[RELEASE] ActionTiles, the homepage for your SmartThings home!

Just setting on my AT account reading through the cue cards and descriptions. When going to the My Shortcut panel. Noticed a typo…installed apps like “Panora” … assume should be Pandora. Looking good so far will have time to dust off my android tablet and get this up running. Glad won’t have to login every ten minutes ha

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Can you explain how you added the amcrest cam? What url format did you use?

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edit: @tgauchat reached out to me to resolve this issue. As a user who had previously donated to this project I was entitled to a license and beta access, something I would have known had I bothered to read the nice emails they’ve been sending me :smiley: Consider the matter outlined below resolved beyond my expectations.

I’m not sure if it’s been discussed here, but now that ActionTiles is moving to a paid mode, is there any consideration being made for people who donated for previous versions? When I make a donation to an open source community effort it is done with the understanding that someone is donating their time and skill and sometimes a cash “thank you” can be helpful. When that project goes commercial, the dynamics of the relationship change. I’m not questioning the change in model here, programmers need to pay rent and it’s hard to make the donation model put food on the family table. I do however feel a little put out being asked to pay twice for this product, because it’s no longer a “gift” in my mind but a commercial transaction.

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I appreciate your question, Luma.

Everyone who donated over $5 was invited to our ActionTiles Beta Program (using their PayPal address). Many people didn’t respond. Beta Participants are receiving ongoing benefits, especially if they continue their incredibly valuable (priceless) contributions to Beta testing and feedback. They get first access to new features and the opportunity to influence our design… And these incredible idea/ survey contributors, bug catchers get a license gift.

The donation page explicitly stated that contributions were “gratuities… A tip jar.”. We implored and emphasized that contributions should not be made if the contributors had any expectations of reciprocation. This was similar to a “Go Fund Me” page, not a Kickstarter or IndieGogo, which, frankly, are purposefully deceptively made to look like pre-sales campaigns with no risk, and yet extremely frequently end up severely delayed or complete failures … or de facto “fraud”.

We are extremely grateful for the gratuities, as they made the evolution of several versions of SmartTiles and FREE user support possible. As a result, thousands of people were able to use SmartTiles free of fees for over 2 years, since before March 2014 (SmartTiles v5.0+).

Believe me, I’m not elaborating here just to be argumentative. I understand your viewpoint and question. However, I believe it is important for us to be as upfront as possible and try to be 100% clear to everyone: Nobody was asked to “pay” for SmartTiles; they were invited to donate. And if you choose to purchase ActionTiles (we hope you love and value it…), then you are not “paying twice”, you are buying a completely new product license.

BTW: I’m was a major Kickstarter Backer of SmartThings. Per the Kickstarter campaign, my contribution earned a reward of a Hub V1, an Arduino shield, and Things, early access, etc… It did not include a free upgrade to Hub V2, an entirely new product. Neither did my Kickstarter contribution entitle me to a penny of the $200 million paid by Samsung for the acquisition of the company.


Gratuities were gratefully accepted as thanks for SmartTiles

ActionTiles is a completely new product that took over 1.5 years of separate development. The owner of ActionTiles is Thingterfaces LP; a business entity that purchased SmartTiles to protect its copyrights and trademarks from misuse, and aquire the SmartTiles voluntary opt-in email list that some people chose to subscribe to at the time of installation.


That said, if you contributed an extraordinary amount in thanks for SmartTiles and did not receive a Beta invitation (or chose not to respond / participate), please contact Support@SmartTiles.click (yes, SmartTiles) so we can review your contribution for possible upcoming promotions. Please be sure to whitelist that email address and include proof of contribution.

Thank-you! :pray:

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So far I love it. Having a small problem and before I send to support I just want to make sure there isn’t an easy fix. Is anyone else missing some of the icons in the tiles?

What OS version and what browser (and version)?
I’m guessing it’s a browser issue.

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It is dolphin on a Kindle fire. Works fine for a couple of hours.

May want to post over on the support forums.
I’m not sure how many people tested Dolphin during beta.

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Yes here it is, I used the Media Tile and selected this media is a video stream.
http://username:password@ipaddress:port/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?&subtype=1

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I just got my code and set up a panel. All I can say so far is…this thing is pretty slick.

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edit: As mentioned in an edit to my previous post, ActionTiles support has set me up with access to the full product. In response, I’ll be adding an $8 donation to my previous $20 donation because I’ve found this software is worth paying for and because Terry and Alex have contributed so much to this community with their hard work and professional approach to software development and customer support.

Feel free to ignore the opinions below, ActionTiles is a class act and they have made another happy customer.

[quote=“tgauchat, post:415, topic:78684, full:true”]
Everyone who donated over $5 was invited to our ActionTiles Beta Program (using their PayPal address). Many people didn’t respond. Beta Participants are receiving ongoing benefits, especially if they continue their incredibly valuable (priceless) contributions to Beta testing and feedback.[/quote]

I’ll use myself as an example here. I used Action Dashboard/SmartTiles/etc going back a ways. When I use a piece of open source software my inclination is to send 20 dollars to the author just to say thanks. When that software is closed up and taken commercial it’s a frustrating experience being asked to pay for something which you already paid for when it was free as a matter of grace.

As a donator, I was invited to the beta. The beta is well run (much better than others I’ve participated in), and like any good test it came with several surveys and at least one clean reset of existing panels. While I used to spend a lot of time monkeying around with ST and HA in general, these days I really would rather things work without me paying any attention to them. Participating in a beta program requires some degree of effort on the tester. In return, the tester may get early access to features or some other special consideration. Participating in a well-run beta program is a two-way street: the tester provides their own work and time in exchange for access. Saying “your twenty dollars bought you access to do more work for us” doesn’t feel like an equitable trade.

Ultimately, this action will have the impact of making me consider more carefully which sorts of projects I’m donating to in the future. ActionTiles carries with it a cloud-based component which means monthly bills and I can’t expect the author to foot that cost for free forever. It also means that it can be 100% closed source, so the author can change the terms of agreement at will. The result is that I don’t see myself donating to any projects that don’t actually allow me access to the source code (both client and server), as it puts me back into the position of being asked to pay for access to something that I’ve already donated to, but this time with the additional provision that I won’t have access to the “old” code in order to run my own instance.

This is a long-winded way of saying that this action has poisoned the well for future donation-driven efforts around the ST community. With Rule Machine the community learned that any non-fully-open license is subject to the whims of the author and as a result cannot be 100% depended upon for the long term. With ActionTiles, we’re learning that any project which includes a non-open server component is subject to those same whims.

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Please forgive me :pray:! This is a huge misunderstanding if you are a Beta Participant (I had no idea just from your Community handle screen name). :scream_cat:. They all get free licenses! Beta participants provide priceless contributions and we wouldn’t exist without you! I’ve sent you a private message to clear things up. I’m so embarrassed; please accept my apologies.

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So far so good making my panels. I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet but it would be nice to put an iframe on the panel (i.e. show my Access Points status)

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Are you still handing out beta access?

Not sure if this is the correct place to ask, but is there a way to clone or copy tile sets? Or better yet have a shared tile set among panels? I’m creating a “navigation menu” of sorts and I’ve got a panel for each area in the house. My plan is to have a navigation bar at the top of each panel that links to all of the other panels (areas of the house). Cheers!

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We like to stay active in the SmartThings Community, but the best place we recommend for bugs & Ideas is our own Forum.

That features (starting with copying entire Panels) is in the Topic link below. Allocate some Votes and contribute to the discussion! :smile:

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Beta Program is definitely ongoing, but full. As participants leave sometimes or we decide we need to grow this vital resource, we’ll figure out how to invite more folks from time to time. Thanks!

dangit. ok thanks.

Will do. Cheers!

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I take it the staged roll out is just going to be for a while? Just didn’t know if there would be a point to let you know that I never receive it.