Great example to work from, I have added it to the wiki on the github repo.
I’ll create a slack channel for this project and invite anyone interested. Would like to keep off the official st resources, and use those for official interaction.
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I would design using a selfhosted internal system like a pi. Keep it off the public Internet and we should be able to interact with it on the home network.
With CDNs we can can host a lot of the files. With Nest Manager we are pulling in JS and CSS directly from github.
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Exactly, but I want to offer something for the masses that don’t want or don’t have even a Pi to work with. We should be able to build something for end users that want to view their dashboards securely.
This is the awesome part of open source development, is scale and scope. We will need to serve many needs, and with a good group of folks, we can divide and conquer all of them.
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Slack channel has been created https://open-dash.slack.com Feel free to pm me your email and I will get you in.
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Interested.
I am not in for coding. But can test. Setup and test infrastructure. Etc.
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I’m fine with self-hosting, at least in the development phase. Have a Linux server running 24/7 anyway. Eventually, an external hosting will be necessary, as Patrick said. Either by ST or by a third party.
yeah, I think we can accomodate the self hosted solution, assuming someone wants to build out what we eventually decide to standardize on. We are in the top end of the funnel phase of planning, all things are possible, we need to gauge what the needs are and move into the POC phase pretty quick.
Give the UI/UX contributors some time to present concepts and ideas and see how we can flow the data in/out and display it effectively and efficiently.
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LOL I thought we ALL had a pi or two laying around…guess I need to start hanging out in less techy groups from time to time!
Would this be a node.js sort of deal basically? I run a Ubuntu server 24/7 but maybe making it Java for those without *nix experience would be better? Though less efficient I suppose.
I was thinking node.js as well, but frankly I’m open to anything or ports to different hosting options to parse the data from the API.
Really we need to focus on the js object to serve up the dashboard functions, then the back end is just plug and play.
I have to say it… I am glad to see @pstuart and @geko back on kicking ideas on ST projects! Welcome back…
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I’d rather stay clear of Java. 
The production will be hosted externally anyway, so no concern to the end user.
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I am actually thinking of going down a POC that would be a chrome plugin, and everything would be js based, no server needed. 
Local storage for caching data, etc. Would have to figure out Android and iOS, but frankly a web view wrapper app wouldn’t be too hard to create. So we can have hosted, self hosted, standalone app, and maybe st hosted inside the mobile app one day.
But I think we will ultimately need a simple hosted user login / account server to make sure the oauth2 flow is maintained and secured server to server and then just have a display layer and interaction surfaces for the data.
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@pstuart @geko I came across this older post the other day, maybe some useful info for you guys…
Some other details pasted in on how they accomplished this…
The interface consists of a Dashing installation running on a free Heroku instance. Dashing is a really cool dashboard framework. What I love most about it is how minimalist, yet customizable it is. It’s just a few hundred lines of code on top of some widely adopted web technologies, including Sinatra, Batman.js, Gridster and Sprockets. You can easily create new backend services using Ruby, and frontend widgets using CoffeeScript, SASS and HTML.
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Yeah, Florianz posted above his link to his project. I think this is a great model to follow and build from, leveraging Jody’s api base point and see where we can go from here.
It’s not like this hasn’t been done before, its really about brainstorming the collective here and coming up with something that can work in a multitude of situations and solve the critical issues facing current / lacking dashboards in and out of the ST ecosystem.
Really appreciate the feedback, and those that have treaded down this path before us.
Running off a pi would be great. They are very cheap and for those that haven’t messed with them can learn a thing or two. Heck I have 1 pi3 I’m actually using a 3 pi2 just sitting around doing nothing from various other projects I was messing with.
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If everything can be hosted on the client, it’s even better.
I’ve read that Chrome apps are being deprecated though.
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Good call, somehow I missed this… A web app makes the most sense, lightweight, portable, hostable on basically anything.
Just don’t want to lose focus on secure storage of credentials, so we don’t expose tokens or worse.
Also, for those interested that haven’t gotten into the slack channel or PM’d me your email, please feel free to do so.
If you have already created an open source dashboard on your own and would like to share, please do so as well.
I am really excited about what we collectively can come up with.
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I worry about publicly hosted solutions. Security has to be much higher.
Ideally I would want to have it running purely on Smartthings. With Nest Manager we are importing multiple javascript libraries like jquery with no issues.
If I was going to run a PI I would be looking at home assistant with the MQTT bridge to ST. It brings a lot of additional functionality.
Yes, I hope we can do a lot of different things. Security will be a high priority for sure.
Man… Home Assistant has such a high learning curve. This is one of the reasons why I’ve stayed away from it… I do yaml and python almost all day at work dealing with Saltstack and I absolutely hate the idea of using yaml for device configuration.
It literally looks like something that some open source 10x engineer put together because he was bored, while wearing skinny jeans and sipping on some weird artisanal tea. And if he’s around, you can tell him I said so.
I certainly hope that whatever device / dashboard configuration / bridge interface for other platform is put together for this dashboard takes a more “user friendly” approach.
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