+1
On Hold: Discussion Open

Combined Door Contact & Lock Tile

mthomas98027 6 years ago in Panels (dashboards) / Special Tiles updated by Terry (ActionTiles) (Co-Founder) 6 years ago 1

Would it be possible to add what would essentially be a tri-state tile to represent a door and its lock?


  • Green - door is closed & locked
  • Yellow - door is closed & unlocked
  • Red - door is open (whether locked or unlocked)

It would save on real-estate on my panel.


Thanks.

On Hold: Discussion Open

Regarding the specific request:

This sort of special "Lockable Door" Tile would be a lot easier for us to implement if SmartThings actually defined it as a new distinct Capability, and encouraged the creation of actual hybrid Device Types that implement the Capability. We would like to avoid implementing arbitrary new constructs in ActionTiles UI that really belong in the back-end first.

Implementing this is non-trivial because it needs both a user-interface component (to let the user link the relevant Contact Sensor and Lock; and to map the 3 distinct states you list to Intents or custom appearances) and a processing component (to collate the Events from the 2 separate Things and update the combined Tile...).


Saving 1 Tile space on a Panel (per lockable door) is not sufficient justification for this implementation effort.


But this isn't only a one-case request...


We've had a few requests for "hybrid" or "combined" Tiles in various combinations, such as:



Another related note is that SmartThings provides a distinct Capability "Door" (currently used for "Garage Door") that is different than just "Contact". A "Door" has the transitional states of opening and closing, rather than just the contact states of opened & closed. But very few Things actually implement Capability "Door" ... because when you add a Contact Sensor, SmartThings doesn't know if you are placing it on a Door or a Window, nor does a Contact Sensor reliably know the door direction (opening/closing) - unless it is a sophisticated device like a Garage Door opener, electric gate, or other sort of powered door.


In other words, this may be most efficiently implemented when we get the opportunity to design an entire module for handling the unique architecture of "Hybrid Tiles", given that we have several different examples already.