Small thing, but it changed my mornings. I stopped using my phone to fire scenes.
I have four routines I run several times a day: Morning, Work from home, Movie, Good night. Doing them from the app means unlocking the phone, waiting for it to connect, finding the right tile, tapping. Half the time I just didn’t bother and left the lights wrong all day.
Now there’s a 9.2" strip sitting under my monitor (MiraBox Stream Dock D92) with four big buttons, one per routine, each with a small state hint next to it. Tap Morning on the way to the kitchen and the living room lights come up, blinds open, coffee starts. Tap Movie and lights dim, TV switches input, HVAC drops to the quiet fan setting. Refreshingly boring, which is what I wanted.
How it’s connected
There’s no custom driver, and I want to be upfront about that. This is not a native SmartThings integration and the panel never talks to the hub. The desktop app that drives it lets each button send an HTTP request, and SmartThings gives every automation a webhook URL. So each button is one GET to one webhook. Setup was: make four automations, copy four URLs, paste them into four buttons. Took about twenty minutes including the mistakes.
Two things worth knowing:
- Webhooks are per-automation and can be revoked one at a time, so the PC doesn’t have to hold an account token.
- The PC has to be awake. If it sleeps, the buttons do nothing. I keep mine from sleeping during the day, and a cheap always-on Windows box would work just as well. It can’t be a Pi, the app is Windows and macOS only, which I found out the hard way.
Why a strip instead of a tablet
I tried a cheap tablet first. It worked, but it needed charging, it kept going to sleep, and it always ended up under a stack of paper. This thing is powered off USB, stays on, and the buttons have real travel so I can hit them without looking. It also shows the time, indoor temperature and whether the front door is locked, three things I used to pick up my phone for.
Not for everyone
- If you run two or three automations a week, don’t buy this. The app is fine.
- It’s not plug and play. Budget a real configuration session.
- It’s a monitor with a config app, not a Zigbee or Z-Wave device. It never joins your hub, everything goes over the network.
Curious how others have handled this. Has anyone put a scene panel on a wall instead of a desk? I’m thinking about moving mine next to the light switch.