — RTI's dedicated Samsung TV driver is the right tool for that. This does something different: it brings every device you've already linked to your SmartThings account into RTI — the lights, dimmers, locks, thermostats, sensors, garage doors, fans, shades and scenes you control in the SmartThings app. If it shows up in your SmartThings app, it shows up in RTI.

So instead of tracking down a separate driver for each brand of light, lock, or thermostat, one driver puts your whole smart home in RTI — and now keeps it in sync in real time.

It's a cloud driver. It talks to the Samsung SmartThings cloud over the internet, the same way the SmartThings app does — so it needs a working internet connection and Samsung's cloud to be up. It is not local control.

Set it up

You'll do everything in Integration Designer and your web browser. No app to install on a phone, no terminal, nothing to program by hand.

1. Add the driver and import your devices

1. Add the SmartThings Bridge driver to your project.

2. Get a SmartThings token — it's used once, just to read your device list:

- In a web browser, go directly to account.smartthings.com/tokens and sign in. (Go to that exact address — it isn't under the app's Settings menu.)

- Click Generate new token, give it a name, and check the Devices and Scenes scopes.

- Click Generate token, then copy it and paste it into the driver's Access Token (PAT) field.

- Note: SmartThings tokens now expire after 24 hours. That's fine here — this one is only for the one-time import. Connect (Step 2) is what keeps the driver running long-term.

3. Click Get Config from SmartThings — the lightning-bolt action in the Driver Configuration panel on the left (under Driver Info). The driver reads your account and fills in every device, scene, function, variable and event using your real names ("Kitchen Lights", "Garage Door", "Master Thermostat"). Drag those onto your pages and buttons — there are no slots to fill in by hand. Added or renamed devices later? Just click it again.

- Large account? Set Import Domains first (in the Options section): a comma-separated list like light,switch,lock,thermostat brings in only the device types you want and keeps the processor light. Leave it blank to import everything.

2. Link your account for good (one click — this is the easy part)

A token from step 1 works great for trying the driver out, but tokens created after 30 December 2024 expire after 24 hours. For a permanent install, link your account once with Connect — it never expires and it turns on real-time updates:

1. Set Authentication Mode to Connect (one-click - recommended).

2. Click Connect to SmartThings — the lightning-bolt action in the Driver Configuration panel (just above Get Config). Your web browser opens automatically.

3. Sign in to Samsung and approve access. The page shows you a short pairing code.

4. Paste that code into the driver's Pairing Code field (within 15 minutes).

That's it. No app, no token to keep track of, nothing to renew. The driver keeps itself authorized forever — even across reboots — and switches on real-time updates.

Just trying the driver out? You can skip step 2 and leave Authentication Mode on Personal Access Token (PAT). The token from step 1 will run the driver for the trial. Add Connect when you're ready to make it permanent.

How updates work

Controlling devices from RTI is instant. Press a button and the command goes out right away; the on-screen state updates immediately.

Real-time updates from the outside (Live Mode). When your account is linked with Connect, changes made outside RTI — at a physical switch, in the SmartThings app, by a voice assistant, or by another system — reflect on your RTI panel within about a second, pushed live through Custom Control Drivers. No waiting for the next poll.

A background refresh keeps slow clouds honest. Some brands report their changes to SmartThings slowly (or, for a few, only when asked). The driver quietly re-checks devices in the background so even a slow vendor cloud can't leave a stale value on your panel. The result: real-time where the device's maker cooperates, and automatic self-healing where it doesn't — which is the most any SmartThings-based bridge can do.

Honest expectation: how fast an external change appears depends on how quickly that device's brand reports it to SmartThings. With Live Mode on, the large majority arrive in about a second. If a particular brand's cloud is ever slow to report a change, the background refresh quietly catches it up — so a value never just sits stale. That's the most any SmartThings-based bridge can do.

Options

Live Mode (real-time updates) — On by default (works in Connect mode). Leave it on for the real-time experience; turn it off to use polling only.

Poll Interval (seconds) — how often device state is refreshed in the background (default 30s). This is a floor; the driver automatically slows down on very large accounts so it never exceeds SmartThings' rate limit. Devices you just touched refresh faster; numeric sensors poll less often automatically.

Import Domains — bring in only the device types you want. Enter a comma-separated list like light,switch,lock,thermostat, or leave it blank for everything. On a big home this keeps the processor light (fewer controls and fewer things to poll). Set it before running Get Config from SmartThings.

Startup Delay (seconds) — wait this long after the processor boots before connecting (default 0). Raise it on a busy processor so your other drivers finish booting first.

Slider Settle (ms) — how long after you stop moving a slider (dimming, color, volume, setpoint) before the final value is sent (default 300ms). While you drag, the panel follows instantly; on release the device jumps straight to your final value in one step.

What you can control

Lights / dimmers / color bulbs: On, Off, Toggle, Brightness, Color Temperature, Hue, Saturation, Set Color — with full state and color feedback and Turned On / Turned Off events. (Color and brightness controls only appear on devices that actually support them.)

Switches: On, Off, Toggle + state.

Locks: Lock, Unlock, Toggle + Locked / Unlocked state and events.

Shades / blinds: Open, Close, Stop, Set Position + position feedback.

Garage doors: Open, Close, Toggle + Opened / Closed / Opening / Closing events.

Thermostats: mode (Off / Heat / Cool / Auto), heat and cool setpoints (set and step), fan mode — plus current temperature, setpoints, operating state, and mode/heating/cooling events. Works for any thermostat in your SmartThings account (Nest on supported models, Ecobee, Honeywell, Lennox, and more — most have no native RTI driver).

Air conditioners: On, Off, mode, cool setpoint + state.

Fans: On, Off, Toggle, Low / Medium / High, Set Speed + speed feedback.

Sensors: temperature, humidity, illuminance, power, energy, battery — read as values with units.

Binary sensors: contact, motion, water/leak, smoke, presence — with Active / Cleared events.

Buttons / remotes: presses arrive as events (Pushed / Held / Double-Tapped) so a SmartThings button can trigger any RTI macro.

Scenes: run any SmartThings scene by name.

Every device reports Came Online / Went Offline so you can react when something drops off the cloud.

A note on very large homes

SmartThings allows up to about 200 devices per location. The driver imports up to 100 to keep the processor healthy; if you have more than that (or simply don't need all of them in RTI), use Import Domains to bring in just the device types you want. If any devices are left out, the driver tells you (the Devices Dropped variable) so nothing is a surprise.

Is this safe? (your account stays private)

We built the connection to bank-level standards and designed it so your SmartThings login never touches our servers:

You sign in directly with Samsung. When you click Connect, you log in on Samsung's own page — we never see your password. Your processor holds its own secure key to your account; we don't store your SmartThings tokens.

The sensitive app secret stays on our server, never inside the driver — so the driver file you download can't be pulled apart to reach anyone's account.

Everything travels encrypted. All traffic between your processor, our relay, and SmartThings runs over secure HTTPS.

Real-time updates are verified, not trusted. Every live update is cryptographically signed by SmartThings and checked against Samsung's certificate before it's accepted, so nothing forged can reach your system — and updates are routed only to your processor.

We don't keep your data. Device updates pass through only long enough to reach your processor, then they're gone — we don't log them, mine them, or sell them.

License

The driver runs for 2 hours per processor as a free trial. To license it permanently, purchase a key at customcontroldrivers.com and paste it into License Key. The license is locked to that processor.

Support

Questions or issues: support@customcontroldrivers.com