We are excited to announce another SharpTools.io release which brings some awesome enhancements to the web dashboard and Rule Engine!
As the title implies, we are introducing support for Modes, Smart Home Monitor, and Routines… but we didn’t stop there! We are also bringing additional enhancements to the web dashboard including custom icons, custom colors, clock tiles, dashboard tiles, hyperlink tiles, and more!
Tip: Click any of the title headings to jump to more details about that topic.
Rule Engine:
- New Triggers:
- Smart Home Monitor Armed/Disarmed
- Routine Executed
- Mode Changed
- New Conditions:
- Smart Home Monitor status
- Active Mode
- New Actions
- Arm/Disarm Smart Home Monitor
- Execute Routines
- Change Modes
Dashboard:
- New Tiles:
- Smart Home Monitor
- Routines
- Modes
- Dashboard Navigation
- Clock (w/ optional Date)
- Hyperlink (w/ App opening capabilities!)
- New Customizations:
- Tile Colors
- Tile Icons
- Tile Labels
Rule Engine
We are introducing several new features for the SharpTools.io Rule Engine and hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
New Rule Triggers
Now you can have your rules triggered by changes to Smart Home Monitor armed/disarmed status, modes changing, and routines being executed!
Just like Thing triggers, the new triggers will cause a rule to be run anytime your specified trigger conditions are met. For example, if you want to run a special set of actions on anytime Smart Home Monitor is set to ‘Armed (Home)’, now you can!
New Rule Conditions
Now you can setup IF conditions in your rules based on the armed/disarmed status of Smart Home Monitor or the active Mode!
Just like IF conditions for things, the new conditions allow you to implement IF-THEN-ELSE logic in your rules when certain conditions are met. For example, you might have a rule trigger whenever motion is detected, but you only want to take action is the SHM status is Armed or your home is set to a certain mode, now you can!
New Rule Actions
Now you can Execute Routines, Change the Mode your home is in, or Arm and Disarm Smart Home Monitor!
Just like Thing actions, the SHM, Mode, and Routine actions allow you run actions and change the status of things in your home. For example, you can now setup a routine in SmartThings which is comprised of a set of actions and then run that Routine directly from the SharpTools.io Rule Engine!
Similarly, you can change your SmartThings Mode which could be used as a condition in a SharpTools Rule or in a SmartThings Routine! And finally, you can set your Smart Home Monitor status to Armed (Away), Armed (Home), or Disarmed from a rule - for example, you might set a rule that IF all your presence devices are not present, then SHM will be set to ‘Armed (Away)’ after a delay of 10 minutes.
Dashboard:
We are introducing several new features for the SharpTools.io Dashboards and hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
New Tiles
As the heart and soul of the dashboard, it’s always exciting to announce the release of new tiles as that means new actions and ways to display your data. As we’ve continued to introduce new tile types, we have outgrown our original ‘Add Thing’ dialog… accordingly, we’ve designed a new ‘Add Item’ dialog which displays categories of items to add. As you click on a category, the menu expands to show you the available items for that category.
SHM, Routines, and Modes
The SharpTools.io web dashboard now includes several new ‘location’ related features including tiles for Smart Home Monitor, Routines, and Modes.
Each of the tiles comes in a ‘single-item’ and ‘picker’ variant. The single-item variants allow you to pick a specific mode to change to, specific routine to execute, or specific SHM status to change to. When combined with the new Tile Colors feature, the single-item Mode and SHM tiles will change to your desired active color whenever that mode or SHM status is active.
The ‘picker’ variant of the SHM, Mode, and Routine tiles provides a dialog with a list of options to choose from whenever it is clicked. For example, the Mode Picker shows a list of all the available modes that you can choose from when clicked… and also shows the currently active mode in the footer of the tile. Also note that for the SHM and Mode picker variants, the icon will change to reflect the currently active SHM state or Mode.
Dashboard Navigation
With all these new features, you’re probably going to want to create several dashboards to better categorize all your content. And if you have more dashboards, you’ll need a way to navigate between them, right? That’s why we are excited to announce Dashboard Navigation tiles!
Dashboard Navigation tiles let you pick which dashboard you want to navigate to when clicked up. Like other tiles, they support custom color and icons which helps them better fit into your dashboards and reflect where they are going to take you!
Clock
As you might expect, Clock tiles display the time! Optionally, you can choose to include the date on your clock tile. Like other tiles, clock tiles include support for changing their dimensions, color, and adding a label!
Hyperlink
Hyperlink tiles open the doors for infinite possibilities by allowing you to link to external content. Link to other web application pages in your network (like Kodi) or on the web (like your favorite news).
Additionally, hyperlinks include support for opening other applications on your iOS or Android mobile device. For example, in the screenshot below, the ‘SharpTools App’ hyperlink opens the SharpTools Android app and the ‘Community’ hyperlink opens the SharpTools Community web page.
Check out the following article for more details on how to use the Hyperlink tiles:
In order to link to other applications using Fully, be sure to enable ‘Open URL Schemes in Other Apps’ in the Fully Kiosk Browser settings. From there, you’ll need to discover the appropriate URL to open your desired app.
Check out the following KB article for some links you can use in Android and iOS:
New Customizations
As shown in some of the previous sections of this post, tiles now support a variety of customizations including the ability to customize the dimensions, colors, icon, and label.
In order to access any of the customization features for a tile, start by adding the tile to your dashboard. Once the tile is on your dashboard, make sure you are in edit mode for your dashboard and the ... overflow menu will show up in the top-right corner of your tile. From there, you can select edit and the Tile Editor will be displayed:
Note: In the current release, the tile editor shows up in the top-left corner of the page or where you last dragged it to. If you have a large dashboard which requires scrolling, be sure to scroll up to find the Tile Editor if you can’t find it.
Tile Colors
This release includes support for a new tile color customization! This feature allows you to customize the colors used for each individual tile. If you simply check the box for ‘Color’ in the Tile Editor, the default colors of a dark gray default color and a warm orange active color will be used.
For tile types that support reporting an ‘active’ state, the active color will be used any time the tile becomes active… otherwise the default color will be used. If you want quickly reverse or invert the active state, just check the ‘Invert Active State’ checkbox below the color pickers.
Note that for most devices, the active state is when a device is on, closed, contacted, or secure. If you prefer to only highlight ‘exceptions’ on your dashboard, you might choose to use the default colors and check the ‘Invert Active State’ box for many devices like Locks and Doors.
Note that we have plans for a larger theme customization feature, but we hope you enjoy the tile customizer as a step in the right direction!
Tile Icons
As the name might suggest, you can now customize the icons for each individual tile! In the Tile Editor, check the box for ‘Icon’ and then tap the blue ‘Select Icon’ button to be shown a grid of available icons.
Once you select the icon, it will override whatever the default icon was for your chosen tile type.
Tile Labels
The new Tile Labels feature allows you to customize the label which is shown at the top of your tile. In the Tile Editor, check the box for ‘Label’ and type a custom label into the Label field. Once you save your changes, the new title will be displayed on the icon.
This feature is especially helpful if you’ve given your Things long or cryptic names in SmartThings in order to organize them in a special way. Now you can use context friendly and easy to understand names on your tiles.
