I have done quite a lot of “cool” things in my dashboards that maybe others will find useful. So I figured I’d give a quick tour.
My project is revolving around my house build and is ever growing and changing. I have (2) tablets wall mounted that show a “Home” dashboard, one at the front door and one at the garage hallway entrance:
Ive made a rule that my “Doors” tile will show up green if all windows and doors are closed and red if one of them is open. When I click on the tile it shows a list of all the individual doors and windows that are all green and red.
I also have an alarm system that works off of STHM as well as a silent alarm and panic alarm.
Last cool thing about the “Home” Dashboard is I have the Rapid Ring app set to automatically open if someone rings my doorbell.
Next, I have a mobile tablet I use for media control:
I just started working on this one today but have made some real progress already. Basically when I click on the Media tile, it opens the respective app on the tablet. However, if I click on TV…
I have created another dashboard specifically for my TV / Xbox setup. The same concept applies here. If you click on a Media tile on this dashboard, a virtual switch will tell Alexa to tell my Xbox to open the app. So I can click on HULU and it will open HULU on my xbox. The control was a little different. I had an initial setup where I could scroll the xbox stuff using Alexa as well…problem was each command took about 3 seconds to respond which is not ideal for trying to scroll through TV shows. My workaround for this was to create an intent to open the XBOX app which in turn lets me use the remote control feature from the app which is a lot more responsive.
I also have a “Smartphone” dashboard for all of these things as well that makes everything more compact for your phone.
Its all a work in progress and if anyone has anymore suggestions for things I could add, please let me know. I plan on doing a garage door integration and alot of other cool things the more the house is built.
If anyone has a question on how I did anthing Ill answer any question I can.
Looks awesome @Robbie_Hicks.
Can I ask how you have set up your panic button, both how it is activated (any hardware) and what rules you have created?
Thank you.
So I use a virtual switch in STHM that I can activate to automatically set off a siren in the house. It is an automation that if it’s pressed for 5 seconds the siren will sound and a text message will go to specific phones. Once I get more smart lights or switches I’ll set it up to also turn on and flash all the lights.
The silent alarm works the same way, only difference is it doesn’t do the audible siren.
You’ll also have to set a routine to reset the switch for the silent alarm after so long after pressing to keep it working properly.
What I ended up with in the end is I have a separate dashboard for doors and windows that has them all showing as tiles and they all show green when closed and red when open. Then I created a true/false variable for doors and a rule that checks to see if doors are open everytime a status changes. If one of the individual doors is open, that door turns red in the dashboard but my “Doors” tile turns red as well.
Great tips! I have several similar rules aggregating all sorts of devices using variables as well, and I configured the variable tile to navigate to the related dashboard when tapped, such as Security dashboard, so I can see things in details.
BTW, you can use the rule screenshot feature to take the whole rule setup in one screenshot, so it’s easier for you to share.
Really cool dashboard and features my friend. How did you set the media tiles with media logos ? As Netflix, Paramount or Youtube? Thanks, and congrats again for your home automation.
It’s just something I thought was cool. If you press the panic alarm, the siren goes off in the house and it sends a message to certain phone numbers. Eventually, I’ll set it where the lights start flashing also.
If you press the silent alarm, it sends a message to certain phone numbers but that’s it.
