Tutorial and boilerplate code for my first homey app

Developers
1

I would like to create an app that represents the state of a room so that I can use aggregated information to trigger flows (i.e. start ventilation when room is occupied, based on combined data from several motion sensors). I have a pretty good idea about the logic, but I am stuck with creating the actual app. Is there a tutorial somwhere for setting uop the development environment and especially creatting you first app (a HelloWorld for Homey :-))

Regards.
Chirs

2

When i reed the first part about your idea i got the feeling that you want create someting that allready exists, called “zones”. Or do you want to put more info in the state of a room then only motion/door/window sensors?

3

Zones has some overlap, but I want is more advanced:

  • temperature control so it should at least be able to calculate the current temperature (potentially from multiple sensors).

  • Temperature programs and data about heat up and cool down speed of the room, to be able to efficiently control the heating valves

  • Ventilation requirements (type of room, room volume, air inlets and outlets, aplliances that may require additional ventilation such as shower and furnace)

  • potentially air quality (humidity, CO2)

I did see a couple of apps that have part of the functionality, like the heating scheduler, but I would prefer to have it all in one app.

I also want to develop the app for the fun of it, but I am really stuck with the basics. I looked in detail at several apps and I can read the code but I miss the overall picture of how these apps are set up. It’s really a shame that ther does not seem to be a good tutorial to get people started.

4

A oke, that’s a bit mote then just presense detection for a room on multiple motion sensors. Then i misunderstood you, your ideas sounds good. Seadly i can’t help you on how to build an app. Would also like to learn how to build an app :relaxed:

5

@Chris_Peters Look at: https://apps.developer.athom.com/

6

Thanks for the link, regrettably that does not have a have a tutorial, or at least some high level overview of how a driver is build up and what content / coding / classes etc. are needed.

I am sure that that is covered in the individual chapters of the reference, but it is extremely difficult to reverse engineer from the reeference material, how to actually build a driver.

I also looked a stuff on Git-Hub and again that shows examples how things are done, but since each driver seems to be different so again it’s almost impossible to understand what exactly is required for a driver.

I have no idea why Athom does not provide this kind of material (other companies do this to get developers started), it would really help more people to be able to create drivers and extend the eco-system.

7

Would be good to have a days course in how to write “homey”, instead of trying to hack somebody’s code to mostly no avail… :grin: