How-to - Have your iPad dashboard screen automatically turn off and on

Why Hubitat Elevation Here's a cool thing I did!
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I’ve been looking for a way to have my iPad screen turn off and on automatically, and just found it! Here goes:

In Hubitat:

  1. Setup a motion detector near the iPad and set it up as a device in Hubitat
  2. Setup a rule that will send a notification to the iPad when motion is detected from the motion detector. The text in the notification message is irrelevant - the notification will not appear. I set mine to “Activation Message”.
  3. Setup a dashboard for your iPad

On the iPad:

  1. Turn on “Guided Access” from the “Accessibility” menu in “Settings”. Ensure that the “Display Autolock” option is set to sync with the “Display & Brightness” setting.
  2. From the “Face ID and Passcode” in “Settings”, select “Turn Passcode Off” (A passcode will be required to get out of Guided Access)
  3. From the “Display and Brightness” in “Settings”, set the “Auto-Lock” to 5 Minutes (or whatever else you would prefer)
  4. Install the Hubitat App, connect it to the hub as a new ID and Set its notification to make no sound.
  5. Open the dashboard created for the iPad in Safari, and add a shortcut to it to your desktop. (This will allow it to be open full screen)
  6. Open the Dashboard from the desktop shortcut (It is likely already open from step 4…)
  7. Triple-click the Home button to start Guided Access on the iPad. The first time it runs, it will ask for a passcode to be setup to exit Guided Access mode.

That’s it! Your iPad will now turn on with motion and then turn off after the lock time limit that you have set.

Some credit: I was watching a Home Automation YouTube video and in it, the author had an iPad that turned on automatically. So I did further research and found instructions on how to set this up which also linked to a short video from the YouTube author explaining how he did it. However, in my testing, I found that it didn’t work properly with the Hubitat dashboard on my iPad mini with iOS 12, so with a bit of trial and error, came up with the above.

Hope this helps! If you find some parts of my instructions don’t work or aren’t clear, let me know and I’ll update them!

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