Post Pics of Your Control Pages! (LOCKED - create new topic)

Nice! It looks bigger than 10" for some reason!

Agreed on both counts!


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Hey Adam - can the plugin tell a specific device to display a certain control page? That's a key component to my challenge.

Not in the Google Play published version... but perhaps in experimental versions. Only issue is that I am having a hell of a time getting it to build for my development device now ever since an Android Studio update... not a problem in the code but somewhere deep in the configuration files. #($*@&%&@() java and unfriendly tools.

Unfortunately whoever wrote it picked the wrong platform to develop for.

:: sits facing corner with head down ::

Nice! It looks bigger than 10" for some reason!

... immature giggle ...

Not in the Google Play published version... but perhaps in experimental versions.

Bring it on brother!

Well I've confirmed with KioskPro that pushing a change of page to the app isn't currently possible (it works on a timer at present). I've asked them to make it a wish list request.. Let's hope theirs isn't as long as Matt & Jays

You know, it really doesn't have to be the app or Indigo pushing the page change if I think about it. If you wrap the Indigo control page within another page frame and have control over that page frame then you could do it. The problem being that you would have to do some manual configuration of your triggers to change pages within the PHP or Javascript coding itself.

My initial thought would be something along the lines of: PHP page wraps the Indigo control page in a frame, perhaps with a timer like the Kiosk Pro to auto return to a "home page". Javascript within the PHP could do SOAP requests to the Indigo API to check on a variable or device state that triggers changing the contents of the frame to another Indigo control page.

Since Indigo already has it's own web server than can be used to host the entire solution I think the concept is quite doable.

I've done some pretty massive PHP/Javascript sites, my first stab at something like this would be along the lines of:

• Create an Indigo plugin to configure options such as "return to home" timers that has a state or creates a variable with the full URL of the Indigo page to direct to
• Create triggers or action groups to change the page URL if and when needed
• Write a PHP program that reads the variable or new plugin state to derive the frames URL and timer values for when to return to home
• Write a Javascript snippet that polls the Indigo plugin (or variable, etc) every X seconds to see if there is a change (i.e., some event happens that makes you want to view the security cameras automatically), then the timer resets and after X minutes will auto return to home

With something like that all you really need is a browser that can handle the frame and Javascript.

Conceptually possible I believe, but I'm just spitballing.

Yeah, although there are two issues with that:

1: I'm not that competent . I've got a vague understanding of Python but nothing beyond that. It just feels like I never have the time I want to learn it.. And I'm the smartest cookie around.

2: Stability.. Even if I were able to do any of those options I'd suspect it'd take me months to get it to work perfectly. During which time SWIMBO would get very frustrated.

Ideally I'd just love to have a simple little script that would call a URL on the devices in question and it'd skip directly to that control page (assuming that the app it was using was active). I'm all about simplicity. And laziness.

I think behavior or an app to do this is critical, especially for Indigo to compete with higher end, end-to-end solutions like Crestron and Control4. I feel like the back-end stuff, plugin architecture, logic, python scripting, etc. is top notch, but Indigo is lacking on the customer-facing and very visible interface front. A sexy touch panel is probably a key selling point to convince people to use a home automation system, and an easy thing to show off to friends/neighbors

+ ∞

+ ∞

+ ∞ + 

Three thoughts about this:

The Indigo Touch interface acts as a very vanilla version of this, before you do any control pages.

Still, an auto-generated web page showing and controlling every device by function based on some sort of poll of Indigo that gets all devices by type would be a good starting place for newbies. Especially if it had some decent UI design that, say, followed Apple's UI guidelines.

Last: does Indigo intentionally compete with Crestron, Control4, AMX, etc? Are any forum members people who said to themselves "well, that Crestron sales guy was very persuasive, and I like that those systems will be turnkey, but I think I'll roll my own with Indigo."?
I use AMX systems at work and we're about to switch to Crestron. I can't imagine our account rep from Avitecture or some competing biz showing up to demo Indigo on a Mac Mini. Even if it would do the job!

I know Matt and jay have stated before they've looked at that market and decided against it, which is fair enough.. They know their business.. It just feels like it just needs a little bit of spit and polish to turn it from a "hobby" program into a full blown commercial application.

Of course there's always the support aspect of such things.. It may be the program is up to the task but providing full on technical support might be the killer.

[jay (support)]

Home Automation/Smarthome technology generally falls into 2 categories: DIY and professionally installed. Obviously, there can be overlap, but because the first targets end-users and the second targets installers, the feature set of the product is different, as are the sales channels and how you market (and, yes, support). Indigo is a DIY product. We target our feature set for the DIY market and we actively sell into that market. We balance all the feature requests we get against what we know/understand of this market.

We don't believe it's possible to do both well. See Crestron's rather feeble attempt as just one example. Some companies attempt to do both and are somewhat successful, but those products always seem to feel hard to use for DIY customers. So, we stay in the market we like and know and we continue to balance what we think most DIYers will want. And that often doesn't line up with what a professional installer would want. It is a little ironic that this should come up when talking about better built-in control pages - which would pretty much be on the bottom of the request list for a professional installer who's job it is to create a completely custom solution for their customers...

I'll rephrase what I said before.. Rather than the program needing a little spit and polish to make it professional.. I think it just needs that little work to make it appear to end end user that it's a pro install. Not that it doesn't already look awesome, some people at work who have seen it think I've paid someone a LOT of money to have it installed and setup.