I saw a video in which a lamp reacts to the live status of a yellow flag, safety car, or for example a red flag.
Below the video there was a link, which I will include below. In the link you can see that someone has created an F1 sensor for Home Assistant.
Does anyone know if this can be made for Homey Pro, and if so, how?
ChatGPT
Q: “Can this code be used as an inspiration to build a Homey app that features a device that can act as a representation of the flags in a race. Green all ok, Yellow or red for caution and a stopped session: GitHub - Nicxe/f1_sensor: A Home Assistant Custom Integration that provides information about the next Formula 1 race and the full season calendar including Live data like race flags and Race Control messages”
A: Yes — the code from F1 Sensor could definitely serve as inspiration for building a Homey app / integration that represents race-flags via a device (lights or indicators). Here’s how and what to watch out for (both pros and cons):
What works — why it’s a good base/inspiration
What needs extra work / limitations & what may not work out of the box
What you should do to use it as real inspiration / starting pointReview F1 Sensor’s source: especially how it fetches and exposes sensors like f1_track_status, f1_session_status, safety car, etc. It shows clearly which states exist. (GitHub)
Decide how to get data into Homey:
Define a Homey “device” with appropriate capabilities (e.g. on/off, color) so flows can act on it as a “flag-light”. (apps.developer.homey.app)
In your Homey app, map the race states to the corresponding color or indicator.
Handle edge cases (e.g. connectivity loss, delays, session transitions, fallback when no race, etc.).
Conclusion — Balanced viewUsing F1 Sensor as inspiration is feasible and might save time understanding what data is available and how race-states can be structured. But it’s not an easy plug-and-play: you’ll need to adapt or reimplement data fetching and build a proper Homey driver/app on top of it.
If you want — I can draft a rough high-level design outline for how a Homey app based on F1 Sensor could look (data flow, device definition, error handling).
Here’s a clean, direct high-level design outline for a Homey app that uses F1 race-data (inspired by F1 Sensor) to drive a “race flag” device.
Replicate how F1 Sensor fetches data:
Poll the same API (the “unofficial F1 live timing” endpoints F1 Sensor uses).
Extract:
You do not need Home Assistant. Just implement the fetcher directly in the Homey app.
Create a driver with one device class, e.g.:
Device class: light
Capabilities:
onofflight_hue (color)light_saturationmeasure_string (optional text capability: “Track Status: YELLOW”)This lets flows and dashboards treat it as a color indicator.
Implement simple state-mapping:
Provide triggers like:
Useful for automations (e.g. replay lighting, TV actions).
Allow user to configure:
Homey app cron task:
Keep it lightweight to avoid app suspension.
Add capabilities for:
Add multiple devices (e.g. one global flag, one per sector).
If you want, I can provide:
LOL, this is the code it provided, haven’t checked it, but I think this can work:
Probably need to create an app skeleton with homey compose first and start from there.
But first, start here: Getting Started | Homey Apps SDK
// Folder structure (all in one document for the skeleton)
//
// /app.json
// /drivers/f1-flag/device.js
// /drivers/f1-flag/driver.js
// /drivers/f1-flag/driver.compose.json
// /app.js
// /lib/api.js
//
// ------------------------------------------------------------
// app.json
// ------------------------------------------------------------
{
"id": "com.example.f1flags",
"name": {
"en": "F1 Flags"
},
"version": "1.0.0",
"compatibility": ">=12.0.0",
"sdk": 3,
"category": ["lights"],
"permissions": [],
"drivers": [
{
"id": "f1-flag",
"name": { "en": "F1 Race Flag" }
}
]
}
// ------------------------------------------------------------
// app.js
// ------------------------------------------------------------
'use strict';
const Homey = require('homey');
class F1FlagsApp extends Homey.App {
async onInit() {
this.log('F1 Flags app started');
}
}
module.exports = F1FlagsApp;
// ------------------------------------------------------------
// drivers/f1-flag/driver.compose.json
// ------------------------------------------------------------
{
"name": {
"en": "F1 Flag Indicator"
},
"class": "light",
"capabilities": [
"onoff",
"light_hue",
"light_saturation",
"measure_string"
],
"pair": [
{
"id": "auto"
}
]
}
// ------------------------------------------------------------
// drivers/f1-flag/driver.js
// ------------------------------------------------------------
'use strict';
const Homey = require('homey');
class F1FlagDriver extends Homey.Driver {
async onInit() {
this.log('F1 Flag driver init');
}
}
module.exports = F1FlagDriver;
// ------------------------------------------------------------
// drivers/f1-flag/device.js
// ------------------------------------------------------------
'use strict';
const Homey = require('homey');
const F1Api = require('../../lib/api');
class F1FlagDevice extends Homey.Device {
async onInit() {
this.log('F1 Flag device ready');
this.api = new F1Api();
this.previousState = null;
this.pollInterval = setInterval(() => this.updateState(), 5000);
}
async updateState() {
try {
const data = await this.api.getTrackStatus();
if (!data) return;
const flag = data.status; // CLEAR / YELLOW / RED
if (flag !== this.previousState) {
this.previousState = flag;
await this.applyFlag(flag);
}
} catch (err) {
this.log('Error updating state:', err);
}
}
async applyFlag(flag) {
// map flag → hue/saturation
let hue = 0;
let sat = 1;
switch (flag) {
case 'CLEAR': // green
hue = 0.33;
break;
case 'YELLOW':
hue = 0.15;
break;
case 'RED':
hue = 0.0;
break;
default:
await this.setCapabilityValue('onoff', false);
return;
}
await this.setCapabilityValue('onoff', true);
await this.setCapabilityValue('light_hue', hue);
await this.setCapabilityValue('light_saturation', sat);
await this.setCapabilityValue('measure_string', flag);
}
async onDeleted() {
clearInterval(this.pollInterval);
}
}
module.exports = F1FlagDevice;
// ------------------------------------------------------------
// lib/api.js
// ------------------------------------------------------------
'use strict';
const fetch = require('node-fetch');
class F1Api {
async getTrackStatus() {
// Replace this with actual F1 endpoint logic
try {
const res = await fetch('https://example.com/f1/status');
if (!res.ok) return null;
return await res.json();
} catch (e) {
return null;
}
}
}
module.exports = F1Api;
DaneeGPT? 
Thank you for your very detailed response.
Unfortunately, this is beyond my understanding.
) and that’s where the answer comes from.
