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

Thanks. Yeah, I know how to change device types…but I haven’t really messed with the actual contents of said device types.

I’m using a wemo plug now. Can that device type be edited to work here?

I could swap it out to a ZWave or Zigbee plug in a couple of weeks. Would that work better.

Nope, doesn’t matter at all. Just go into the IDE and see what the current device type is listed as. You can PM me also as to not clutter up this thread.

@625alex: In @JB_Bentz issue I threw in capability “Valve” into the Wemo DTH and then as a hack just did a sendEvent(name: “valve”, value: “open”) within the Def on and a close in the off to see if that would work. It did for status, he can pull the switch in as a valve and get the fountain icon. However he cannot control it, it asks if he wants to open it but clicking ok doesn’t do anything. How does ActionTiles send down control commands? Is it through whatever is setup as “Primary_Control”? I.e. the primary control tile would need the capabilities changed form switch to valve?

Howdy, Allan…

There is no concept of “Primary Control”.

A Tile in ActionTiles is tied to a specific Capability. A Thing with many Capabilities can generate Tile Types for each such Capability.

In this particular case, our Valve Tile currently has a hardcoded Fountain Icon available, but our Switch Tile does not. @JB_Bentz is using a Switch to control his fountain valve.

Thus, a functional DTH hack would be to create a copy of the DTH for the Switch, and add capability "Valve". He would also have to add the open()/close() Command methods, and have those internally mapped to call “on()/off()”. He could then generate the desired functional Valve Tile.

There are other options such as using a Virtual Valve and universal device translator or other basic synchronizing SmartApp.


But frankly, except for the joy of hacking, these solutions are excessive (using a screwdriver to pound in a nail) - considering that ActionTiles will almost certainly be making icon usage more flexible in the coming months.

Duh… I don’t know why my brain stopped working when I know I’ve send two different commands down from AT to the same device. Oh well. So to make it work right now should be just adding:

def open() { on() }
def close() { off() }

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I feel foolish obsessing over something like this, especially if you say that there is a solution coming…but I just couldn’t help myself…I wanted to figure it out now. Thanks to Allan, we’ve got it working.

I’m extremely excited about the prospect of ActionTiles “almost certainly making icon usage more flexible in the coming months” though. Imagine the hours I will be able to waste tweaking my icons. :slight_smile:

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Well, I have 4 Arlo pro 2 cameras that work great. Unfortunately, when I bought them , I had no idea that I couldn’t used them with Actiontiles which hurt my feelings. I actually need 2 more cameras. So I am looking for 2 wireless cameras that have great video quality, relatively easy to setup with Smartthings, and that I can use with Actiontiles (with easy setup as well). Anyone have any suggestions with their experience? Ideally, I would have wanted these 2 additional cameras to be Arlo as well, but due to the Actiontiles issue I will go with a different kind. One camera will be indoors and the other outdoors (both wireless).

@cchilds1976 quick question do you know if the base station for the Pro 2 is the same as the base station for the Pro? I’m thinking of getting add on Pro 2 but just wondering if I will be missing missing anything from the Pro 2 base station

That, I could not tell you. But I will check and let you know if I can find some info

This is the response I received regarding your question:
Pretty sure it’s the same base. An add on Pro 2 camera will work with a base from the original Arlo HD, Arlo Pro or Arlo Pro 2 kits

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We’ve been incredibly lucky to have Customers do a lot of exploration of various ways to get around the inherent limitations of streaming video to browsers.

While we may not be able to deliver a solution ourselves (due to resource allocation and/or the complexity of the hacks required); we’re taking notes anyway in the hopes that ActionTiles’s community can crowd-solve this.

For example, I have no idea if this link has potential, but someone ought to explore it. This project on GitHub is a Python Library for Arlo and includes streaming … and that might expose the ability to “transcode” the stream into unencrypted MJPEG (or other HTML5 format?) for ActionTiles to embed:

Worth taking a look! Enjoy and good-luck…

Great! I will look into it. Just got done chatting with the Armcrest folks. Their cameras seem nice. He wasn’t able to tell me if their cameras would work with AT or Smartthings. I do remember seeing Armcrest mentioned in the AT posts so I think there has been success with Armcrest. I just don’t want to make the mistake of buying the cameras and they don’t integrate.

Amcrest (& Foscam and a few other clones) are currently based on the same classic firmware and an open API. That makes them preferable to cameras from vendors too focused on selling cloud recording.

The types and reliability of streams still varies considerably by model though; so don’t just focus on the brand.

For direct compatibility (and no guarantees) the model must offer MJPEG streams over http (prefer https). If only RTSP is served - no good without an intermediate server.

Chrome/Fully also blocks authentication of form “http://user:password@address”.

I will keep that in mind. If by chance you hear anything else, feel free to let me know

I thought it was Amcrest.

It is…I totally butchered the brand name as I am just learning about them.

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Terry I’m curious but what are the potential implications of using an http stream instead of https?

I have a Hikvision camera that seems to work in a media tile if I use an http url for the mjpeg stream, but not https…

Windows/Mac Chrome (and perhaps some other browsers) block embedded non-SSL content in an SSL (https) page (“disallowed mixed content”). Since ActionTiles is served securely, non-https streams do not work in Windows/Mac Chrome. Verify this problem by checking the browser debugger console (F12) when viewing a Panel.

I don’t know why mobile Chrome doesn’t have the same behavior… But it probably will someday soon.

Chrome should make these blocks optional!

Similarly, browsers will respect server requests to disallow embedding of content in iFrames.

I have noticed that if I turn on a Thing on one tile then another tile on another Tileset that is actually for the same Thing does not update to show the right intent. For example, in the attached the 5th tree tile is the same Thing as ‘Family Room Side’ on the Garland Tileset. While the ‘Family Room Side’ icon updates to the lit bulb it does not show as ‘bright’ like the three other lit bulbs on Garland. The same is true for ‘Dining Room Tree/China Hutch.’ A Reload fixes this as does waiting a little while.

After a reload:

Yes… This is a known bug :bug:. I’ll add link to our Forum Topic so you can follow it. Not a high priority due to the low impact (it’s not that common for a specific Thing Tile to be placed on a Panel more than once.


Thanks for reporting… But we really encourage Bug Reports & Feature requests to be made at ActionTiles Forum / AT Support & Ideas please: That way we can collect other related observations and avoid duplicates, offer confirmations and workarounds, measure impact, and publish progress tracking for any customer to follow (with optional emailed notification setting…).