ActionTiles Support & Ideas Forum

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0
Discuss & Vote

Configure switch tile as contact sensor?

Max R 5 years ago in Panels (dashboards) updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 1

Hi all, I might be overlooking the obvious, yet here goes.

I have several virtual switches configured in ST for various purposes. One such vswitch is controlled by a Webcore piston monitoring the Watt usage on a smartplug: If said appliance is using more than X watts, turn v.switch on and vice versa.


While said v.switch is used for other logic elsewhere, I'd like to display the status of the switch, much like a contact sensor in ActionTiles. That way it just displays as ON/OFF, yet can't be inadvertently toggled by the Mugglers around the house.

Any ideas for a workaround, or is this something worthy of a feature request? Thanks.

Answer

You have a few options:

  1. Use Switch Tiles, but add PIN Protection to them so that they can't be accidentally toggled.
  2. or Modify your Virtual Switch DTH to also claim Capability "Contact Sensor" and have it concurrently send an "open" event whenever the switch is toggled "on", and "closed" when the switch turned "off".

    This Virtual Sensor will now offer Tiles of type Switch and type Contact Sensor.
+2
Discuss & Vote

Webcams not refreshing when opened

Jani 5 years ago in Media Tiles / Video Camera Feeds updated 5 years ago 2

Hi,

I have two different panels with webcam feeds (mjpeg). When viewing panel and clicking one of the webcam feeds I get bigger window of that certain webcam. When I close that windows it doesn't show feed anymore because it freezes and shows only still photo of that moment when bigger window was closed. Whole panel has to be refreshed to wake webcam stream again. Opening one of the streams doesn't freeze other webcam feeds. It only freezes one that was opened. If I open other still working feeds they all act same way. Any ideas how to fix this?

It doesn't matter if I'm using laptop or tablet. It happens in every device.

Answer

Hi Jani,

Media Tiles are very tricky for us, since we are trying to find technical solution that would work for most browsers and camera models. Unfortunately, there are more combinations of software and hardware than we can reliably support.

Some cameras only allow one stream to be opened at one time, so when the image is enlarged, the camera might be having trouble closing one video stream and opening another one right away.

We have come across some new information and have a new idea to implement. This would hopefully address your issue, however we cannot provide an ETA for a solution at this time.

We invite you to reach out to ActionTiles community or SmartThings User Group on Facebook for peer support. We have great and helpful communities.

Thanks

Alex

0
Discuss

Help with Fully, AT, Fire HD10, DakBoard?

Jamie Pryer 5 years ago in Browsers Tablets Phones updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 3

Hey all,

firstly, LOVE the software - spent hours getting everything setup, which im really happy with!

current setup includes a new FireHD 10" + Dock, Fully, ActionTiles - plus some other cool things like Ring, Rotation Control, Automateit etc...

My question:


I've setup fully to show my DakBoard home screen, with a button over to my AT.

I thought I had disabled all locks on my FireHD, however it somehow keeps locking, which is a real pain.


Any pointers, or can this not be stopped?

What i want is for Dakboard to always display but screen should sleep after 30 min (Black/dim) and then wake on touch/motion. Currently it just keeps locking and i have to swipe up to unlock (not a pain but just curious if i can stop this!)

Fire
0

Windows 8.1 RT Surface with Kiosk Sp Browser

mbarbonneau 5 years ago in Browsers Tablets Phones / Windows updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 0

I'm using a Kiosk SP browser from Microsoft Store its working fine but there no way to save the credential for Actiontiles I was wondering if someone had any luck using embedded credential I'm not sure how to do that. Also is there a software that you would recommend for Microsoft surface with 8.1 RT?

Thank you!

Windows
+29
Discuss & Vote

Smart Home Monitor (SHM) intention colors

ash stokes 6 years ago in Colors Icons Fonts Themes updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 7

Hello,


I think what would be useful with the tile intention options, is for the smart home monitor tile, if disarmed, just display grey (as it currently does), if it's Armed (Stay) it should be yellow (as it currently does), but if it's armed (away) then should be red. The reason being is I've got outside motion sensors e.g. garage connected to the alarm which are rarely gone in and then motion sensors in the main rooms we'd go in if we were home so looking at the dashboard would easily be identifiable by colour to see if smartthings had failed to return the alarm to Home (stay) by geo-location, stopping walking in and setting the alarm off.


Cheers,

+6
Discuss & Vote

Enhanced webCoRE presence sensor integration

Shane William 6 years ago in Things & Capabilities / CoRE and webCoRE updated by KalaCanel 5 years ago 2

When using the webcore presence sensor it is possible to set a "home" location and that works great with actiontiles for showing present/not present. I am wondering if it would be possible to enhance it further to have the location show at the bottom since you can set multiple geofences in webcore. So when i'm in my "home" location it would light up like normal, however when i leave, if i arrive at another geofence location it would not light up but at the bottom the text would read "work" or whatever the geofence name i have setup in webcore would be. I'll post an example picture below shortly. 

Image 1989Image 1988

0
Answered: Discussion Open

How Send notifications/text sensor is triggered in actiontiles

Patrick McCabe 6 years ago in Panels (dashboards) / Notifications & Sound updated by Sam 5 years ago 7

I have tried to use Smart Home Monitor to send a text or notification when motion or multi-sensor is triggered. Problem is that it is sending reminder text every hour. 1) I know you can dismiss it in the samsung smartapp, but I would like to do it on the actiontiles panel. 2) If 1 is not possible can we send notifications/ texts in actiontiles or another way through Samsung besides using the monitor. Thanks in advanced

0
Discuss & Vote

Admin Notes Field in Panel Builder

Max R 5 years ago in Configuration & Settings updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 1

Hi, when working with multiple panels I would find it useful to have a notes field in the admin interface. If you could add a multiline text field, for example under the panel name it would be great. It doesn't have any connection to the rendered panels, just a place where I can store descriptions, purposes, todo's and similar stuff.

0
Discuss & Vote

Nest Cam cameras

bbensten 5 years ago in Media Tiles / Video Camera Feeds updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 5

Has there been any progress made on using NEST cameras that are not Public in Actiontiles?  My Actiontiles setup is so close to perfect but not having my camera feeds makes it fall just short.  I am hoping there has been some progress in the last year.

Answer

We have done minimal research on this because video is not our area of expertise or focus. ActionTiles is firstly a "view & touch" browser-compatible dashboard control app for SmartThings. Media Tiles are a convenient bonus feature subject to the limitations of a web-app / browser viewer.

   

There are a few articles on the net which refer to either official APIs for Nest products and/or unofficial hacks.

We invite any tech savvy readers to develop "proofs-of-concept" which stream a Nest Cam in a plain browser window, iFrame, <img> or <video> embeds, and if the concept is sound, we would be inspired to explore it further.

A few example starting points:




Most likely feasible: 1 fps snapshots served via tinyCam Monitor Pro:


The clever developer of the Android App - tinyCam Monitor Pro is the only application which supports logging into and streaming Wyze Cams; even though tinyCam has open sourced the unofficial API they discovered & used:

Well, tinyCam Monitor also supports Nest Cam but, consistent with the API limitations described above), only at a maximum of 1 frame-per-second. In other words, it probably grabs JPEG snapshots and assembles them into a stream. Since tinyCam Monitor Pro can transcode to MJPEG by spinning up internal web server, this stream should embed into ActionTiles just like Wyze Cam - including basic user/password protection.

If similar to Wyze, then tinyCam must use your Nest credentials to login to your camera(s). This has certain risks, since you can't be 100% certain tinyCam doesn't leak your credentials or use them to access other functions of your Nest Account (thermostat, security, etc.). Whether this is more or less secure overall than just using a public live view of each Nest Cam, is up to you to decide.


The various examples above may be somewhat more direct in accessing JPG snapshots from a Nest Cam - but they are non-trivial. tinyCam is most feasible because we already know that it "gets the job done" (imperfectly) for Wyze Cam and local RTSP cameras, so I'm rather confident if they claim Nest works, it will work.


You can run the tinyCam Monitor Pro Android App on the same tablet as ActionTiles (though that does not increase efficiency and can hurt tablet performance), or on another Android tablet, Android emulator, or Android TV Box. I am currently testing this $36 low-end S904W based Android TV box with tinyCam (for 2 Wyze Cams), and so far the results aren't bad. I'll write up my results in more detail if the configuration turns out to be stable.

So... Why not give tinyCam Monitor Pro a try?


...Terry.

+24
Discuss & Vote

Tile Size & Theme per Tileset

Adam 7 years ago in Panels (dashboards) updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 9

I would love to be able to set Tile Size per tileset, rather than per panel...

At the moment, in order to have two large media tiles at the top, and lots of smaller buttons at the bottom, this has to be done with an HTML file on a local server, to load the two panels. It would be nice to be able to set the tile size setting on tilesets, rather than just on Panels.

Answer

Customization of some stylings at the Tileset level are easier than others (e.g., I guess a Tileset could have its own colors).


Mixing different base Tile Pixel Dimensions in one Panel, however, would result in some non-deterministic layout quirks. Squeezing this into the current layout engine would be interesting ... but probably troublesome.

0
Discuss & Vote

Ability to duplicate tiles within a tileset?

Max R 5 years ago in Configuration & Settings updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 1

Perhaps it's how I work when designing my panels, yet I would love to see the ability to copy/clone/dupliucate individual tiles within tilesets. I know I can copy entire tilesets from one panel to another, however I find it useful to build my indivudual panels as tables as that way I can drag the different tiles around between the tilesets, copying them out to their individual panels once I'm happy with them. As two or more panels quite often may share some tiles, a clone/duplicate tile feature would come in real handy.

0
Answered: Discussion Open

Use a Tile with Fully Kiosk to open an external web page and navigate back to AT when done?

SackOHammers 5 years ago in Media Tiles / Website Views updated 5 years ago 1

I want to be able to see and interact with my shared "Family" Google calendar. There may be a better way, but this is what I'm doing:

In ActionTiles I have created an ActionTiles shortcut that links directly to the URL of my shared Google Calendar.

In my Home Panel, I have a tile that simply opens that Shortcut. I have the ActionTile option set to "Open shortcut in the same window". Assuming I'm logged into Google, it opens the calendar.


But now I'm sort of stuck with how to navigate back to my Home ActionTiles panel from the Google Calendar. Is there a combination of settings in Fully Kiosk (with plus) that I can use to make this behave desirably?  To navigate from Google, but without needing Fully Kiosk navigation bars present when using ActionTiles


Or maybe there is a more elegant approach or integration for working with my google calendar. In my searches I haven't found one.

Android
Answer
SackOHammers 5 years ago

Disregard my post.  For those that come after me, I found the solution here:

https://support.actiontiles.com/communities/12/topics/1255-open-android-app-or-app-activity-via-url-formatted-shortcut

While the solution has changed very slightly because of an update to Fully Kiosk, it is basically the same.

  • In Fully Kiosk, I went to Settings>Web Content Settings and turned on "Open URL Schemes in Other Apps".
  • Then I went back one menu in Fully Kiosk settings and went into "Universal Launcher".
  • Select "Select Items to Show".  I couldn't get it to work by using "Add URL" as described in the support doc above.  However, I used "Add Application", and from there it lists applications installed on my tablet.  I chose the Google Calendar app and it automatically entered "com.google.android.calendar/com.android.calendar.AllInOneActivity" for me.
  • Then I went to ActionTiles.  I created a shortcut and used the URL "intent:#Intent;launchFlags=0x10000000;component=com.google.android.calendar/com.android.calendar.AllInOneActivity;end".
  • Then I added an ActionTile to my Panel using that shortcut.  Make sure to go into the Tile Settings for that ActionTile and click the radio button "Open shortcut in the same window".
    Now I have an action tile that will launch Google Calendar in a Fully Kiosk window, and it will have the navigation bar at the bottom to let me return to ActionTiles when I'm done with the calendar.  The behaviour is as exactly as I wanted.
0
Answered: Discussion Open

Embedded Video credentials blocked by Chrome: What's the risk to not using a username/password?

Michael Beatty 5 years ago in Security updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 1

So after tooling around for a while trying to figure out why my Media Tiles (Wyze Cams) no longer worked and eventually discovered that I could get it to work by logging in directly to the URL via browser then it would work in Action Tiles in that same browser but not being able to do it in the Action Tiles app because you can't just enter a URL directly into it and getting 95% of the way through opening a support ticket and then finding this handy Knowledge Based article https://support.actiontiles.com/knowledge-bases/8/articles/5508-media-tile-broken-due-to-url-with-userpasswordaddress-embedded-credentials explaining that Chrome, Android Webview (including Fully and ActionTiles android apps), and most Firefox browsers are now blocking embedded credentials.  I get it, not ActionTiles fault, nothing they can do about it.  Moving on...

Simple fix.... remove the login credentials from my web server on TinyCam Pro.... Problem solved right away.  

However, now I'm a little worried....what risk am I exposing myself too?   I'm a programmer by trade, but I'm not all that privy on internet security.  My my understanding is that the Tiny Cam web server that's running on my Kindle is on my local network and traffic to it is blocked in my routers firewall.  With out setting up port forwarding and explicitly allowing a connection from the outside world into my LAN, I really shouldn't have any concerns.  Is that correct?  I have no intention on opening up ports on my router as I have no need for remote access into Tiny Cam, I can just view the cameras in my Wyze app.  So am I safe?

Thanks

+1
Answered: Discussion Open

Z-Wave Somfy Blinds

anap40 6 years ago in Shortcut Tiles updated by Bruce Young 5 years ago 11

When I authorize my somfy Z-wave shades it only shows up as a battery tile, it doesn't let me open or close the blinds like it does straight from the smart things app

0
Waiting for Customer

Battery in footer for Siren Tile

Michael700 5 years ago in Things & Capabilities updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 1

It would make my main panel look better and save same space as well.

I have battery powered Sirens outdoors and mains powered Sirens indoors.

I don't mind if the battery icon is visible in the footer for mains powered things, I already have it on some of my motion sensors.

Android
+5
Discuss & Vote

Padding, letter spacing and fonts

W_B 5 years ago in Colors Icons Fonts Themes updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 5

I'm new to ActionTiles, researched a bit.. No css customisaton possible!?

I want to have ActionTiles all over my house, but with the design it has now, it's just not pleasant to look at, regardless of colors..

I believe with a few small changes, ActionTiles could have an even bigger user base..

For Example:

Existing design:

Image 3446

New Design:

Image 3447

Changes are:

Font size of clock to smaller

padding-top: 10px;

padding-bottom: 10px;

letterspacing: 2px;

Now it's acceptable for use..

Possibility to change font would make it even better.

In web design spacing of elements are one of the most important things... just saying.

Answer

We currently don't offer an official way to supply custom CSS, however we have plans to enable this functionality.

The current styling of tiles provides a consistent look across all tile types. Since some tiles contain more text than others, sometime loose letter spacing results in inefficient use of tile real estate. We experimented with mixed font sizes at some point, but our user study group has voted against it.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. While I agree with you that your Clock Tile sample is very attractive, we have to go by the 80/20 rule. Since it's not always possible to come up with absolutely best configuration, we have to select one that works most of the time.

As the product evolves, we will add more customization options to satisfy users who have the finer eye for web design. 

0
Fixed

Battery Icons in Footers suddenly big on Lock Tiles

Avi 5 years ago in Colors Icons Fonts Themes updated by Alex (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 4

Happy New Year!

As of recent days, the battery icons for locks (and locks only) seem to be gigantic compared to the size expected.  Seems like a style somewhere gone wrong - any advice would be appreciated.  Picture attached.  Using Chrome browser but apparent on others as well.  Thank you.

Image 3153

+8
Fixed

Blank tiles on bottom row causing scroll bar to appear

adamp 6 years ago in Panels (dashboards) updated by Alex (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 5 years ago 5

Having an empty tile on the bottom row is causing a blank extra row to be created on the bottom - thereby causing the vertical scroll bar to appear. I believe it's creating an extra row because the scroll is exactly the amount of a row if there was an extra row. Replacing blank tiles on the bottom row with other tile types resolves the issue. A possible work around would be capturing a black image, and making that media tile 1x1.


Checking the .css - it looks like md-content {overflow: auto} instead of {overflow: hidden} is set from angular-material.min.css. Changing to hidden resolves the issue (although this essentially hides scroll bars - so not sure if that would be ideal for everyone else). Perhaps a future feature would be to provide a toggle to show/hide scroll bars? And on your end if hide is selected, to set overflow: hidden.


Thanks


Capture.PNG


This is what's shown in Chrome on Win10. The panel itself is being displayed on a Fire HD 7 in Fully browser. Though the scroll bar does NOT show within Fully, you can still accidentally swipe up, and the tiles will scroll down since the extra space does exist. All of the other panels are fine, and I guess it's because I don't have any blank tiles in any of the last tile sets.


I've also tried playing around having everything in 1 tile set (e.g. setting the blank tiles to 1x3) - that actually ended up producing more space below the panel.


Thanks.

0
Thanks & Discuss

Nest Hello suddenly started auto-playing within it's media tile

Brian C 5 years ago in Media Tiles / Video Camera Feeds updated 5 years ago 5

Image 3451

I hope I'm not the only one but my Nest Hello doorbell camera today started auto-playing video within its media tile without having to click on it and press play like I previously had to. I assume someone waved their magic wand and made this work. Kudos to you!

Android Fire
+1
Discuss & Vote

Indicator that Tile has been tapped

Israel Derdik 5 years ago in Panels (dashboards) updated 5 years ago 2

When I tap a tile on a Panel, it sometimes takes a second or to for the light/switch to turn on and show the confirmation. This leads me (and other family members) to think the tap didn't register and then re-tap, sometimes resulting in turning the switch off again! It would be great to have some immediate feedback of a tap in the form of a "mouse down"-type event (when your finger touches the tile) during which the tile lights up momentarily until the mouse-up even occurs (i.e. you remove your finger from the screen). This way, we'd have a visual indicator that our tap was successful.