

If you’re interested, you can view some different examples of webCoRE dashboards here.įor my money, the best SmartThings dashboard is ActionTiles.Ī reasonable, one time payment gets you a user-friendly, and highly customizable dashboard. Be ready to commit a lot of time to learning and implementing this dashboard. Given how invested existing users are, I would hazard a guess that this platform isn’t going anywhere and will greatly improve over time.īe warned however, that tinkering never ends with webCoRE! Its high customizability is both a blessing, and a curse. And, because it’s open source, you will continue to reap the benefits of future updates and upgrades, for free. If you’re up to the challenge and tech savvy enough, this option offers a TON of flexibility, scalability, and control over your home automation project. So really, webCoRE is primarily a rule engine, that can be leveraged to create a dashboard of all the devices in your home. Each such script is called a piston, because, well, we’re talking about an engine, right?” It does so by using a pseudo scripting language that is easy to read and understand by users. “webCoRE is an advanced web-based rule engine that works on top of Samsung SmartThing’s automation platform and delivers complex automation scenarios that users can program. Unlike HousePanel, the community that supports webCoRE is growing by the day. Like HousePanel, webCoRE is an open source project. The last SmartThings dashboard on this list, but certainly not least, is webCoRE. If you’re interested, you can view some different examples of HousePanel dashboards here. Maybe some-day HousePanel will become a viable home automation dashboard option. The larger the community, the stronger and more robust the product. If you’re a developer however, dig in! I’ve always been a fan of open source projects. The founder even has his own ActionTiles account, and uses it regulary! It’s a cool concept, and it’s impressive what he’s built, but it’s clearly geared towards developers. His goal, when creating HousePanel, was to “provide an open source platform that developers can use to create dashboards”. The founder himself admits, “HousePanel is considerably more difficult to setup…than ActionTiles”. That said, I don’t think it’s worth exploring for the average person.
#IPAD SMART HOME CONTROL PANEL FREE#
It’s completely free and open source, so critiquing it doesn’t feel right. Let me start by saying, HousePanel is a really cool project. If you’re interested, you can view many different examples of SharpTools.io dashboards here. That can’t happen with ActionTiles, or the other open source options that follow. My concern however, is that SharpTools decides to increase their subscription pricing at some point, leaving existing customers stuck with the choice of paying up, or losing all the work they’ve done. While I don’t love the idea of paying for yet another subscription plan, 30 dollars a year isn’t so bad. dim light from 100 to 0, over 10 minutes)īesides the rule engine, the dashboard itself is fairly comparable to ActionTiles. Repeat daily, or only specific days of the week.Some components of the rule engine include:
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If there are home automations that you wish you could setup, that you can’t right now with SmartThings, Amazon Alexa, Google Home etc., then SharpTools.io might be worth exploring. This visual rule engine is versatile and gives you the ability to create fairly complex home automations without needing to write any code. The major difference being, SharpTools.io also includes a visual home automation rule builder, or what they call a “rule engine”. SharpTools.io is the closest competitor to ActionTiles in terms of proprietary, web-based SmartThings dashboards on the market today. If you’re interested, you can view many different examples of ActionTiles dashboards here. I wouldn’t hesitate buying this product for a second. When it comes to Samsung SmartThings dashboards, ActionTiles is the most natural fit. I mounted it close to my front door so that I can use automations like “Goodbye!”, which turns off everything in my house at once, as I’m walking out the door.ĪctionTiles comes with over 3,000 icons that you can use to customize each automation/tile, and you can easily change colors, fonts, etc. Personally, I chose to use an old iPad Mini and mounted it on my wall with the ActionTiles dashboard permanently displayed. The dashboard has a responsive grid layout, so it will adjust to your phone, tablet, or laptop width. Basically any device you can access the web with can be used to access it. That said, you can pull up this dashboard on a phone, tablet, or laptop. The application is web based, so you’ll need WiFi in order to keep your dashboard up and running.
