[APP][Pro] Widgetkeeper - dashboards in your browser + custom 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 1.0.3 is live in the Homey App Store: https://homey.app/a/com.thomassidor.widgetkeeper/

Test version: the next version (1.1.0), with five new widgets, popups from your Flows and wide widgets on web dashboards, is in testing. Widgets marked are only in the test version for now: https://homey.app/a/com.thomassidor.widgetkeeper/test/

The widgets

Tap a widget for what it does and its settings on GitHub. Every widget follows Homey’s light and dark mode and is translated into all 13 of Homey’s languages.

Activity Dots	Cameras	Charts	Clock
Curtains	Dashboard Shortcuts	Days Since	Device Quick Actions
Device Values	Electricity Overview	Energy Price Strip	Flow Buttons
Insights Heatmap	Keypad	Light Controls	Lights by Room
Locks and Doors	Media	Notes	Pollen and UV
Popups	Room Health	Sensor Alarms	Smart Stack
Spacer	Sparklines	Thermostat Presets	Timers
Value Matrix	Variable Presets	Variables	Weather Forecast
Web Page

What’s new in the next version (1.1.0)

• Five new widgets: Pollen and UV, Web Page, Lights by Room, Keypad (buttons behind a code, such as arming the alarm), and Popups.
• Popups: a Flow shows a message or asks a question with buttons of your own, with a camera’s picture if you like, in front of everything on a web dashboard or on your phones and tablets. The answer goes back to the Flow.
• Web dashboards: wide widgets across two or more columns, a column width per dashboard, and sections on the front page.
• Device Quick Actions: activate with a double or long press, so a stray tap can’t unlock a door (by @stefan-schweiger). Thermostat Presets: Flow cards for its buttons. Charts and Sparklines: Today and Yesterday.
• Days Since: show only the counters that are due, and as a Smart Stack page. Media: eight buttons. Notes: long text on more lines.

Full list: widgetkeeper/CHANGELOG.md at main · thomassidor/widgetkeeper · GitHub

Web dashboards

Your Widgetkeeper widgets in any browser on your home network: a wall tablet, an old iPad, a computer or a TV. Build the dashboards on the page itself, with the same settings and live updates as on Homey, a background per dashboard, a menu to jump between them (Dashboard Shortcuts), and your other apps’ widgets on them too. In the next version: wide widgets across columns, sections on the front page, and popups from your Flows over the dashboard. Turn them on under Apps → Widgetkeeper → Configure; the page asks for a Homey API key, and optionally a password. More on GitHub: GitHub - thomassidor/widgetkeeper: Widget library for Homey Pro dashboards · GitHub

API key

Flow Buttons, Variables and Variable Presets (to change a value), the Smart Stack, Media’s buttons and Light Controls’ Moods need a Homey API key, which you add under Apps → Widgetkeeper → Configure; so do the Keypad’s buttons with a Flow or a variable, and Lights by Room’s Moods. Tick these permissions when you create it under Settings → API Keys: Variables to change variables, Start Flows for Flow Buttons and flows on Media’s and the Keypad’s buttons, Flows for a speaker’s own actions on Media’s buttons, Set Moods for the Moods, and Homey for the Smart Stack (there’s no permission for dashboards alone). The details, also for the web dashboards’ key: GitHub - thomassidor/widgetkeeper: Widget library for Homey Pro dashboards · GitHub

Dashboard examples

Seven dashboards from a made-up house, on a tablet in Homey’s dark mode (the Garden in light mode); Security and Climate are in the Vivid colour style. Swipe through them:

Home, Energy, Security, Climate, Evening, Garden and Kitchen. Some of them use the next version’s widgets: the Keypad on Security, a Web Page with a rain radar on Climate, Lights by Room on Evening, and Pollen and UV in the Garden. 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.