Please keep us updated on the progress of your native Android App
So far so good! I had 3-4 hours last night and this morning to work on creating a base Android app with a lot of the networking layer started. I don't know how long it will be before I can get something up and running but I will keep anyone updated if interested.
Some of us are iOS users around here
I think more than half of America is using an iOS device! Unfortunately, I haven't worked on iOS in several years so this wouldn't be much help.
I will say that my high-level goal for doing this is to focus on making a wall-mounted tablet dashboard. I know there's plenty of people who mount iPad's on their wall but personally I'd go with the MUCH cheaper Android tablets. I have 4 Amazon Fire 7" tablets which I picked up for $29 each and they are more than good enough to serve as a dedicated dashboard. That said, the app should also work fine on any Android phone as well.
There's a few reasons why I want to do this project instead of just creating a dashboard and using the Hubitat Android app (or browser) to view on a tablet. Some things I'd like to make sure exist are:
- speed.. it needs to be fast, look & feel like a native app
- full screen - at least take up as much space as possible
- adjust to fit the space; i tried using the Hubitat dashboard and while it was very customizable it took a lot of playing around with to adjust the tiles to fit the space. Then, I'd rotate the device and it would get all messed up.. using native UI widgets everything should just fit exactly
- keep the screen ON and at full brightness while the dashboard is running
- turn the screen off at night and back on again in the morning.. no need to keep the screen on at 3 AM as eventually the screen would burn-in.
- touch to toggle/switch/etc.. not sure why i can't lock my door without a prompt but I want to be able to click on an unlocked door and have it lock
- allow for some nice animations when toggling states (door lock)
I think all of this should be doable.. I would also add as much customization as I can (like icon size, colors, etc). No way it'll be as full featured as the current dashboard though just due to time. But, it'll all be in github if anyone wants to add to the UI experience.
I imagine once I get into the UI part of this project I'm going to have to figure out what icons to use (ie: door open, door closed; lock open, lock closed, etc). It'd be awesome to find some consistent images that look great in a dashboard view. While I was never happy with the Wink dashboard icons they are nice and clear.. it's easy to see if something is open or unlocked at a glance.
Anyway, more to come! I do have a day-job and it's going to be a very busy week so I can't say how much I can get done.. but, it's going to be hard to keep away from it as well 
