I can say confidently the the biggest downside to the entire smartapp design, and therefore the entire platform for Smart Things, is that everything is cloud based. If you lose internet, your entire system is offline. Regardless of what equipment you have or the speed of your internet, you’ll always have some degree of lag which has to be compensated for when integrating other systems. It’d be very nice if Smart Things was able to process all of their data right from the hub locally. Oh well. too much to hope for I guess.
Hey all. Does anyone have an update on where we can go if we want an app which features a floorplan? I’ve checked all over the internet and have spoken to Smartthings support (who said check here) and I can’t find anything, although there does seem to be a lot of interest in such a thing.
There’s only 22 posts here… so, that is definitely not “a lot of interest”, I assure you! (Even though I’m personally quite interested!). There are other feature requests with thousands of posts.
There is no such product at this time. Your closest current options are:
-
ActionTiles: Focuses on a Tiled layout, but you might find that more flexible and efficient anyway. And eventually more layout options may be added. Somewhere in the mid-term, hackers might find a way to layer on some alternative layouts.
-
The Home Remote: Allows a lot of customization with a PC based app-builder utility; but not sure it will go as far as you want for a “floor plan”.
I have serious interest here (there’s one more!!!).
When determining what new features to consider, don’t forget the Steve Jobs saying “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them”.
I never wanted home control panels, until I saw them on the forum. Keep it up AT team.
-Jeremy
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I wasn’t going to respond to this, but after seeing Tgauchat’s post, I
think I will.
Dude, I respect the hell out of you, for real. You’ve helped me out in a
pickle on so many occasions that I just can’t count anymore. You’ve been a
stupdendous help, and it’s extremely appreciated. I for one have to
completely disagree with your post here.
Maybe there’s only twenty posts in THIS thread, but there have been SEVERAL
posts in the past on this very subject, and I might remember seeing a
specific little post here making several views and hundreds of comments
(although trying to access the website is being a pain for me, so I’m
responding via email), which, pardon me, is a hell of a lot. I’ve
personally expressed a great deal of interest in having a floor plan
interactive system and setup. The problem almost always came down to the
fact that it was quite difficult and very personalized.
I wouldn’t see how it’d be so difficult to build, though. For someone who
has the skill (like you for example, not that you have to or anything
obviously) making a platform where users can submit their own floor plans
and then drag and drop their smart devices wherever they like really should
be quite simple. To be blunt, I don’t know why the hell this isn’t already
been done before, but I guess the reason why is because people keep
throwing out that same attitude, “well this only has 22 posts, I hardly
call this a lot of interest”.
To be quite honest, I’d rather have a floorplan setup than a tile setup.
The tiles are too hard to follow and you have to specifically look for your
tile, and configuring it is cumbersome. I use it for the simple reason that
there’s nothing better out there that can do this stuff (seriously, bravo,
you’ve done a lot of hard work and it LOOKS AMAZING!!! <3 ), but I’d use a
floorplan setup in a heartbeat – IF it were available. :shrug: besides, I
personally love your work and would be ecstatic to see you add this as an
additional feature to the action tiles solution. 
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Thanks for the comments and I do appreciate the respectful cushioning.
Success in business is often determined by discipline and focus…
Nest could make a thermostat that is a lot more like Ecobee (more information on the display, Alexa, remote temperature sensors…), but Nest has been plenty successful with their current products and chose a specific expansion path (ie, a lower priced model, different colors,…).
Similarly, ActionTiles has been tremendously successful as a product based on the original “SmartTiles” concept (i.e., web based responsive Tiled layout). It doesn’t mean there aren’t other good or even better design ideas out there - I personally love a floor plan view - but development of such would be a costly diversion of our focus.
In some cases, a single business entity can diversify into radically different design concepts, but that takes significant resources and venture capital.
I wish that software would be able to attract crowdfunding as easily as hardware (as that is one way to possibly prove market visibility and fund the development costs of a floor plan Panel Builder / Renderer variation of ActionTiles).
Who’s going to put up sufficient advance or venture funding? We’re open to serious significant offers.
I’m unsure why the community for smartthings simply will not show up at all
in any of my browsers while at work. Smartthings websites itself works
fine, but again, I have to respond via email lol.
After reviewing your response several times, I’ve come to agree with you,
it does make sense. I really wish this feature was available, and I’ve got
a wonderful idea for how to do such a thing. I have tried many times in the
past to develop my own code, but I’ve also discovered many times in my
attempts that coding is a deep involvement for which requires great
patience and, as you said, focus, neither of which I am capable of
producing without difficult frustration. Dare I say that every time I’ve
attempted, I’ve always ended up frustrated and quit. Maybe one day I’ll
learn how to code, but for now, it’s not “my thing” I suppose.
Regardless, I’ll go on ahead and lay out my ideas for this particular
platform and hope that a more skilled coder might come along and think it a
good project.
Using the Action Tiles platform as a baseline to jump from, so as to
maintain congruity and the ability to click for commands and detect and
display changes in statuses, we would need at least two feature sets.
- Default Display.
- Configuration Display.
During default display, it’ll show, well, nothing. After configuration,
it’ll show a top view of a simple jpg image overlayed with various smart
devices, which are clickable, but not dragable.
Configuration display is where users will have to upload their floor plans.
As many floor plan images and floors as needed can be used, there shouldn’t
be a limit. Although, it would perhaps be wise to limit this to no more
than five, as that’ll suffice for most folks. Click “Add floor”, you upload
your image (there are free floorplan apps available to create the actual
floorplan with, no worries there). Once your image is set, you set the name
of the floor (i.e. “First Floor”, “Second Floor”, “Back Yard”).
At some point in all of this, the user should authenticate their devices.
Once this is done, they should be displayed on the right with the floorplan
on the left. Users simply click an item and click “input to selected
floorplan”. Once it’s on the floorplan, you simply click and drag it to
where you want. Once in a selected location, we have several options here.
- We can simply call it as it is, mark the spot with “finished”, and move
on to the next item. - We can identify where the item may be if the image of the floorplan is
ever made larger or smaller based on browser window by indicating an “area”. - We can have a “quick edit” feature during the default display, where a
plus and minus sign next to an item and move it up, down, left, right to
get it in a precise location.
Once all devices are added, this will give you the ability to have a live
view of a two dimensional floorplan. I’m afraid a three dimensional
floorplan will be much too much work for this system. Anywho, I’d love for
something like this to come about, and it seems like it’d be simple to
make, especially if it was already able to use the strings and items in
your current ActionTiles code. Simply call different core images, make them
draggable, etc., and I think it’ll work.
But if the ActionTiles code isn’t used, you’re absolutely right, building
something like this from the ground up, total pain in the ass, as I’m sure
you already know from your experience on Action Tiles.
LOL, Eric…
With all the same respect you offered to me, I really must point out that unless you actually successfully develop and code it, or at the very least have coded something extremely similar, it’s a tremendously naive assumption that any feature is “simple to make”.
Your description itself is a dozen times more complicated than most feature requests we receive and the desired functionality is a magnitude higher in complexity to the Tiled layout that took us hundreds of hours to design, implement, debug, refine, performance fix, and finally deliver - all to receive immediate requests for enhancements.
If indeed someone is of such skill that they can implement your vision of a floorplan UI “simply” with negligible effort, then they ought to be able to do so for a negligible contract fee that ActionTiles could consider investing.
I, personally, would not offer to build this for less than a broad estimate tens of thousands of dollars, with the risk of overrun and maintenance easily drifting the project over $100k. An offshore developer might do it for a fraction of that, but with a high risk of communication errors and overall dissatisfaction.
A couple years ago a developer showed me a prototype of this concept (for SmartThings) expressing that they had extensive development resources at their disposal were aiming to sell to a high end market… ie, over $100 per License plus monthly fees. Obviously that product never made it to market.
Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it isn’t simple. I suppose
you’ll always be right in that area, seeing as I’m a novice with any coding
platform at all. However, I’ve tried to dive into some big projects here
and there and even though I didn’t grasp the coding itself, I have no
problem understanding concepts. As I said, utilizing the strings and values
your platform already has, I can’t imagine something like this would be
super difficult to make and on that note, I can’t imagine why anyone would
ever want to be paid thousands of dollars for something like this. Unless
you want to actively sell access to the platform, then there isn’t any
reason to charge such exorbitant amounts, unless, of course, the coder has
no personal interest in actually using the software for themselves, then
this would be nothing more than another “job” for them. To be honest, I
don’t see many coders in this community who would do well with running
coding jobs, rather, most of the software developed here seems to always be
a community project produced on little if any compensation at all, and
mostly done in the spare time of said coder.
With all due respect, if you’re expecting that much money for a project as
small as this, I’m afraid it simply won’t happen. Perhaps another community
oriented coder would be willing to do it; however, seeing as how this has
sat on a shelf for so long, I personally don’t see that happening. Oh well.
Ah… But that’s not the gist of the issue.
Basic capitalism: Folks willing to make financial investments (capital) exchange that for tools and labor to create something of market value. If that value exceeds the cost of tool depreciation and the cost of wages, then a business is successful.
I’m not being facetious; just ensuring we have a baseline.
If you can find “labor” willing to produce a Floorplan UI for low wages (contract labor price), then that could be compelling, because it would minimize the capital requirements. With a low enough price, we might have confidence that we would recoup our investment through accelerated incremental sales.
I continue to be confounded as to why you insist that this is a “small project”. The only way to prove that it is a small project is to find a developer willing to do it for “a small price”.
How much do you actually think a professional developer, given non-disclosure access to our APIs and Beta testers, should charge to robustly implement this? If you’re confident this amount is trivial, then it should be easy crowd-fund; but then you have to convince the funders, not me.
While obviously this is a high level discussion, I’m not being insincere. You are completely welcome to PM me if you want to put in the “small” effort and raise the funds required to accomplish this.
I have to say you really don’t know what you are talking about and are out of your depth here.
As for the community developers that have spent their own sweat, tears, time and money to develop and publish SmartApps for the community and not charge, that’s absolutely a great thing for all of us ST customers and community members. Most of them produced things to serve their own personal needs and then shared with others, and then some, well they took on a challenge to see that it could be done and also gave that to everyone else to use.
Do you have any idea on the number of hours alone that it takes to conceptualize, architect and document a full blown schematic of an application from the ground up? That doesn’t include the development time. You think it’s done in a week? Maybe some of these SmartApps and Device Handlers can be done in a short time frame. But with different technology comes different costs and time involved.
For some it may be a hobby that they enjoy and willfully do it for free. Others, it’s a way of life and they are going to profit or get paid whether hourly or at a product charge. People have businesses or jobs and most do this in their spare time, but to take something like this on, it takes a team of people, money to pay them, and time to do it if they are going to give up their daily job to take it on.
With all due respect, you have no clue what you are saying.
You keep saying how simple and small it is. 
You make me laugh. Why don’t you become a software developer and see how small and simple it is to accomplish what you want in your leisure “spare time”? It’s easier said than done.
Would I like to see a product with a cross between House Panel and some Floorplan layout with a beautiful dynamically changing UI combined with the same accessibility and ease of setup as ActionTiles, absolutely! But the foundation that ActionTiles is built on, throwing some dynamic accessible change “small item lol” and it just works is not how things work.
Something of this magnitude would require a brand new product being built and I’m sorry guy, that takes Resources-Time-Costs. So unless you are willing to build this yourself for free or find someone else that is going to do it for you in their spare time for nothing, don’t sit here and talk about how little time it would take or how small you think it is.
Keeping it real!
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As Terry stated, if you want this to happen, get a Kickstarter campaign started with all the backers with a goal of let’s say $100,000 to start (covers salaries for resources dedicated to design and build for a cpl months).
Produce:
- Conceptual design docs
- Design and create a Proof of Concept (Working model)
- Complete architecture diagrams
- Documentation of requirements and deliverables
- Project plan with number of resources, goals, timelines and costs.
That’s a good start.
Surely, you have some spare time to research and put this together, don’t you? Remember, nobody is going to pay you to do all this upfront work. Might have to take a day or two off of work. You good with that? Excellent.
And don’t forget that all these SmartApps and external applications that have been built are reliant on the here and now of what SmartThings does today and if they change direction at any point in time it changes everything that has been built around this foundation. Add that to another document “Risk Mitigation”.
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I definitely believe that some substantial portion of ActionTiles could be leveraged for this idea. While ActionTiles is not architected specifically to be a platform for alternative views (i.e., non-Tiled views), we know that it has inherent potential.
Panels are a fundamental top level object. Adding a whole new distinct tree called “Floors” might be possible without substantial impact and modification of the existing app features.
That’s why I’m actively participating in this discussion. I’d love to see ActionTiles be used as a foundation for innovative extensions - if and only if:
- it can be done without breaking the current functionality and all existing and in-progress features.
- it can be funded / resourced with minimal risk and distraction.
- it will have a high probability of success in the market (incremental sales, higher pricing / upgrade option).
- it won’t substantially add ongoing operations cost and impact maintenance and development flexibility.
That’s a lot of “ifs”. That’s what makes this an extra costly hypothetical endeavor.
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Could be added as a very large and complex Piston with a whole lot of IF, THEN, ELSE’s.
Just for curiosities sake, what about a quick poll put together to see how many community members would back it? I would guess at least 85% of existing ActionTiles customers would want something like this and would be onboard.
A poll is not only unscientific / statistically invalid, it fails to provide a key ingredient: $$$ cash.
(AKA: mouth meet money).
That’s why crowdfunding is so popular and is potentially a way (and maybe the only way) this could be initiated.
Wasn’t so much to get statistics. Just to get an idea of further interest in something more advanced like this and would they be willing to back it via crowdfunding. Just a 10 minute poll to collect more data to see what interest is there. It doesn’t make or break a decision as to whether or not a campaign or project gets started.
And thus we’ve magically gone full circle back to post #23:
Don’t make me go adding up all the posts in many threads and in the AT support forum and then separate out each individual customer.
Ok do this then. In the AT forum, create a thread for Crowdfunding and let people vote.
We avoid intentionally giving ourselves extra work.
See post above regarding “focus”.
(Yes…this is officially an endless goto loop.)
Spending an hour of time to put together a post on the AT forum with a NO REPLY thread (Voting only). This won’t hurt you guys in anyway. It would give you one more piece of information about whether or not your existing customer base would be interested in backing with $$ up front for a bigger badder model that would take a lot more time and resources to accomplish. You only benefit from collecting that information from your customers. It only helps you guys identify more as to whether this endeavor would be worth pursuing. One piece of a puzzle if you will. To me it adds a lot of value whether you pursue it or not.