I've been using HE for over a year after migrating from ST. I checked the new ST app today and didn't realize how much I miss that interface. It makes building automations (formerly called triggers/routines) sooo easy. Means my wife can create her own automations. Also, the UI is really nice for controlling our devices.
Is there any plan at all to have a similarly nice looking mobile UI and easy to use automations? I have a phone dashboard in the HE app and it puts my wife off (the app and dashboard don't look good) so she doesn't even bother. She misses ST though because she used to interact with the devices on that. Would be great to have a better control UI and also, to add at least basic automations (e.g. "Simple Automation Rules") to the mobile app.
Also, I know I'm sure to receive some comments about how Hubitat is about automation vs using the phone as a control interface. I hear you but don't agree. I really think it should be both and don't see any reason why it shouldn't. But even if that's the case, automations should be able to be easily entered via the mobile device IMO.
I think that’s an entirely valid feature request, but keep in mind there are also many people that would argue the smaller screen of a phone app is an inherently difficult place to create automations and perform other hub admin functions.
Admittedly I never bothered to try out the new ST app before I switched to Hubitat a couple years ago, but for the old ST app I agree with those that have discussed in prior threads around here that adding/removing devices, changing smartapp settings and other similar tasks could be a PITA when constrained by a mobile app interface.
The main issue is that they don’t have unlimited development time and resources, so they have to triage what features they work on. If they work on feature A, they might not be able to deliver feature B, and vice versa.
It’s not quite as simple as “users who don’t want an optional feature don’t have to use it” (not something you said, but a paraphrase of what others have written when issues like this come up ).
Just wondering if you’ve looked into Smartly or Sharptools?
Smartly can make native dashboards look much nicer, and in more recent versions it has added some impressive features that build on the native dashboard feature set.
You might be familiar with sharptools from your time with ST, but it works with Hubitat as well. The dashboard interface is more polished, and it’s also possible to create rules that can act on Hubitat devices, although I’ve never tried that feature so I don’t know much about it. @josh would know .
ActionTiles also recently announced they would be adding support for Hubitat, although I don’t think there were details re: timeframe in the announcement.
Had looked into Sharptools years back while on ST but went with ActionTiles instead. Haven't looked at it when on HE. Thanks for pointing out Smartly. I just looked at their website and it looks very interesting and promising. I'll check it out.
I don't actually see AT as a big improvement over the HE Dashboard (partly because I've spent a lot of time customizing my HE dashboard by doing a lot of CSS work). However, my HE dashboard is still not where I'd like it. Smartly does look interesting though although it doesn't deal with the simple automation editing I'm looking for.
If you’re comfortable editing css I think there’s a lot about smartly that you’ll like, but it’s a part of the hubitat dashboard, so yeah the automation creation presumably isn’t really possible.
On the other hand, @spelchek did a lot of really impressive stuff no one would’ve figured was possible with the built-in dashboards.
Hopefully the development continues uninterrupted.
SharpTools dashboards were released as beta in 2018, so if it was years back, the dashboards might not have even existed then!
We 'officially' released SharpTools.io dashboards and Rule Engine in 2019 and have rapidly added new features and refined the experience. If you haven't taken a look in a while, I would suggest giving it a try!
Totally agree. They've done some impressive things with the built-in HE dashboards!
).
.
