As a new c8 owner; When i started to create a app, i was a little lost. There are 3 issues in my chrome browser on my PC.
When i used chrome on my tablet, all looked very nice.
I think being a little lost is normal for any new device. I came from a totally different platform and was also confused initially. But once you learn the basics, it’s very straightforward.
ok. gotta ask. how do you open the garage via CarPlay? I want to do this, but Home is not an app on CarPlay. What kind of sorcery are you using? 
It’s easy, setup Siri Shortcuts and then it shows up on the CarPlay Dashboard when you are in range of your house.
Betraying my stupidity here... How do you setup these shortcuts? Can't seem to control devices in Home via the Shortcuts app. And google failed me here. And yes, I can say "Siri Open My Garage Door" and that works. So just getting it into a shortcut that appears on CarPlay is my issue.
I've avoided (responding to) this topic for a while now... Sigh.... And mistanely posted this before I had finished.... Arrrgghh...
I also tend to write a lot, so chose to use the Summary / Detail option (from the start)... So choose your own adventure....
I subscribe to the view that while plenty of my home-life can be automated, including much of my lighting and entertainment requirements, these do not always fit within a regular or detectable pattern that suits an automation platform like HE, which can require engagement with the platform in some form. There can be plenty of occasions where I want a certain setting that is entirely spontaneous and not something I could automate or am interested in doing so. So I need some method to interact with my smart home, which I still want to be smart in how it responds. In many of these situations I personally want a physical button or device to initiate these changes in the home state, such as a Hue Dimmer, Hue Tap Dial or Samsung Button (choose your preferred plastic toy). When these don't offer the rich experience of options I need, then a dashboard or app are my choice, including the Hubitat App, Philips Hue App, Bond, as well as monitoring via Solar Edge, SensorPush and others.
May be slightly controversial... at least in my head. If I was pulled before a court I could not say I use HE dashboards or any dashboard really, regardless of my involvement in this space. I have a Home Assistant Dashboard displayed on a tablet mounted on the side of my fridge, but rarely interact with it. My main gripe with it is that I have not developed various status elements I had in a HE dashboard I developed and documented in detail here, displaying the current date/time, current / forecasted weather, plus other status elements like whether I have washing currently on or dehumidifiers running. One day I will re-implement something like this, but currently it is too much of an effort, even for me...
If I make the big leap from those who are non-techincal, using dashboards carefully crafted by people (apart from me), then they are less likely, in my opinion, to engage in the smart elements of a smart home if they are hard to interact with, if only in their opinion, which is likely guided by their own experience with other apps or platforms they use. Given I am a very technical person in my day-job, I can appreciate the view that what we do is difficult, to do it you need a certain level of knowledge. But there comes a point that, if you want others with less technical backgrounds to also enjoy the power of what we enjoy, you need to make it more accessible. I guess what I am getting at is that we (in this thread I expect) may have lower standards of what we see as acceptable and functional, but others do not always view a "so called convenience" in the same way. The UI, for them, needs to be more accessible and with an easier entry-point. To put a positive spin in this space, I was particularly encouraged by the introduction of simplified apps in HE over the last 1-2 years with accompanying video tutorials, this is the kind of tailoring to particular user experience that is needed in this space.
I should probably stop... 
I think there is plenty HE have done in a positive direction in this space in recent time.... Dashboards are not the only UI consideration, there are improvements in other areas of the interface that need equal attention, imho.... But it is something I hope will start to gain prominence and attention in the near future.
I have a virtual garage door opener device that I added to the Home app with Homebridge.
IIRC, it started to show up in CarPlay on its own as long as I have the “split screen” app view open.
That’s just an example photo from Google images, but CarPlay automatically shows my garage door in the lower right hand spot when I turn the car on while close to my house, or when I’m driving home and get within a mile or so. When farther away from home, that tile reverts to Apple Music.
This might be a configurable behavior in CarPlay settings, but I’ve never really looked into it.
You got me interested in this one. I do have sensors on the garage doors to tell if they are open or close. I also have the sensors to prevent them closing if there is something underneath. I know there are a couple of options for automating the opening/closing - what did you use? I would like to have the Siri open the garage door! Thanks.
Looks like I better head off soon, to try and avoid the traffic in NY... 
... Tomorrow...
You can come and go whenever you’d like, but you’ll probably never avoid traffic in NY 
.
I agree 100%. I would love to say that HE can automate my life but between the 3 year old, 6 year old, and wife, our life is not predictable enough in most cases. I probably have more hands-free automations on my Android phone using Tasker because my phone is dependent on just me. Most of my Node Red flows let me turn off multiple lights from multiple locations using Picos so I don't rely on the architect's/electrician's decisions years ago. I only have a couple of dashboards that I use regularly; one that controls my psuedo-security system and another that controls my home theater devices.
For me, HE isn't a Home Automation device, it is a Home Convenience device.
Respect.
That is Aretha Franklin, not Billy Joel.
LOL...love 'em both, and I bet they both liked (and respected) each others careers.
I think I needed to add the Siri shortcuts because I’m using my garage via HomeBridge (virtual garage exposed to HomeBridge - actual controller is a Fibaro Smart Implant).
I'm using the Zooz Garage Door Opener app available in the Hubitat Package Manager. I have a tilt sensor and a zigbee relay. I sacrificed an old remote control and wired it to the relay. The Zooz app pulls it all together and has worked perfectly ever since. You'll find what you need in this excellent thread. Local Control Options for MyQ Garage Door Openers
Just my $0.02.
I use the hubitat dashboard daily. And I mean, DAILY.
I work from home; and it is on one of my three screens all day long.
It is basically my "Command Center" for watching real-time events in my home.
Now, I know I could set up rules for most things... if I were a robot, and lived life every day exactly the same way as the day before. But, unfortunately, I am human. I have two kids. And our life is anything but routine.
Having the dashboard is a necessity for me. Admittedly, I have tried some of the other dashboards; but find myself coming back to the native hubitat dashboard. Would I be opposed to an updated UI, of course not. Do I feel it works for what I need, absolutely!
Here is a screenshot of my dash:
I have been watching your interactions with the community and your app over the past week or two. Congratulations on all the hard work!!
So, my house is a quad level, with a basement. There are five levels in my house. Some of the levels overlap. I could not imagine what that would look like in a "flat" floor plan. I guess I could have tiles for each "level" of the house. Then I would have five tiles?
I will probably give it a try soon. It does look amazing. Thank you very much for the recommendation.
Probably not a popular opinion but here goes. I finally got around to installing Home Assistant just to see things a little more clearly. First off getting it running in my docker container was a pain. One environment variable threw off the whole thing and it wouldn't run. The error was not clear at all even in the terminal window, Someone pointed me to an old thread on the HA forums. Then getting HACS installed was no picnic either. Configuration and install is not that straight forward even for a linux person like me. (To be fair I do more in windows than linux but I still can get around). So finally get HACS installed. Figure out how to install the Hubitat integration and get it configured with Maker API. Great, now devices being populated. Gotta say I'm not a huge fan of the dashboard. (That said, I not the greatest fan of Apple's either). I really don't use dashboards in general except to look at the status of a few things. So that was a disappointment. No the main UI.... Honestly I don't see that much diff in the way building rules is handled. (Hubitat definitely has some better mechanisms than HA). HA does look a bit nicer in the fact that it's fatter but there is a lot of scrolling going on during creation that annoys me. I do like the thermostat displays on HA better though. So all in all I like Hubitat's ui better. Sure HA's dashboards might be more to other dashboard people's liking, that ultimately doesn't matter to me. Hubitat's UI is definitely more slim.
Download the Hubitat app
