Will the UI ever get better?

stephen_nutt · September 27, 2023, 2:02pm

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.

danabw · September 27, 2023, 3:24pm

Respect.

neonturbo · September 27, 2023, 11:19pm

That is Aretha Franklin, not Billy Joel.

danabw · September 27, 2023, 11:24pm

LOL...love 'em both, and I bet they both liked (and respected) each others careers.

dJOS · September 27, 2023, 11:38pm

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).

wiegout · September 28, 2023, 10:12am

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

joshlobe · September 28, 2023, 1:35pm

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.

Kids forgot to turn off lights before bed; click to turn off lights.
Hear something strange outside; click to open camera feed.
Want to listen to some mood music; click to open media player.
Want to see the weather before leaving the house; click to open weather map.
Want to check the live traffic; click to open live traffic map.
Want to tweak the thermostat a few degrees; click the up/down arrow a couple times.

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:

joshlobe · September 28, 2023, 3:43pm

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.

rlithgow1 · September 28, 2023, 4:25pm

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.

danabw · September 28, 2023, 4:39pm

> Will the UI ever get better?

Gotta admit, starting to wonder the same about this topic...

SmartHomePrimer · September 28, 2023, 6:04pm

There are limitations and they come from many sources. Bottom line today FWIW...

You want a better dashboard, use HomeKit.
You're have an Apple-phobia, use Google Home.

If one feels the admin UI is so bad they need a better looking UI to build automations, you are probably underutilizing your hub potential.

wiegout · September 28, 2023, 6:29pm

Well I did get the shortcuts made and they work from an iPhone or a Mac. But they never show up on CarPlay. No Shortcuts ever show up in CarPlay actually. There must be another step somewhere.

bobbyD · September 28, 2023, 7:13pm

Please update to latest version and let us know if the problem is resolved...

djh_wolf · September 28, 2023, 8:40pm

Exactly

tray_e · September 28, 2023, 9:28pm

I will state that I would agree that the dashboards could appear rudimentary. However, I went out of my way to make sure that those that are non-technical in my house (Which includes everyone but me and several visitors) to not even notice that they were interacting with smart features.

To that end, anything that can't, shouldn't, or wouldn't always be 100% automated is controlled through conventional looking buttons and switches. There are 4 button controllers behind each couch and the only thing to learn was special taps for special actions. Since those were actions that were requested by those users, teaching the usage was easy as they wanted that feature to work. It's also much easier to reach behind your head and tap a button than pulling out a phone, unlocking it, opening an app, picking a dashboard, then clicking whatever button you want to control. But, I set up simple dashboards with shortcuts on their phones for them if that is what they want to do.

Additionally, I have exposed most of the lights and switches to Google and Alexa so that if we don't want to get up, we can vocally request it from the nearest speaker.

I have three tablets, one on each floor, running on fully kiosk that have all the key switches for each floor. As we walk by, we can see the status at a glance (did we leave the garage open? Okay, speak the magic phrase and she who shall not be named will close it. Did we leave the front door unlocked? Again, she who shall not be named will fix that too). We aren't walking to the tablets to do anything usually because we don't need to.

The one rare use I have is the automation I have for my Green Egg Grill with Fireboard controller. I set the grill temp variable and meat flip temp variable from a dashboard so that I will get voice notifications once the grill is at temperature, and again when the meat is ready to flip, and when it is done. That was easily set up with the built in dashboards.

So, while I agree it could be more polished, I haven't really found a need for it to do anything it doesn't already do. In fact, I have had several visitors comment how cool it was to walk by the dashboard and see everything on the floor. I suppose it is all a matter of perspective...... Tomato or tomato........

aaiyar · September 28, 2023, 9:50pm

FWIW, Tile Builder is from @garyjmilne. I'm sure @user6649 wouldn't want to take credit for someone else's work!

joshlobe · September 29, 2023, 1:56am

Ugh. I feel like an idiot. I don't know where my information is coming from.. lol. It's been a long week. Apologies for my confusion. Still.. awesome app!

danabw · September 29, 2023, 2:40am

Well, we have been hanging out a lot but I deny everything!

doctorkb · September 29, 2023, 3:43am

I had similar issues getting started with HAss.

Finally just deployed the OVA on my ESXi host and it seems to have been more foolproof.

Some of the dashboard stuff in HA is rudimentary... But still leap years ahead of HE in capabilities. Not to mention it doesn't take 5-10 seconds of loading screens before showing anything. There are also a bunch of add-ons available to improve it further.

I haven't looked at the rules engine there. I started working with Node-RED as well and that seems to take the cake on most of those use cases.

djw1191 · September 29, 2023, 4:01am

I don’t mean to get off topic and I’m no home assistant fanboy, but what environment variable were you setting? I just double checked my running container and other than some custom stuff I do with docker networks and volume mounting for configs, it’s a plain old deployed container that didn’t require anything special.

It’s been a while since I installed HACS but I don’t recall it being overly complicated. Seems like it should just be a one liner command after you exec into the container. Either way, like I said no skin in the game, I will always advocate for everyone to use the tools that work best for them and other than dashboarding and a couple of cloud integrations I’m still more of a Hubitat fanboy.

I have personally gotten to a pretty good point with my mobile dashboard. In case anyone wants inspiration. (Highly influenced by a YouTube tutorial i watched at some point)