1. ActionTiles Forum
  2. Things & Capabilities
  3. CoRE and webCoRE
  4. Questions & Discussions
+5
Discuss

SolarEdge tile, or taking global variable and making a tile

Barry Murphy 7 years ago in Things & Capabilities / CoRE and webCoRE • updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 7 years ago • 2 • 1 duplicate

Hi there guys,


I'm using a device type to collect data on my solar edge solar array, it can be found here - https://github.com/strelitzia123/SmartThings/blob/master/devicetypes/Solaredge/solaredge.groovy


For some reason when authorising devices in my home, the device for solar edge is not showing, thus i can't show anything in action tiles of current solar production. How would i go about getting this data onto my action tiles?


I have some other global variables I've set in WebCoRE, so i can automate my house when production is low, or when electricity prices are high. Currently the two variables I have is $solarproductionkw and $wholesalespotprice ; i'd like to put these onto tiles displayed at all times and even try change the colour of them depending on value if at all possible.


Any help would be much appreciated.

Duplicates 1
+1
Discuss
Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 7 years ago

Hi Saeed,


This can (mostly) be done on the SmartThings side by creating a "Virtual Power" Device Type and writing a SmartApp (or using WebCoRE) to set and update its consolidated value. There is no Capability "power bill", so for now you would have to store that in a "Virtual Energy" Device Type instead.


Someone in the SmartThings Community Forum has probably produced something like this already (e.g., a Virtual Temperature Sensor with average temperatures...); so that's a great place to research and ask your question too. https://community.SmartThings.com


Someday we might consider doing such "sensor consolidation" at the front-end in ActionTiles itself (we've brainstormed about it); but there are a lot of advantages to doing it in the back-end and it really is a feasible workaround, since we have so much else to focus on. 


Thanks,

...Terry.

Discuss
Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 7 years ago

Hi Barry, 


For obvious business reasons, we designed and launched ActionTiles to serve the mass market of "average SmartThings customers", and left the long-tail to the path of evolution.


That means our Tiles are designed to be compliant with devices (and Device Type Handlers) that are properly conforming to the official documented SmartThings Capabilities (Switch, Contact Sensor, and so on).


If your device type is conforming (and it must also claim Capability "Sensor"!) then it can be authorized to ActionTiles and the ActionTiles supported Capabilities will be available to use as Tiles.

We have multiple requests for extending our platform in various ways, including handling ad hoc custom Attributes and Commands and degrees of WebCoRE integration. We are certainly listening to this, but we need to place this idea in relative priority against the long list of requests that would benefit the maximum number of Customers ahead of the edge- case "power users".

Discussion Topics like this one (and the associated Topic VOTES) help us understand the scope and breadth and usefulness of this concept, so that we can internally plan the evolution of our product appropriately.


Thanks for your contribution to our Forum.

Customer support service by UserEcho