I am new to SharpTools and home automation. I just got the Homey Pro and have opened the door to the things that comes with it - very exciting! I am writing this post to get both help and inspiration from the more veteran users that might use Sharptools for the same reasons as I do (see below).
A goal for me is to be able to have a dashboard visible in our kitchen.
The purpose of it is…
1/3 information showing (electricity price, sun panel production, train schedule etc),
1/3 home automation and steering (starting the TV in the living room to a specific program on Netflix, light switches, sonos speakers etc) and…
1/3 kitchen tools (cooking timer, recipies, lists, dishwasher time left etc)
My wife is an interior decorator, and my HTML skills from high school is limited… so you can imagine that there is sort of a challange here for me to make sure she accepts the look and feel of our smart home central/dashboard but I am optimistic!
Questions:
I would love to see examples/inspirations of what people using SharpTools for the similar use as I have. I have seen the community sharing post and found it very inspiring and useful, but a lot of those great dashboards had more of a security/automation focus. If anyone is willing to share, I would also greatly appreciate if you would be willing to share how you’ve created the tiles.
Cooking timer function - Would love to have a tile that is a kitchen timer, as in you are boiling eggs and you need to set the timer for when they are done. Would love to have this in the dashboard and not a hyperlink if possible.
Music control - We have Sonos and use Spotify, have anyone managed to get a search function into the dashboard itself? I saw that there was a beta project for spotify playlists which looked very promising! But ideally it would be great to be able to search for specific songs within the dashboard. Maybe this is asking to much?
Entertainment control - I might be really asking for to much with this one, but if there is a possibility to control netflix (and other streaming services) from the dashboard I would be in heaven. I have connected our TV to Homey and can bring it into SharpTools, so I think I can find a way to start the TV and open a specific app with the click of a tile on the dashboard, but would be great if possible to start specific programs.
Lists - Would loooove to have a shared grocery list on the main dashboard. A linked document ideally that me and my wife can both access on our phones and add items that are displaying on the list on the dashboard.
I think thats all that keeps me up at night right now . I am greatful for ANY tips the community might have for me as a new user.
Check out the Show Off Your Dashboard thread. There’s some multipurpose examples mixed in with the smart home focused ones: Show Off Your SharpTools Dashboards!
For the TV integration, that usually depends on what the integration with the hub has. Sometimes there are community drivers and apps which add more features than the stock ones, but I’m not sure about Homey.
For the to-do list, you might be able to embed your to do list similar to the cooking timer approach if your to-do list has a web app or way to embed lists.
Hi Chris,
I’ve put together a dashboard that operates as a universal remote control for all my entertainment sources in the house. You can see my post in the Show Off your SharpTools Dashboards! Category.
To make this work your devices need an accessible API. I use Roku devices and Yamaha MusicCast devices.
Regarding the cooking timer, the only issue I have with it is that if I embed it it brings in everything on that site and that sort of breaks my design I realize that someone with more HTML knowledge can probably solve that and its not really a Sharptool thing, but a user thing.
Regarding the entertainment part, I see that a lot of the solutions builds on click tile > play pre-selected list. That is absolutely a great way to go for specific moods, like “dinner jazz” or “morning chill”. But more often we want to listen to specific songs (I have two kids that have a very mixed taste in music). I think the solution for me here will be to bring up my media player via a hyperlink. I’d also love to be able to turn on the game console in our attic when my son has his friends over (will save me two sets of stairs) but again, I think thats something that I’ll solve with a hyperlink to the XBOX app. Since there are solid ways of doing this within the app but getting that level of control into the dashboard would probably be really hard.
Regarding the to-do lists, I still have no solid solution for this. I’ve been testing our about 10 different list apps/options in the last couple of days. The list needs to work on iphone, android and shared in a web browser (Sharptool dashboard). I have currently landed on ToDoist. But what it does is that it stays logged in on the tablet and just opens the web version of the app in the tablet, which means that it needs about 20 seconds to load everytime I go to that dashboard. I wish there was an app that would allow for me to just share the lists openly on the internet without login, I mean these are our weekly shopping lists, no need for security around them.
Again, thank you for your respons! I’ll post here again once I am done
I looked for that post but unfortunately could not find it (maybe I’m blind). Anyway it sounds great!
I have my TV in a separate room unfortunately. And the challenge I think I’ll run into is overloading my partner with new tools (she is not that interested in these things). And I would like to have these type of control for the XBOX, Spotify, TV/Netflix. And getting that to work feels like a lot of work for something she might not be willing to use.
So I think what I’ll do is stick with a hyperlink that opens the dedicated app for these controllers in a new window.
The original post John was referring to where he shared his screenshots is still in the original Show Off Your Dashboards thread:
Thanks for helping out, @Philip_Peeples ! As you mentioned, I moved some of the side discussion where other community members asked how this was accomplished into its own thread so-as to keep the main Show Off Your Dashboards thread focused and to allow the side discussion to blossom as needed.
but I am optimistic!
. I am greatful for ANY tips the community might have for me as a new user.