You folks did a great job, I'm coming from Smartthings and seems you took the best form it (Groovy) and advanced with devices being able to run locally.
A single things I find you really need to look into as priority, if you want to move from good to great:
Your dashboard look is soooo outdated, it is unbelievable, really. I'm speechless how otherwise something as powerful and flexible and marvelous can be so poisoned by crap UI. Users consume your product via UI and why you sell great engine car with terrible outlook? As an idea - open API so to get nice customization - as buttons devs to be able to customize with whatever attributes they like, as dash outlook to be able to deliver own look and feel into them. If you'd like even make it as annual subscription (like Apple has for devs) so to be able to add some more income, do marketplace for devs like Unreal do for UDK, think about this if you really wanna grow and people to stop questioning themselves whether you'll move to Wink way.
Hope you'll get this feedback as constructively as possible which is purely my intention - step up folks!
Many of us don't use the dashboard, or very minimally it doesn't matter how it looks as long as it functions fine. When you have an automated home, dashboards basically are no longer needed.
If you really want or need a different look there are various external dashboards as well as Smartly which skins the built-in dashboard.
But I see the point, that there are things that could be improved, added, or updated in dashboards.
I being more "techy" agree with automatons, rules, etc so also like you dont pay too much attention to it.
... But my wife hates it, my kids hate it, my old relatives which used to with Smartthings (Classic, as new ST app sux and frankly kinda reminds me to Hubitat basic dashboard in terms of inflexibility) and they all refused to use it. Will take a look at that Smartly, as dont want to migrate all system so just to find out all around me hate using it and they interact via app only.
If you're Android users (and all the best people are ), there is a wonderful dashboard available that runs on Android devices. The author is extremely responsive and active to requests and feedback. Worth buying cheap Android tablets to run it, if you want "control panels" for your family.
Otherwise Smartly provides a great "skin" and drag-n-drop capability on top of the stock dashboard.
This already exists. There is Maker API built-in, which I think some third party solutions use, and you can also write your own custom Dashboard app or at least the Hubitat communication portion of it via a Groovy app if you prefer.
The Dashboard itself is not open in such a manner (the app is closed source), but enterprising community members have figured out ways to customize its appearance and whatnot beyond the stock options. Search for "smartly" and you'll find it.
If you are an Apple user, like myself the best users are, then ignore Dashboards in Hubitat and use Homebridge to bridge HE and HomeKit. Then use the Apple Home app as your dashboard, or any 3rd party HomeKit app in the App store.
You lightweight. Stop complaining and build your own dashboards using the provided open APIs like I did (see other posts for details). Let's face it, the ST app/dashboard was also a bit pathetic (and certainly is now).
Hi Angus,
Can you pls orient me re open API you've mentioned in your post, as I'm really interested in building on the top of such (like with Swift UI I have some experience with Apple mobile app dev). Mainly interested in producing dash with custom multi-attribute tiles, which seems is unfortunately miss from Hubitat, to accommodate my drivers (just wrote one today for Qubino 16A) I'm noob with Hubitat, as stated 2 weeks only coming from the sun-setting SmartThings.
Appreciated!
Sure. For a custom dashboard development - which be warned, is a very deep hole if you do decide to jump down into it lol - you will need to make use of the Maker API and the Eventsocket.
Maker API is a standard HE app you can install. It provides an API to all your devices using simple endpoints. You can interrogate the status of any of your devices, and you can set any parameter of any device, set modes, control HSM etc. It is very fast and works perfectly. You can also set CORS so that a custom dashboard running on a Pi for example can access the hub.
The Eventsocket is a stream that the hub outputs all the time, in JSON format, for all events on the hub. You can set up a listener to that socket, read the event, and then update your dashboard accordingly. Again, it works great.
Thanks a lot Angus for taking a time for such a great framework overview!
Defo I'll start from here - seems is quite a familiar event/listener concept so shouldn't be that hard starting from where you've pointed me to.
), there is a wonderful dashboard available that runs on Android devices. The author is extremely responsive and active to requests and feedback. Worth buying cheap Android tablets to run it, if you want "control panels" for your family.
There is Maker API built-in, which I think some third party solutions use, and you can also write your own custom Dashboard app or at least the Hubitat communication portion of it via a Groovy app if you prefer.
(see other posts for details). Let's face it, the ST app/dashboard was also a bit pathetic (and certainly is now).
