[APP][Pro] Widgetkeeper - extra dashboard widgets

[ThomasRS]

Hi all,

I’ve been building Widgetkeeper, an app with dashboard widgets for Homey Pro. My aim was widgets that sit next to Homey’s own without standing out: the same tile sizes, fonts, colours and dark mode, so a dashboard still looks like one dashboard.

Widgetkeeper 0.7.0 is live in the Homey App Store: Widgetkeeper | Homey

Test version: the next version (0.8.0) with six new widgets is in testing. Widgets and changes marked Next version below are only in the test version for now: Widgetkeeper | Homey

The widgets

Tap a name for the full description and settings on GitHub.

Preview	Description
	Electricity Overview Live power use, hourly electricity prices and usage history on one card
	Thermostat Shortcuts Three one-tap presets for a thermostat, heat pump or air conditioner
	Device Quick Actions Compact tiles that run a device’s quick action with one tap
	Sensor Alarms Tiles that show a sensor’s alarm and turn red when one is on
	Sensor Dots Next version Many motion and contact sensors at a glance, as dots that change colour when active
	Weather Forecast The next 36 hours, hour by hour, from MET Norway (yr.no)
	Insights Heatmap A week of one value (light, temperature, motion …) as a grid of weekdays and hours
	Cameras Two to six cameras in one grid of snapshots; tap one to watch it live
	Device Values Compact tiles that each show one value, such as a temperature, power or on/off
	Light Controls Compact light tiles with brightness, colour and colour temperature: six lights in the space of three
	Sparklines Tiles with a small chart of a value over the last hour, day or week, with its lowest and highest
	Flow Variables Next version Compact rows to switch flow variables on and off or change a number or text, with the full name
	Flow Buttons Next version Start flows with one tap: a round button in the colour and icon you pick, with the flow’s name
	Price Badge Next version The electricity price now, the next hour’s and the cheapest hour ahead in one compact tile
	Timers Next version Kitchen timers from one-tap presets, with a Flow card when one runs out
	Locks and Doors Next version One line that says whether every lock and door is locked and closed

Every widget follows Homey’s light and dark mode and is translated into all 13 of Homey’s languages.

What’s new in the next version (0.8.0)

Besides the six new widgets above:

• Electricity Overview: supports a fixed electricity price set in Homey Energy, shows solar export below zero in yellow, and the prices can be hidden.
• Device Values: a Flow can colour a tile, such as red when the fridge is too warm.
• Light Controls: plugs and wall switches set up as lights can be picked too, and a setting stops the brightness bar at 1 % instead of turning the light off.
• Insights Heatmap: pick the colour.
• Thermostat Shortcuts: a preset now always sets its temperature, also on aircons that keep a temperature per mode.
• Clearer setting names and help texts, and a brief connection problem no longer hides a widget.

Flow Buttons and Flow Variables need a Homey API key, which you add in the app’s settings (Apps → Widgetkeeper → Configure).

Dashboard examples

Seven dashboards from a made-up house, on a tablet in Homey’s dark mode. Swipe through them:

Home, Energy, Security, Climate, Evening, Garden and Kitchen. Some of them use widgets from the next version. What’s on each one: GitHub - thomassidor/widgetkeeper: Widget library for Homey Pro dashboards · GitHub

Feedback wanted

All feedback is welcome. I’m especially interested in:

• Does it look and feel like Homey? Spacing, fonts or colours that look off next to Homey’s own widgets, on a phone or on a tablet.
• Your devices. A thermostat, alarm or light that doesn’t show up or behaves oddly. Please tell me the brand and model.
• Translations. If you speak one of the languages, wording that sounds wrong.
• What’s missing. A widget you’d like to see next.

If something doesn’t work, open Apps → Widgetkeeper → Configure in the Homey app and pick the device. That page has a diagnostics report you can paste here (it doesn’t include passwords, API keys or camera URLs).

The source is on GitHub, and you can also open issues there: GitHub - thomassidor/widgetkeeper: Widget library for Homey Pro dashboards · GitHub

I hope you find this useful

[SunBeech]

Nice app!

When I add a Light Controls widget and want to select lights, the list does not include all of my lights. Looks like smart plugs and built-in wall switches (which type has been set to ‘lights’) are not included.

[ThomasRS]

Thanks for the feedback! I guess in that scenario the tile would just be an on/off thing - that could be implemented fine too.

[SunBeech]

It could also include dimming.

The strange thing is that I have 2 smart plugs that also have a dimming function (the others I have only have an on/off function) and those 2 are recognized by your app. They are paired as Generic Zigbee device, while the other Zigbee smart plugs and switches are paired via their respective app (INNR and SONOFF).

Also the list includes some devices that are not lights, like a smart remote and a pixel clock.

[HenriDO]

Hi, this is one of the best Dashboard for Homey!

One suggestion: the weather dashboard would be even more valuable if it accepted other data sources.

I realize this isn’t a simple request, but most European countries have their own national weather service, which any developer could plug in.

For example, I built an app for Météo-France, and it would be great to be able to connect that data to your dashboard.

Really great work.

[SunBeech]

Would your app also be able to display and change logic variables?

[DaneedeKruyff]

Nice app! Funny thing, I’ve been working on Widgets for other apps and have sent some Pull Request, but I was thinking about creating an app with just widgets, tapping into data from other apps and now I found yours, great!

Here’s my dashboard, the Electricity Overview fits nicely in this dashboard, previously I had several separate tiles from different sources.
And I really like the Insights Heatmap idea!

[J273]

These are great widgets.

If possible as mentioned above would it be possible for our own sources for the weather widget?

I have a personal weather station which would be ideal if i can have that as a weather source.

[SunBeech]

Another question : the pricing part of the Electricity Overview assumes that I use dynamic prices. That is not the case in my situation: I have a fixed price contact (with off-peak and peak pricing). I have set the fixed price in Homey’s Energy tab. Would it be possible for the widget to use that pricing info instead of the dynamic pricing?

[SunBeech]

Bennie the beamer .

[Arie_J_Godschalk]

Amazing app m8!
The widgets (at least light and thermostaat (airco)) look gorgeous!

One question/feature request tho: Swiping the light doen’t work, since the dashboard will swipe. Not a very big issue (although i trully hope Athom fixes this soon ™).
But when i want my light on the lowest setting (1%), with my current “self made” buttons/widget, i just press on the left side on the slider. Because i have configured that slider as to 1% being the lowest option.

Could this be made for the dimmable lights widget? Because if i want them off, i will just push the on/off button (or the tile). Right now with your beatyful widget, hitting 1% is almost imposible. So perhaps 1% could be (through a setting or default) be made the lowest value of a slider?
(This just to be how Homey handled sliders to, waaaay back. Since if you want 0%, you can just hit the off button or the button below a slider in the Homey app).

[ThomasRS]

@SunBeech

It could also include dimming.

The strange thing is that I have 2 smart plugs that also have a dimming function (the others I have only have an on/off function) and those 2 are recognized by your app. They are paired as Generic Zigbee device, while the other Zigbee smart plugs and switches are paired via their respective app (INNR and SONOFF).

Also the list includes some devices that are not lights, like a smart remote and a pixel clock.

I think I have a fix ready as 0.7.1 - where the device list filter is class: light|socket, capabilities: onoff|dim

It would probably still show the remote and clock since they have one of the two capabilities.

Still need 0.7.0 certified by Homey before I can push 0.7.1.

[ThomasRS]

@HenriDO

One suggestion: the weather dashboard would be even more valuable if it accepted other data sources.

I realize this isn’t a simple request, but most European countries have their own national weather service, which any developer could plug in.

For example, I built an app for Météo-France, and it would be great to be able to connect that data to your dashboard.

Thanks for the feedback

Had a look at the API from Météo-France - and the biggest caveat is that it would require the user to to create an account at portail-api.meteofrance.fr and get an API key. I’ll give it a think

[ThomasRS]

@SunBeech

Would your app also be able to display and change logic variables?

Could you elaborate a bit? I don’t really use logic variables myself, so not quite into what the exact need could be. There’s native widgets for variables too though - what do you miss from those?

[ThomasRS]

@DaneedeKruyff

Here’s my dashboard, the Electricity Overview fits nicely in this dashboard, previously I had several separate tiles from different sources.

The electricity overview was actually the reason I started doing this. Wanted to replace three native widgets with a more condensed view

In your chart I see negative consumption - I assume that’s production from solar panels? Haven’t thought of that. Will look into a more graceful way to display that.

[ThomasRS]

@J273

I have a personal weather station which would be ideal if i can have that as a weather source.

Are you thinking to just show current wether data in a widget? Or does the weather station do forecasts too? Let me know the brand and model, then I could look into it.

[ThomasRS]

@SunBeech

Another question : the pricing part of the Electricity Overview assumes that I use dynamic prices. That is not the case in my situation: I have a fixed price contact (with off-peak and peak pricing). I have set the fixed price in Homey’s Energy tab. Would it be possible for the widget to use that pricing info instead of the dynamic pricing?

I would think so. Will look into it

[ThomasRS]

@Arie_J_Godschalk

Amazing app m8!
The widgets (at least light and thermostaat (airco)) look gorgeous!

One question/feature request tho: Swiping the light doen’t work, since the dashboard will swipe. Not a very big issue (although i trully hope Athom fixes this soon ™).
But when i want my light on the lowest setting (1%), with my current “self made” buttons/widget, i just press on the left side on the slider. Because i have configured that slider as to 1% being the lowest option.

Could this be made for the dimmable lights widget? Because if i want them off, i will just push the on/off button (or the tile). Right now with your beatyful widget, hitting 1% is almost imposible. So perhaps 1% could be (through a setting or default) be made the lowest value of a slider?
(This just to be how Homey handled sliders to, waaaay back. Since if you want 0%, you can just hit the off button or the button below a slider in the Homey app).

Thanks!

Yeah, I’ve made a bug submission fo Athom about it. So hopefully they’ll look into it in the near future. I assume you’re on Android, right?

As for on/off - you should be able to just tap the header / outside slider and icons and that turns on and off.

[Arie_J_Godschalk]

@ThomasRS

As for on/off - you should be able to just tap the header / outside slider and icons and that turns on and off.

Yes i know
This why i (personally) would like it, if i “press” to the left side of the slider (or when slide will work, slide it all the way left) for the light to goto 1% instead of 0%.
Simply put, could (perhaps through a setting) the min of a slider be set to 1% instead of 0%?

[SunBeech]

@ThomasRS

I think I have a fix ready as 0.7.1 - where the device list filter is class: light|socket, capabilities: onoff|dim

Great . I’ll check the new version when it becomes available.

@ThomasRS

Could you elaborate a bit? I don’t really use logic variables myself, so not quite into what the exact need could be. There’s native widgets for variables too though - what do you miss from those?

I want to be able to quicky set some variables that (in most cases) act as a flag for flows directly from my dashboard. Normally these are boolean type variables, but I also have some numeric ones.

The built-in widget works just fine, but the formatting is problematic. Each variable items takes up a lot of space, and the variable name is often capped. See the following example:

Ideally a variable uses the full width of the widget and uses less space. Or the width is configurable (like display 1 or 2 variables across) and different views are possible, like a list view or grid view. Also, it is not a display-only widget, but it allows changing the value, like the built-in widget does.