Any Plans On Expanding Functionality?

I am really happy I found this. I literally almost bought ActionTiles. Needless to say, I chose SharpTools instead.

I did notice that ST doesnt have as many features as AT. That is okay but I was wondering if there was any plans on adding additional functionality. Like weather tiles or camera feeds.

Yes, we have plans for adding several additional tile types and some new features!

What do you see as the most important feature additions? We’re actively working on features now, so it’s helpful to know what the community finds most important.

Update: It’s neat to look back and see how far things have come!

Looking back at the SharpTools Announcements category and seeing how many features have been added thanks to community engagement and involvement shows just how amazing this community is!

Thanks to everyone for being a part of the community!

Feature ActionTiles SharpTools.io
Dashboards :white_check_mark: :white_check_mark:
Media :white_check_mark: :white_check_mark:
Hyperlinks :white_check_mark: :white_check_mark:
News Feeds limited :white_check_mark:
Calendars :x: :white_check_mark:
Album Art :x: :white_check_mark:
Hero Attribute Tile :x: :white_check_mark:
Rule Engine :x: :white_check_mark:
Custom Variables :x: :white_check_mark:
Multi Platform :x: :white_check_mark:
Always Free Tier :x: :white_check_mark:
Unlimited Hubs
included w/ License
:x: :white_check_mark:

I think first off the usual like a Nest integration (amazed SmartThings still doesnt have an official one) weather, and camera feeds. AT is limited on what cameras can be displayed on them. Even if SmartThings allows it. A prime example would be the Samsung SmartCam.

Also, perhaps making it where dashboards can be exported and shared with other users would be awesome.

Thanks for the detailed feedback!

For the Nest Integration, is there something specific you would want? Were you thinking that you would be able choose something like “Authorize Things” and then choose from a list of supported platforms where SmartThings might be one of the platforms and Nest is another?

Edit: :tada: Nest Cam and Nest Hello video doorbell experimental support is now available! :tada:

For the weather feeds, I was originally thinking you could just piggy back off the existing smart home platform’s weather integration, but are you looking for a specific type of weather integration? Like rather than showing a nice visual tile with the current weather, you wanted to be able to show an X-day forecast?

Edit: :cloud_with_lightning: Weather Tiles and Weather Images are not available!

Camera feeds are definitely on the list and I’ll need to put some more thought into how to best support them. I think a quick win would be to add image tile support which would add in support for many IP cameras (as many have a snapshot / JPEG interface). Do you have specific cameras that you want to integrate? Do you use Blue Iris or a similar NVR?

Edit: :camera: Media Tiles are now available!

Sharing dashboards is on the list. If you have specific use cases in mind, I’d love to hear them.

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@josh … love this! I had actually started building my own ST dash when I came across SharpTools web dash.

Any plans to put the code on Github so we can contribute PRs?

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I’m glad you like it!

My goal is to make the platform extensible with community contributed code - eg. custom tiles/cards and custom platform integrations. I have a number of core features prioritized before focusing on extensibility, but it’s on the list!

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Good deal. Hmu if you need any help :slight_smile:

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@Josh thought Id give you some input here.
The weather function in AT does just piggy back from the SmartThings system, or you can use an image from wunderground.com or other weather service in you area, post the link as a media tile and set the refresh to every few hours - This is already working in Sharptools and no need to make any changes. Sorry if Im late to the party here! Most of the weather services will allow up to a 5 or 7 day forecast if thats what you are looking for?

Regarding Camera’s… This become a bit of a tricky and has nothing to do with Sharptools or AT. Browsers dont support RSTP feeds and in most cases block the auto authentication.
This means that you have to convert the RSTP stream to MJPEGs which a lot of NVR’s dont support. So you need to run the process of using BlueIris/TinyCamPro/Rpi3 to convert the RSTP feed to MJPEG, OR search for an nvr that supports MJPEG. Ive stuck MotionOS onto an Rpi3 as the solution and now have 16 cameras all being pushed through that. Just a warning, pushing live feeds uses a lot of bandwidth, its all internal traffic so you dont need to worry about internet data, but it will clog up your network, particularly if you are streaming to 3 or 4 tablets.
Pushing them Directly from the NVR would be the same though…

Hope that helps and maybe gives a bit of clarity to the guys trying to get it right. Sadly nothing sharptools or AT can fix. Or not to my knowledge.

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Thanks for the feedback. :slight_smile: We’ve been working hard and quickly adding features including Media Tiles for cameras, Weather Tiles, and more! It’s fun to look back at some of the requests to see just how many features have been implemented in such a short time.

It’s less about what I want and more about what everyone else wants. :stuck_out_tongue:

As you noted, I already went ahead and implemented the Weather Tiles which work based on connected platform ‘weather’ devices (for both SmartThings and Hubitat) and the Media Tiles are a great workaround for forecasts. I’ve always had the vision that I’d like to add a native weather integration with native forecast tiles, but I’ve been surprised that it hasn’t been requested, so we’ve been working on other highly requested features!

As you’ve also noted, since @Dominique’s original post we’ve added Media Tiles which handle MJPEG streams and image snapshots. Many cameras directly offer an MJPEG or image snapshot URL and if it’s not in the manual, it’s often available in an online camera database like iSpyConnect.

Thanks for sharing your experience with MotionOS here and in the other thread - it’s great to hear the integrations and solutions people are using! You’re absolutely right that there are solutions like MotionEye, Blue Iris, TinyCam and other NVR like solutions which are often a great solution for bringing your cameras into a SharpTools dashboard if they don’t directly offer an MJPEG or image snapshot URL.