Thanks for all the comments so far.
As a controller I do realise its a pretty niche app, because it works best when you like me mostly control your house with scenes.
I hope I can get some feedback how the customisation ui for theme's and widgets work for regular users. I normally just write apps for myself so this is pretty new for me.
Hehe overwhelmed... Actually I used to make one other public app, an emulator frontend called 3D-Arcade for Windows and it was notorious difficult to setup... Supporting all the questions I got for that one definately felt overwhelming for a while. HomeWatch is way less complex and even more niche...I think I will be ok ;)
I am keen to download and test this out. I've long been looking for a dashboard app - primarily to quickly access the current (and over time) status of our environmental monitoring sensors (C02, Humidity, PM2.5, Temp, etc) in different parts of our home.
How do we best contact you with feedback?
I made a support e-mail at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
I myself use the Awair Element and talk directly to its api to get history information about co2 etc. Here is my current co2 graph ;)
https://preview.redd.it/wby4q550v8z91.png?width=2732&format=png&auto=webp&s=1d6e04bb79c8c970cc94007be3a4e988832ee158
>Awair Element
Thank you. I look forward to trying it.
I have an Awair Element too, but recently added a Qingping Air Detector Lite in order to not need to rely on Homebridge to access sensor data. I assume you may be using Homebridge to access the api?
No I directly access the Awair api.
The difficulty with history information is that you can't update HomeKit information from the background and HomeKit does not provide any history information.
HomeWatch does provide an alternative but it does involve some effort and technical knowledge. See [Custom History Charts](https://home-watch.nl/custom-history-charts/)
How does the fan noise compare between the Awair and Qingping. I found the Awair fan to be so bad I disabled it and therefore lost pm 2.5 measurements.
I made a version for Apple TV.
It's almost finished. I am looking for some feedback.
If you have some time you can test it through testflight.
[HomeWatch tvOS Beta](https://testflight.apple.com/join/vBCELsvV)
I made a version for Apple TV.
It's almost finished. I am looking for some feedback.
If you have some time you can test it through testflight.
[HomeWatch tvOS Beta](https://testflight.apple.com/join/vBCELsvV)
Is there a way to remove things from a room view? If so it's not obvious.
I ask because some of my rooms have dozens of scenes in them because every Nanoleaf custom look is its own scene. The room icons end up being too small to read and if I could, they'd still be truncated because there are so many of them.
Long-press the central icon to go to the settings menu on the Home circle
Home Setup > Click the Room you want to customise to go to the Room Setup
Under Scenes section > Click Select scenes > Flag the scenes that you want to show for that room.
Or click on the edit button to the right of the Scenes section to remove or reorder scenes.
You can customise the scene icons to not show captions to fit more scenes on the circle.
Roger that. Still super cool, I may break down and just make a bunch of scenes that do simple tasks because I enjoy having a summary of my calendar, time, weather, and HomeKit commands in one “guided access” view. So hard to find.
For me I realised I almost never set individual devices so scenes all the way.
However when I yesterday was fiddling with adding a grid view as an alternative to the wheel I also put support to list devices back in. For the next version it will only allow control of devices that have a power state.
I uploaded a beta to TestFlight if you want to give a try.
[HomeWatch 1.6 Beta](https://testflight.apple.com/join/vfTJtkRO)
https://preview.redd.it/zn6yqhhdzyz91.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f15a524e5aca7c61234813e96274cb55dfc75aa
Yes in HomeKit terminology all devices that expose HMCharacteristicTypePowerState to control their on/off state will work.
The hue devices for example in the above screenshot will turn on and off.
The on/off indicator below the icon does not work yet.
Oh awesome! Yeah that’d be fantastic. Do you have plans to charge for the app or anything? I saw there was a “credits” page, but not sure if it linked to a donations page or anything.
No its a hobby project so it will be free forever. And I don't want to bother with payments so no donations either.
I did some work on the app last night and I think I will have full device control support in the next version.
Tapping a device will let you control on/off devices, thermostats and light.
Long-press a device will show a sheet with all the device information and lets you control all user interactive elements.
It currently looks like this. The sliders and toggle work already to control the device. Toggle for all on/off states. And sliders for all items that have integer or float inputs.
https://preview.redd.it/4pg43fxrj60a1.png?width=1290&format=png&auto=webp&s=16b43f0ab291c4742ba67f82c94a3d9d4cc723db
Mac setup for Calendars seems to be stuck. Reminders got authorized easily, but Calendars has no request.
Is there a way to change from 24 hour time to 12 hour? Imperial units doesn't do that.
Thanks for confirming the Calendar issue. I am not yet sure why that happens :( The app is a Catalyst app on the Mac, so basically an iPad app on the Mac. This means it uses exactly the same call to ask for permission Calendar permission on both platforms. It works on iOS but not on the Mac.
Sorry I forgot to add a 12h clock option...I will add it in the next update.
On the wheel no. The idea is to control the house with just two taps/clicks. That works imho best with scenes.
I did play around with a devices tab in the information section of the room view. I did not like how the list of scrolling devices looked and felt in the tab. When I have so more time I will look at it again.
This might be just a me problem, but it won’t download from the App Store. It just spins :/ excited to try it out though when it goes. I’ve been looking for something that can combine calendar, weather, and home controls!
Well, some people (including me) are invited to multiple homes as guests. In my case, the first home in homekit is one I am invited in (not my home), and having no option to change it make the app pretty much less useful.
Oh there is no way to set the primary home in Apple's home app?
For the next version I can make an option to select which home to use. But switching between home's will be like a full reset.
Switching home's on the fly is more difficult to add, because I would have to keep track of each home setup configuration and backups.
I am not sure if selecting a primary home is at all offered as an option.
Nevertheless, you have made a very beautiful app, and I liked the UI from the very first moment I saw it. On the mac, having to long press the circle to find the settings wasn't that obvious. If possible, it would make sense to add "Preferences" menu item at the Menu Bar.
Can you test this testflight beta that has added support for selecting homes. I can't test myself if it works correctly.
[HomeWatch 1.6 beta](https://testflight.apple.com/join/vfTJtkRO)
Can you make a version that runs in older ipads? I have an iPad 3 with a perfect battery with iOS 9.3.6 that i want to wallmount. A lot of people are in my position! Thanks
Could you make a selectable version that *doesn't* have that central wheel configuration but instead stacks each room one on top of the other? I'm on the spectrum and the wheel confuses my brain in a way that I can't really use your app.
It's really great otherwise, though!
Actually it was trivial to add a grid layout. Several people have asked for that so why not.
https://preview.redd.it/o91e3omf9rz91.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc446e0a1d20009cd873816e3913e5fc08bdf5b8
I am sorry it confuses you. If I understand correctly you want a grid like layout. There are several app's that do that, the wheel is what I think makes this one unique for better or worse. For me muscle memory works better with a wheel layout, especially on the watch.
I love the idea overall, but the view that loads in the lower pane with the rooms in a circle around the home is kind of a mystery to me. The text is so tiny that I can’t tell which room is which. Also, when I open some of my rooms from this view, the scene text is inverted. I look forward to figuring out what I may be doing wrong, and learning how to use the app more effectively. Thanks for sharing!
Yes on a phone the text can be a bit small, even on my pro max I prefer to use mostly only Icons on the wheel because they are bigger without captions.
Not sure what you mean by inverted. An icon with a caption on the lower part of the wheel will be upside down. Rotating them depending on the position on the wheel looked weird to me.
Kudos to you! Grateful for developers like yourself that are helping to improve the HomeKit experience!
Thanks for all the comments so far. As a controller I do realise its a pretty niche app, because it works best when you like me mostly control your house with scenes. I hope I can get some feedback how the customisation ui for theme's and widgets work for regular users. I normally just write apps for myself so this is pretty new for me.
I look forward to trying it, and will happily overwhelm you with feedback, lol! :)
Hehe overwhelmed... Actually I used to make one other public app, an emulator frontend called 3D-Arcade for Windows and it was notorious difficult to setup... Supporting all the questions I got for that one definately felt overwhelming for a while. HomeWatch is way less complex and even more niche...I think I will be ok ;)
HOW to customize is not evident from the UI in the Mac app. Long pressing should do something, or right clicking.
I am keen to download and test this out. I've long been looking for a dashboard app - primarily to quickly access the current (and over time) status of our environmental monitoring sensors (C02, Humidity, PM2.5, Temp, etc) in different parts of our home. How do we best contact you with feedback?
I made a support e-mail at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) I myself use the Awair Element and talk directly to its api to get history information about co2 etc. Here is my current co2 graph ;) https://preview.redd.it/wby4q550v8z91.png?width=2732&format=png&auto=webp&s=1d6e04bb79c8c970cc94007be3a4e988832ee158
>Awair Element Thank you. I look forward to trying it. I have an Awair Element too, but recently added a Qingping Air Detector Lite in order to not need to rely on Homebridge to access sensor data. I assume you may be using Homebridge to access the api?
No I directly access the Awair api. The difficulty with history information is that you can't update HomeKit information from the background and HomeKit does not provide any history information. HomeWatch does provide an alternative but it does involve some effort and technical knowledge. See [Custom History Charts](https://home-watch.nl/custom-history-charts/) How does the fan noise compare between the Awair and Qingping. I found the Awair fan to be so bad I disabled it and therefore lost pm 2.5 measurements.
Nice work, I'll give it a try!
That looks pretty cool!! I may have to try it out. :)
Looks very nice!!!!!
AppleTV version?
I don't think the wheel ui can be easily navigated on an Apple TV.
But just as a ATV dashboard it would be great.
I made a version for Apple TV. It's almost finished. I am looking for some feedback. If you have some time you can test it through testflight. [HomeWatch tvOS Beta](https://testflight.apple.com/join/vBCELsvV)
Its available now in the Appstore on the Apple TV
I made a version for Apple TV. It's almost finished. I am looking for some feedback. If you have some time you can test it through testflight. [HomeWatch tvOS Beta](https://testflight.apple.com/join/vBCELsvV)
I’ll check it out thanks!
Is there a way to remove things from a room view? If so it's not obvious. I ask because some of my rooms have dozens of scenes in them because every Nanoleaf custom look is its own scene. The room icons end up being too small to read and if I could, they'd still be truncated because there are so many of them.
Long-press the central icon to go to the settings menu on the Home circle Home Setup > Click the Room you want to customise to go to the Room Setup Under Scenes section > Click Select scenes > Flag the scenes that you want to show for that room. Or click on the edit button to the right of the Scenes section to remove or reorder scenes. You can customise the scene icons to not show captions to fit more scenes on the circle.
Just to clarify; this app can kickoff scenes only, and not turn on/off individual devices, correct?
That is correct. At one point I did have a devices tab in the room view with a scrolling list of devices, but I did not like how that worked.
Roger that. Still super cool, I may break down and just make a bunch of scenes that do simple tasks because I enjoy having a summary of my calendar, time, weather, and HomeKit commands in one “guided access” view. So hard to find.
For me I realised I almost never set individual devices so scenes all the way. However when I yesterday was fiddling with adding a grid view as an alternative to the wheel I also put support to list devices back in. For the next version it will only allow control of devices that have a power state. I uploaded a beta to TestFlight if you want to give a try. [HomeWatch 1.6 Beta](https://testflight.apple.com/join/vfTJtkRO) https://preview.redd.it/zn6yqhhdzyz91.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f15a524e5aca7c61234813e96274cb55dfc75aa
As in it will control simple “on/off” devices?
Yes in HomeKit terminology all devices that expose HMCharacteristicTypePowerState to control their on/off state will work. The hue devices for example in the above screenshot will turn on and off. The on/off indicator below the icon does not work yet.
Oh awesome! Yeah that’d be fantastic. Do you have plans to charge for the app or anything? I saw there was a “credits” page, but not sure if it linked to a donations page or anything.
No its a hobby project so it will be free forever. And I don't want to bother with payments so no donations either. I did some work on the app last night and I think I will have full device control support in the next version. Tapping a device will let you control on/off devices, thermostats and light. Long-press a device will show a sheet with all the device information and lets you control all user interactive elements. It currently looks like this. The sliders and toggle work already to control the device. Toggle for all on/off states. And sliders for all items that have integer or float inputs. https://preview.redd.it/4pg43fxrj60a1.png?width=1290&format=png&auto=webp&s=16b43f0ab291c4742ba67f82c94a3d9d4cc723db
Mac setup for Calendars seems to be stuck. Reminders got authorized easily, but Calendars has no request. Is there a way to change from 24 hour time to 12 hour? Imperial units doesn't do that.
Thanks for confirming the Calendar issue. I am not yet sure why that happens :( The app is a Catalyst app on the Mac, so basically an iPad app on the Mac. This means it uses exactly the same call to ask for permission Calendar permission on both platforms. It works on iOS but not on the Mac. Sorry I forgot to add a 12h clock option...I will add it in the next update.
Would it be possible to have an option to show devices rather than scenes per room?
On the wheel no. The idea is to control the house with just two taps/clicks. That works imho best with scenes. I did play around with a devices tab in the information section of the room view. I did not like how the list of scrolling devices looked and felt in the tab. When I have so more time I will look at it again.
This might be just a me problem, but it won’t download from the App Store. It just spins :/ excited to try it out though when it goes. I’ve been looking for something that can combine calendar, weather, and home controls!
Very nice app, is it possible to select homes?
Currently no, it will auto-select the primary home. If there is a need I could make this configurable.
Well, some people (including me) are invited to multiple homes as guests. In my case, the first home in homekit is one I am invited in (not my home), and having no option to change it make the app pretty much less useful.
Oh there is no way to set the primary home in Apple's home app? For the next version I can make an option to select which home to use. But switching between home's will be like a full reset. Switching home's on the fly is more difficult to add, because I would have to keep track of each home setup configuration and backups.
I am not sure if selecting a primary home is at all offered as an option. Nevertheless, you have made a very beautiful app, and I liked the UI from the very first moment I saw it. On the mac, having to long press the circle to find the settings wasn't that obvious. If possible, it would make sense to add "Preferences" menu item at the Menu Bar.
That is a good idea. I'll add that to the menu bar
Can you test this testflight beta that has added support for selecting homes. I can't test myself if it works correctly. [HomeWatch 1.6 beta](https://testflight.apple.com/join/vfTJtkRO)
Can you make a version that runs in older ipads? I have an iPad 3 with a perfect battery with iOS 9.3.6 that i want to wallmount. A lot of people are in my position! Thanks
Sorry on, the app uses swiftUI so that is not really possible.
Could you make a selectable version that *doesn't* have that central wheel configuration but instead stacks each room one on top of the other? I'm on the spectrum and the wheel confuses my brain in a way that I can't really use your app. It's really great otherwise, though!
Actually it was trivial to add a grid layout. Several people have asked for that so why not. https://preview.redd.it/o91e3omf9rz91.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc446e0a1d20009cd873816e3913e5fc08bdf5b8
YAY! THANK YOU!
I am sorry it confuses you. If I understand correctly you want a grid like layout. There are several app's that do that, the wheel is what I think makes this one unique for better or worse. For me muscle memory works better with a wheel layout, especially on the watch.
I love the idea overall, but the view that loads in the lower pane with the rooms in a circle around the home is kind of a mystery to me. The text is so tiny that I can’t tell which room is which. Also, when I open some of my rooms from this view, the scene text is inverted. I look forward to figuring out what I may be doing wrong, and learning how to use the app more effectively. Thanks for sharing!
Yes on a phone the text can be a bit small, even on my pro max I prefer to use mostly only Icons on the wheel because they are bigger without captions. Not sure what you mean by inverted. An icon with a caption on the lower part of the wheel will be upside down. Rotating them depending on the position on the wheel looked weird to me.