Echo hub looks interesting but seems to require more power than my existing fire tablet, which runs off wiring from my previous alarm system. As it stands, Echo requires an ugly looking power cord running to a power outlet. Anyone got a better idea?

Hi, i have been investigating a good solution for a touchscreen mounted on the wall. First idea was a tablet with nice looking wall bracket, but i hear it isnt really safe by having the battery plugged continuously, and removing a battery and just plugging into a different power source is not easy and not always working, from what i can find. So i started looking into either tablets or screens with and android OS that dont have a battery or a touchscreen that i can control with an external source. And here 

I am getting a bit stuck, so i am wondering about the solutions you have at your homes and what kind of recommendations there are in the market. 

Referring to following topic though my post is only applicable to Android Chrome and Fully Kiosk browsers (both using android system webview version 111.0.5563.58) https://support.actiontiles.com/communities/12/topics/9592-images-on-media-tiles-are-not-loading-on-google-chrome-browser

It seems this problem started happening after the last android update (Samsung Tab A).

It seems http media tiles are no longer accepted in actiontiles. The (local network) http URLs display correctly if requested directly from the browsers, but seems to fail (broken link) when using actiontiles.

Is there a workaround for this? My ipcams unfortunately don't provide https interface :(. 

The "Mixed Content Mode" switch in Fully Kiosk doesn't seem to help (this was also the recommendation from the Fully Support.

Any ideas welcome, I'd prefer to avoid having to set up an https reverse proxy.

I am looking for a tile for just the current outside temperature. I do not want a multiday tile, just a super basic current outside temperature. I am also fine with buying a sensor that I can mount outside that will work with smartthings

I spent some time this week trying to figure out how to add stock data as a media tile and thought I'd share what I learned. There are a few steps involved and it's not as simple as I initially hoped, but it's also pretty flexible and could easily be expanded to other uses. Essentially, this can turn any Google Sheet into a media tile, so it can be used for much more than stock data.

Background

This started by wanting to display stock tickers as a media tile. I first came across a great post on being able to turning any json data into a badge, but this had the limitation of only being able to display one piece of data. I wanted to be able to display a few different tickers in one tile.

https://support.actiontiles.com/en/communities/12/topics/2707-live-traffic-travel-time-tile-image-from-query-text-using-shieldsio

(As an aside, Google provides instructions for getting JSON feeds from spreadsheet data: https://developers.google.com/gdata/samples/spreadsheet_sample)

I also came across this post explaining how to create a media tile from a stock chart, but that also wasn't quite what I wanted: https://support.actiontiles.com/en/communities/12/topics/3014-stock-ticker-tile

Part 1 - Create a public link to Google Sheets data

Example spreadsheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Id-49n-MnAG6MpzrI3WKAuXXaosg7WVR6PFBIhh8ryY/edit#gid=0

First create a spreadsheet that contains whatever information will be displayed in the tile and share it (File->Share) so it doesn't require a login to view. Then take the spreadsheet ID (the long string in that URL) and sheet ID (the part after gid=) from the link to that sheet and insert them into this link below. You can also specify a range of cells if you only want to use a portion of the sheet. (Reference)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/SpreadsheedID/pubhtml?single=true&gid=SheetID&range=D15:E15&widget=false&chrome=false&headers=false

For this example, the link is:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Id-49n-MnAG6MpzrI3WKAuXXaosg7WVR6PFBIhh8ryY/htmlembed?single=true&gid=0&range=A2:C5&widget=false&chrome=false&headers=false

This link can be used to create an iFrame tile under "My Shortcuts" in ActionTiles and you can stop here if that's all you need. The main shortcoming is that shortcut tiles don't auto update until you refresh the browser. You'll also need to adjust the width and height of the cells so that it fits well into the tile. 

If you want the tile to update without refreshing the browser and adjust its size automatically to fit the cell, then it needs to be turned into an image that can be used for a media tile which has a refresh rate.

Part 2a - create an image to be used as a media tiles

This part requires running a couple command line tools on a Linux server. I have a Raspberry Pi set up that I use for this.

The first tool is wkhtmltoimage which converts any webpage to an image. This supports creating svg, jpg, bmp, or png images. I found that svg is the best quality. The command is:

wkhtmltoimage --crop-w 224 --crop-h 112 --height 1024 "$imgURL" $outFile.svg

crop-w - the width of the spreadsheet range

crop-h - the height of the spreadsheet range

height - this just needs to be larger than crop-h. I found that the default value used was too small

imgURL - the public link to the spreadsheet URL

outFile - where the resulting image is stored

Here is the command I use for this example which outputs the image in a file called stock_example.svg

wkhtmltoimage --crop-w 224 --crop-h 112 --height 1024 "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Id-49n-MnAG6MpzrI3WKAuXXaosg7WVR6PFBIhh8ryY/htmlembed?single=true&gid=0&range=A2:C5&widget=false&chrome=false&headers=false" stock_example.svg

Part 2b - Create a link to the image

Now I use rclone to add the image to my Google Drive, but this also supports other services like Dropbox and Amazon Drive. (If you have your own web server, you could also just copy the file there and not worry about using rclone.) The command for rclone is:

rclone copy <outFile> <driveName>:<folder>

outFile - the path to the image that was created in the last step

driveName - this should be the name of the drive you set up when configuring rclone

folder - the name of the folder on my Google Drive where the image gets saved

For this example (with a drive gdrive and folder ActionTiles) the command is:

rclone copy stock_example.svg gdrive:ActionTiles

Part 2c - Automatic updates

Note: Here I explain how to share the image using Google Drive, but this could also be done with any service that rclone supports like Dropbox or Amazon Drive.

The last step is to automate all of this so that the data is updated periodically. To do that, I put the wkhtmltoimage and rclone commands into a script called updateStocks.sh and then set up a cron job to run at the desired interval. Here's my cron entry which runs every 10 minutes while the market is open (9-4 Mon-Fri)

*/10 9-16 * * 1-5 /home/pi/actiontiles/updateStocks.sh

Then in Google Drive, you need to share the image publicly and you'll get a link like this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15bxoWJeH4fbyzUz9G44I72Tly4nE0fkt/view?usp=sharing

The direct link to the image takes the below format, inserting the proper ID:

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=IMG_ID

So in this example the direct link to the image is:

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=15bxoWJeH4fbyzUz9G44I72Tly4nE0fkt

Then in ActionTiles, use that link for a media tile and set the refresh 600 seconds (or whatever refresh rate you prefer).

Some final notes

• One of the coolest parts of this is that any changes you make to the spreadsheet (values, colors, size, etc.) will automatically show up in ActionTiles. No extra steps are needed after the initial configuration.
• The width and height of the cells in your spreadsheet should be modified so that they fit nicely in a tile
• I also made the background color of my cells match the color used by the ActionTiles theme
• When generating the .svg image, thin cell borders are added. I haven't found a way to get rid of this
• wkhtmltoimage seems to cache the site. Sometimes it takes a few minutes after updating the spreadsheet before the image produced from this tool is updated

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Please comment if you have any questions or come up with other ideas of how to use Google Sheets to create interesting tiles!

In early July 2023, some unspecified SmartThings platform changes had unexpected consequences that affected some Virtual/Simulated switches.

https://community.smartthings.com/t/legacy-virtual-switches-stopped-working-july-2023/265871

This had impact on SmartThings Home Monitor workaround that many users have been using successfully for years.

SmartThings platform is changing rapidly with some tools and processes become obsolete. We created a new knowledge base article that describes the process to integrate SmartThings Home Monitor with ActionTiles using the current tools.

SmartThings released the the IDE that facilitates creation of virtual devices:

https://my.smartthings.com/advanced

If your existing STHM integration workaround is not working, it is recommended to remove previously created Virtual/Simulated switches and recreate the integration using the following instructions:

https://support.actiontiles.com/knowledge-bases/8/articles/13332-smartthings-home-monitor-workaround-2023

Am migrating our entry tablet into ActionTiles.  Using a basic Android tablet with a countdown timer widget (kids usually want Christmas, I want the day they all move out).  Is there a way to add a countdown timer tile to ActionTiles?  I tried using a couple online countdown timers but they don't seem to display correctly in the tile (they are just a link to that page).  Any ideas?

Hi, has anyone used puffin browser to display panels?

Have a problem it's loging me out every 4hrs approx

I have an EZVIZ C1C wireless camera and a EZVIZ X5C NVR. I am trying to get the live camera feeds to display in actiontiles. I am new to this and can't seem to figure it out. 

Hello everyone,

my camera's are very laggy. Time is jumping two seconds and a lot of other problems. 

Running actiontiles on a Lenovo tablet. Three reolink onvif camera's running on tinycam pro. 

Does someone has a solution??

I'm a long time Actiontiles user, who recently started developing an app called DockScreen Google Play

Its an app for keeping your screen on and viewing your notifications and news, it also has a webview that can display the Actiontiles web app..

It can also autoupdate websites so it solved that problem for me with Actiontiles.

I'm wondering if any actiontiles users will test it and give some feedback for further development.. 

I'm sharing this for others to use!

Use this Media Still Image URL:

https://sunsettile.app/sunset?lat=38.7535121&long=-120.5807933&bgcolor=3b3749&fgcolor=ffffff&size=3x2

Use the base URL https://sunsettile.app/sunset for sunset and https://sunsettile.app/sunrise for sunrise

Required parameters: 

lat (latitude)

long (longitude)

bgcolor (background color  - hex color without #)

fgcolor (foreground color - hex color without #)

Optional parameters:

timeformat=24 (For 24 hour time)

offset= (number of minutes, positive or negative)

Please set the refresh time to at least every 12 hours (43200 seconds) to be nice to my server.

Currently, I can see the air quality CO2, PM2.5, PM10, AQI, Temp, and Humidity in Hubitat tiles, but in ActionTiles, I cannot access PM2.5, PM10 and AQI.  Any idea how I can get these attributes from Hubitat over to ActionTiles?

I am currently using VLC to encode my RTSP camera feeds from Unfi Protect so that they are usable on AT.

The issue I am having is that if I refresh one of my dashboards, the feeds will take 20-40 seconds to load. When using these Cameras to check all is ok around my property it can obviously become quite frustrating with such a wait before getting a live view.

Is anyone else experiencing delays with this?

I am using a server with plenty on resource for VLC.

I am having the delay with all devices whether it be edge, chrome, android tablets running AT app. Even tried safari on an iPad.

Can an Amcrest NVR output a format that could be shown in ActionTiles?

Hi there!

I just purchased the Aeotec 360 Cam.

Works fine in the Android Smartthings App. But I cant find any information how to extract the stream and get it work with ActionTiles.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Rakete

On my Fire Tablet HD 10, under developer options, I accidentally changed the

minimum width to 80 instead of 800...Now when I turn on the tablet, after the

startup, the factory fire logos appear, then screen just goes to a blank page

that appears to be frozen..How can I reset wh

Hi everyone!  This one really is only going to be good for T1Ds (like me) or parents of kids with T1D that also wear a CGM. 

I set up Nightscout on a Heroku instance and have it iFramed to my ActionTile panels, including the one I have in my Tesla.  Really great for awareness, and you can set color thresholds to help keep me in range.