It seems logical that a dashboard UI would act like an Android phone. Drag and drop, hold to re-size/more options. Why is this so hard?
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I don't expect it is a case of difficulty in delivering this feature, I think it is more about wanting to focus the efforts of the development team on elements of the platform that deliver the most for the majority of users. But that's just my take on what the reasons may be.
If that is the philosophy, or even if it isn't, I can buy into that thinking. The dashboards and the process to set one up is functional, with some important considerations around management of security and local versus remote access. Having a hub with a strong grounding automation and device connectivity is a strong selling point and benefits a broader range of use cases and users.
That doesn't stop us from dabbling in expanding the HE offering or developing third party dashboard systems. The popularity of these tools, along with topics such as this, can provide Hubitat staff with valuable metrics to use when prioritizing their focus across the HE platform.
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I can't say that I've been into HA for years and years as I just started with a a C-7 and this new (to us) home we bought a couple years ago. My wallet woul have you believe otherwise.
My finish line was not always complete automation but more of complete control. My security cameras, water sensor alarms, garage door/driveway gate control and essential information all in one location like the tablet mounted in kitchen.
Or the tablet in my living room which controls all my scene lighting, blackout shades and allows me to still monitor my driveway gate with video feed.
I get hubitat has a dashboard but I think we can all agree it's a bit clunky and not that user friendly. In my head I just assumed this would be figured out by now without having to go elsewhere and expose our hub to third party vendors.
I'm not going anywhere and definitely sticking with hubitat along with my paid subscription but this is way at the top of my list. For me at least, everything else is working great already.
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As someone who joined (just after) the start.... I would agree, the current state is not ideal and could do with some tweaks, bud expect it will take some time.
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I would look at Hubivue if you want more of that type of functionality. Works in android, apple, windows, and Mac and is 100% local
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clunky is the perfect descriptor and I could not agree more. I wanted a dashboard mostly for monitoring vs control as most things are automated in my home. To overcome that clunky look and increase the density of information I wrote an app to address these shortcomings called Tile Builder that lets you build tables of data like this.
If you are interested you can find out more here.
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This is always what happens when we talk about hubitats native dashboard. People start throwing out third party apps that generally look like ■■■ and aren't always local. I get it. The community is trying to help out but this is something that really should be baked in.
With the crazy amount of apps and drivers that habitat is capable of you would think a simple, intuitive, pretty and powerful dashboard would be way up on the list.
I've run through all the third party dashboards. Right now Actiontiles seems to be the best for me but I can't trust that they'll be there in the long run.
How nice would it be to have something like this.......
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Smartly is pretty, local, and free. Works anywhere the Hubitat dashboard works, on any browser supported by Hubitat. Even works in Hubitat app and with remote admin.
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I dunno, Hubivue is 100% local and damned pretty (especially the animated icons).
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I personally think hubivue looks a little un-polished. That's the best way I can describe it.
Do you have any shots of your dashboard?
I'll check out Smartly.
I barely understand what's going on at Smartly but it seems to take your HE dashboard and skin it allowing some extra features like drag and drop. Browsing around it looks like the last update was in 2020. Am I reading this right?
Not something you could be sure that would always work as long as you have your HE.
@user359 - Give hubiVue a shot.
Check out their interactive demo to get a better sense here: hubiVue
@gslender, the main man who came up with this is and is a pretty solid amigo too. He takes feedback seriously to make the product better.
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If you can be a bit more specific with your feedback, we might be willing to fix the things that you're seeing that you feel are "un-polished". Obviously biased, but for a local network running (or via cloud if you wish too), native to any of 5 different device platforms (iOS/Windows/Mac/Web/Android etc), that has over 100 features - kinda not sure what you mean by un-polished????
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Almost. It’s not really a skin; it injects CSS into a Hubitat Dashboard you have already built. So, it’s still a Hubitat dashboard, with CSS, that has drag & drop. Still uses the underlying Hubitat dashboard stuff. Nothing prevents you from having Hubitat dashboards, too. It should work as long as Hubitat dashboards work.
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I think it's great we have options compared to our native dashboard and I by no means bash your product/app as I appreciate the work and time all developers put in to get us cool ■■■■.
I think Hubivue will get there. I'm just jelly of Lovelace I think.
It's like these 2 versions of android. They still all work pretty much the same. It's just the polish that makes the difference.
Shoot I had drag and drop and widgets on my OG Droid cell phone 15 years ago and were still hacking away at skins or CSS or whatever. I just don't get why it can't work like android or iOS.
Edit: IMO to add a tile you should long hold the screen-menu pops up-add tile-select device
Tap the corners to adjust tile size
Long press existing tile for tile options
Well, none of that was specific feedback.
At best, I think you're complaining that the iOS/Android versions of hubiVue are not more "mobile-touch" capable and behave/act like 100% mobile apps.
hubiVue has been purposefully built to be feature-function-form identical on all platforms. This means what you know/use on iOS is the same on Windows, which is the same on Web, which is the same on Android. You can give your dashboard to your Mum or friend and know exactly how it will behave and render on their chosen device (be that via a mouse on Windows, or a touch based iPad). You won't be dealing a bunch of idiosyncrasies specific to each platform and device.
It also means my efforts fixing features on Windows for customer ABC is also translated to fixing the same issue on all platforms. Anything else is either more effort or less features.
Besides, do you really care how you Edit dashboards? Does that really count as much as how it works as a dashboard? I personally don't spend much time editing vs using. But hey, everyone is different and evaluates things on different merits.
But please continue the feedback and why not try hubiVue again - you might be surprised, as its come a long way in 12 months.....
For example, you can definitely build this type of Lovelace UI in hubiVue. I can guarantee it !!
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100% yes I do. I want more than tiles. I want to be able to build graphs for my water usage. Line graphs for my energy usage. Sizable camera feed tiles. I'd like an interactive calendar that can sync between and be edited between panels. A weather tile that works like a widget so I can just zoom in to see a specific day or slide left to right to change days. A live map of traffic in my area, a media player with a simple UI that works natively on the dashboard and doesn't redirect me to a URL. I'd like thousands and thousands of icons. Not just three choices for a light bulb. I have an air compressor tile on my dashboard so I can just click the button and it'll be full by the time I get to the garage. I think right now I'm using a refrigerator icon because it kind of looks like it. An intercom system linked between panels.
Those are just a few things that come to my head quickly. I'm not complaining about your app. I don't use your app nor do I use dashboards on mobile. Call it complaining if you want, but it's things I think we should have access to in 2023. Maybe it's a lot harder than I think, I don't know, I don't code nor do I care to learn code or CSS or python or anything like that. I like things that I pay for to just work.
Make that all happen and charge me $10 a month. I'd gladly pay it.
Right now actiontiles is doing it all for free, why I don't know but I have looked around for a donate link and haven't found one that isn't updated. Everything is from 2020 and back.
And once again we started talking about a native HE dashboard and this thread has traveled to a bunch of suggestions of third party fixes.
A few of my ActionTiles dashboards that I really care about how easy they are to edit as they took me a pretty damn long time just to have them look mediocre.
Edit: I'd also like to restate that I'm not knocking Hubitat or any Devs as I really do appreciate their work. I can't do any of this so I/we really on you guys for it all. I truly believe that if habitat can get their dashboard together they could take a big chunk of the HA market. Especially the home assistant users who may be in a little over their head, but still want that polished experience.
That sounds exactly like the motivation statement by the developers of Smartly for why they undertook that project.
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I’m not a developer either, but I usually assume that most of this stuff is hard.
Perhaps one reason that the Android and iOS UI/UX have met your expectations—unlike a few Hubitat dashboard options—is they are developed by two of the most valuable multinational tech corporations on the planet. There is presumably a lot of money and developer-hours available to support all that work.
Contrast that with the Hubitat team, which is small, a handful of people as far as we know. Actiontiles was a two-man team until one of them died suddenly a few years ago. Now it’s a one-man show, like @gslender’s HubiVue.
Could Hubitat devote more resources to built-in dashboard development and/or redesign? Honestly I don’t know, although I would guess they could. But it would necessarily come at the expense of time spent on something else. Maybe even several different “something elses.”
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I’ve proposed a partnership, but they don’t seem interested in that either - personally, and trying very hard not to be biased, I don’t understand why they wouldn’t partner with someone to make the integration and choice easy for customers
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