[APP iOS] Mikonus – I built a 3D visual interface for my Homey

[schmucke]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on something for quite a while and I think the Homey community is probably the best place to show it for the first time.

It’s called Mikonus.

The basic idea started with a very simple question:

Why does a smart home still mostly look like a list of rooms, cards and devices on a screen?

I wanted to see my home instead.

So I started building an iOS app that turns your actual home into an interactive visual smart-home interface.

What is Mikonus?

With Mikonus you create a digital version of your home and place your smart-home devices where they actually are.

Instead of opening a room called “Living room” and looking for a light called “Floor Lamp”, you can simply see the lamp in your home and interact with it there.

The 3D model can be created using Apple RoomPlan/LiDAR, or manually without LiDAR

The goal is not photorealism. I deliberately went for a clean miniature-style representation of the home that stays easy to understand and fast to navigate.

Homey integration

Homey is one of the main reasons I built Mikonus.

Mikonus connects to Homey, imports devices and their capabilities and then lets you assign them to objects in the digital home. Whenever possible, Mikonus communicates with Homey directly on your local network. Remote access is also supported when you’re away from home.

The actual device remains a Homey device — Mikonus is the visual layer on top of it.

For example, you can:

• switch lights on and off

• change brightness, color and color temperature

• control blinds and covers

• control thermostats

• see sensor values

• control fans

• interact with media devices

• see door and lock states

• show cameras

• display power and energy information

And I don’t want the house to be static.

If a blind is 50% closed, I want the blind in Mikonus to be 50% closed.

If a door is open, I want to see an open door.

If a fan is running, the fan should actually rotate.

If a light changes color, the light in the model should change too.

That part has become one of my favourite things about the project.

Homey Flows as scenes

Homey Flows can also be imported into Mikonus as scenes.

This means I can trigger existing Homey Flows directly from the visual home — for example Movie Night, Good Night or Leaving Home — without rebuilding the automation inside Mikonus.

The Flow itself stays in Homey. Mikonus simply gives it a place in the visual interface.

So devices remain Homey devices, Flows remain Homey Flows — Mikonus just makes both of them part of the home you can see and interact with.

More than one smart-home system

Another important idea behind Mikonus is that the house should not belong to one ecosystem.

My own smart home doesn’t.

So Mikonus is being designed around a provider-independent capability system.

Homey and Home Assistant are already important parts of that architecture, and Philips Hue and Apple Home are also part of the direction.

The idea is that, eventually, it shouldn’t matter whether the lamp in front of you comes from Homey, Home Assistant, Hue or another supported system.

It should just be a light in your home.

And the garden…

At some point I made the mistake of thinking:

“If I already have the house… why stop at the front/back door?”

So Mikonus now also has the beginnings of an outdoor/world editor.

The idea is to model the property as well — garden, paths, flower beds, pools, sheds, outdoor lights, cameras, robot mowers and other devices.

So eventually the entire property becomes one visual smart-home interface.

Privacy

This is also important to me:

I don’t want Mikonus to require yet another smart-home account.

The core concept is local-first and the home/project belongs to the user.

Cloud infrastructure should only be used where an integration technically requires it, for example for certain OAuth/remote-access connections.

Languages

Mikonus currently supports German, English, Spanish, French and Dutch.

The goal is to make the app usable internationally from the start, and additional languages can be added over time.

Where is Mikonus today?

This isn’t just a concept or a render.

It is a working Swift/iOS app that I use with my own smart home.

There is still polishing to do, there will certainly be bugs, and some device types and integrations are further along than others.

I’m currently preparing Mikonus for its first wider release.

Before I simply put it into the App Store, however, I really wanted to show it to people who actually use Homey every day.

That’s why I’m posting it here.

I would really like your feedback

Especially:

Would you actually use something like this with Homey?

And if yes:

What would Mikonus absolutely have to support for your Homey setup?

I’m also interested in the opposite answer. If you look at this and think “nice idea, but I would never use it because…”, please tell me why.

That feedback is probably even more useful right now.

Thanks for taking a look!

Mikonus — Your home. Alive.

Carsten

[4x4_Pete]

Hi @schmucke

Cool stuff!

To me, however, it looks like a ton of effort to modell the house with all the (realistic) interiour not to even speak of the heaps of work to drag all your sensors, lights, plugs, switches and other devices and appliances into it.

Can you be a bit more elaborate and explain the steps starting from a blank canvas?

Cheers
Peter

[schmucke]

Hi @4x4_Pete,
absolutely — but the Hero screenshot is actually a real LiDAR / Apple RoomPlan scan.
Walls, doors, windows and also quite a few larger objects such as beds, tables and chairs are detected automatically, so you don’t have to model the whole house manually.
The manual editor is a bit more work: you first create the floor plan in 2D and then place the furniture yourself. Mikonus already includes a library with most common household objects for that.
RoomPlan scans can also be exported and imported. So you could even borrow a LiDAR-capable iPhone or iPad just for the scan and then continue using Mikonus on another device afterwards.
I’m currently preparing a short video showing how the manual editor works, including how you create the rooms and add furniture and other objects. I think that will give a much better idea of how much work is actually involved.
So with LiDAR especially, the setup is much faster than it may look from the screenshots.
Cheers
Carsten

I add a gif to show you the 3D effect.
This screenshot shows you a complete floor that was created entirely without LiDAR.

[Chris_van_Holland1]

@schmucke

This project seems very interesting.
My question: how do camera’s behave in this app?
Are they visible, can you see live camera feed?

[schmucke]

Thanks!

Cameras can be placed directly in the 3D home and opened from there.

Mikonus supports snapshots and, where the camera/provider allows it, live video as well.

Edit:
@Chris_van_Holland1

Live video playback is already available. The camera must be connected directly to Homey, for example via ONVIF.

[CyberDude]

Depending on the ease of configuration, I think I would use such an app. I’m not sure how one would setup/configure a presence sensor in such an interface with multiple zones within a sensor space. The idea is definitely unique and would make a great way to visualize what was happening within the smart home. I think that it may be easier to start in the interface with choosing from an overall presentation of the house by clicking on the floor and room. Then being shown the room in detail with the devices within the room and maybe a side list of devices within that room, which the user can check off to include in the study of the room. In this way if the user wanted to see what the effect of particular devices were having in the room, those chosen and their resulting effect would be the only devices that would be shown in the room. That might make the rendering a little easier from a software POV, and will provide a more focused study of any issues in one’s flow design. Of course, you can check all device boxes in the interface to show the entire room’s devices if you’d like. Just an idea to consider.

[schmucke]

Thanks, that’s a great idea — and interestingly, part of what you’re describing is already implemented.

Mikonus works floor by floor rather than rendering the entire house with all floors at once. Keeping several fully detailed 3D floors active would simply be too expensive from a rendering and performance perspective, especially on mobile devices.

Within the active floor, however, you can tap directly on a room. The view then rotates and zooms in slightly to focus on it, and a side panel opens showing only the devices and scenes assigned to that room.

So you still have the overview of the complete floor, but can quickly focus on an individual room and everything that belongs to it.

I’ve attached a screenshot showing the current implementation.

I also like your idea of selectively showing certain devices within that focused view. That’s something I’ll keep in mind as the interface evolves.

[Patrick_Renier]

Fantastic idea, it would help my wife a lot to use Homey! When can i begin to use it?

[Antonio_Esperanca]

Great ideia.

When is possible to test?

[schmucke]

@Antonio_Esperanca @Patrick_Renier

The first Early Access TestFlight version is almost ready! I’ll email everyone on the tester mailing list as soon as it’s available.

[schmucke]

Mikonus Early Access – Registration Closed

Registration for the first Mikonus Early Access is now closed.

Mikonus 0.1.0 is currently in Apple’s TestFlight review. As soon as it’s approved, everyone who signed up will receive the TestFlight link by email.

Thanks again for all the interest and feedback so far! Of course, feel free to keep the discussion going here.

Now I’m curious to see Mikonus running in your homes.

[ONM]

Is it possible to maken a foto from the floor’s ( zero, first, second etc) with the most of the household so a program sets it in 3D ?

Afterwards you can put al the equipments ( homeward etc) in details

[schmucke]

Mikonus supports two ways: On LiDAR devices you can scan your home using Apple’s RoomPlan technology. If you don’t have LiDAR, you can create your floor plan with the built-in 2D designer and add furniture and Smart Home devices manually. This gives you a structured 3D model that can actually be used to control your home.

[R-H]

First, I’d love to use an app like this. It looks great, nice job!

Feature suggestions

• Display the floor/ room where you are in when you open the app
• Have the option to follow the user’s physical location in the model as you walk through the space so you see the sensors/ devices on screen that are close to your physical location
• For presence sensors: display the detected objects in the 3d-model just as they are shown in the presence sensor app
• The ability to make the model as true to life as possible for users that appreciate near photo-realism

[schmucke]

Thanks for your feedback!
Right now I’m still focusing on making the app performant and refining the overall user experience. I’ve been working on many different parts of Mikonus at the same time, so some things that feel logical to me might not be as obvious for new users.
Some of your ideas are already on my roadmap for the future. For now, I want to make sure the core experience is solid first. Once that foundation is in place, I’ll focus more on adding new features.
Thanks again for taking the time to test Mikonus!

[HBax]

I like it very much. So much easier for people to use it. I think about guests who sleep over. I will certainly try it But has to work on an android phone also please.

Is it possible to put lights in groups ? For instance in my living room there are 24 spots in the ceiling.

[schmucke]

Thanks! For larger setups I agree that controlling every single light separately is not the best experience.

As a workaround, you can already create a scene/flow in Homey and control that from Mikonus.

Importing and handling groups from the connected systems is something I will definitely look into for the future.

[ONM]

Although i am just a beginner i already like the app. If you need a beginner to test you can e-mail me.

Great job Mikonus. What a job you did !!

[schmucke]

@HBax
The next build will support Homey Groups. (Introducing Device Groups – News | Homey) You can create your groups in Homey and import them into Mikonus as a single controllable object.
Mikonus will use the capabilities provided by Homey for that group, so the available controls always match your actual setup.

@ONM i have send you a PM.

[Matteo_Foroni]

Hi! This work is amazing!!! Could you add me in the next beta testing list or advise me, when app will be available? My email is matteoforoni@gmail.com Regards