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

Anyone know how to stream Dahua IP camera with ST?

Any idea how to fix nicely an ipad air on the wall?

Some recent iPad mounting ideas
 (Group Membership required).

Works great 


https://www.amazon.com/Command-Picture-Hanging-4-Pairs-17206-ES/dp/B00404YKZI/ref=sr_1_5?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1514738052&sr=1-5&keywords=command+picture+velcro+large

I use two large size on an old iPad. Of course if you want to have permanent power hookup then you need to get more elaborate. I just have a short cord running to a nearby outlet that has USB. But, with these strips you can just pop the tablet off to charge if required too.

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I like the ActionTiles GUI. It is very useful. I am also willing to make a 30$ investment on such a nice interface.
But I don’t like the idea of hosting this GUI on a remote server. (I know that ST cloud is also a remote server but it is different)

I have a 24hr running server on my LAN. Is there a model of purchase to host on my own server ?

Or any similar software that is available to run on LAN ? (free or paid, doesn’t matter)

Thanks.

  • How is using the SmartThings Cloud different?
  • Do you use Amazon Alexa or Google Home (or Gmail or WebCoRE, or 
)?

Just like SmartThings, Amazon, Google, and others, we found that the most efficient way to build ActionTiles was on top of a cloud based infrastructure. Our “app” is a single-file web page that executes mostly locally, but we built an efficient “Cloud-to-Cloud” platform as a channel to SmartThings and foundation for other pieces of our architecture. This is, in fact, the model that SmartThings strongly encourages, especially with their “new API”, currently in public Beta.

Of course there are powerful smart home systems that don’t require a cloud (like Control4; which offers $2000 to $10,000 control pads, home control servers, mandatory service contracts, 
), and even locally executing speech-recognition software similarly powerful to Amazon or Google; but these are not mass market products like SmartThings and ActionTiles. Neither are Homeseer or Home Assistant.


Since SmartThings has no intention of being a non-“Cloud-Centric” platform, we don’t think there is any business justification for building a non-“Cloud-Centric” version of ActionTiles.

As SmartThings and other smart home platforms evolve, so will ActionTiles. I cannot say what the future will bring. But since this is our final answer until further notice; ActionTiles is likely not a good fit for you. Thanks for the question.

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well, I use Alexa and Gmail. But I don’t use WebCore (I prefer using Core) because of the same reason.
Q: How it is different ?
A: simple; Alexa, Smartthings or Gmail are the service itself. Amazon is the owner of the Alexa service, and it is a cloud based service. Google is the owner of the Gmail service , so it has to run on Google servers.
But your project is just an addition to ST Cloud. And since it is a web page (as you admit , even a single-file web page) it could easily run on a LAN web server.
The reason you don’t model it that way is that you don’t want any abuse and want to earn from each customer (which is your right)

Why I don’t prefer it that way ? Because, I don’t want to be bound to your servers. Samsung, Amazon, Google are strong companies which maintain their servers in several locations with very high geo-redundancy conditions. You can’t say that your server is as high-available as theirs.

As you say, this is your final answer; ActionTiles is not a good fit for me. I will try to build a simple web page which meets my requirements.

Thanks, for your answer.

I don’t think you understand the complexities of your statement


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why not ?
I don’t want a complex app like ActionTiles. I just want to put several device tiles in one page.
anyway; let’s not write off-topic here in ActionTiles thread.

But that’s my point. You have no way of getting the data out of the ST Could. There is no access to it directly. You can’t write a web page and poll SmartThings. You have to have, as you said, a complex app to get the data you want and then send it somewhere to be stored and then write a webpage to pull the data back out. ActionTiles is not only hosting the page but the data.

If you can write a app that does this and build a server to accept it and write a web page to display it for less then $30 then good luck to you but for 99.9% of us who value our own time it’s easier to purchase a ready made well working solution.

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it’s not about money. I wrote above that I am willing to pay for actiontiles.
Btw, I can write an app to pull-and show data dynamically. I don’t need to store it anywhere. If it is too huge to act dynamically then I can store on the same server as my web server.
anyway, now I think that I can achieve it using a smart app without even using an external server and web page.
that’s a better path if I can achieve


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I am an ActionTiles customer. I use it every day as it’s faster than opening the SmartThings app on my phone.

However, if you’re looking for a locally hosted dashboard then this might be your thing. I was thinking about installing this on my Plex server, but gave up and just use ActionTiles.

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That is not the reason. There are plenty of ways we could enforce license compliance without being a cloud-centric app.

You do realize that we don’t run ActionTiles on servers in my garage, right? You haven’t heard of wholesale cloud computing / distributed hosting services such a Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Firebase, Cloudflare, etc.???

ActionTiles uses Google’s cloud computing engine and hosting services and has substantial redundancy. Similarly, the SmartThings Cloud runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS), not a Samsung data center!

If reliability is your primary concern, then you’ve made a mistaken assumption, and could choose to rethink.

Of course we are another piece in the puzzle and can’t guarantee uptime, but ActionTiles has had a trivial amount of downtime
 almost all of that due to SmartThings platform outages or glitches. We’ve actually been down less than Amazon Alexa’s SmartThings integration during the last 10 months.

Our product is rated 4.9/5 Stars and has 98% Customer Support satisfaction rating, with most tickets answered in under 18 hours. We’re proud that we exceed the expectations of our Customers. It sounds like we’d probably exceed your low expectations too.


Running on your own server is indeed fun and educational. It can be immensely satisfying 
 or frustrating. Be sure to enjoy the challenge!

Cheers,

 Terry.

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I’m sorry , I can not compare the environment or high-availability conditions of your servers on AWS with the conditions of Samsung servers on AWS.
I am also using AWS for personal requirements but I am not sure if Amazon is supplying the same conditions for 3rd party servers with their own servers. Also I don’t know if Samsung is using AWS as an ordinary customer or with a special Samsung contract.

Reliability is not my primary/sole concern. I am trying to decrease the requirement to 3rd party servers. That’s why I maintain a server at home. I can’t change the environment of Amazon Alexa services or Smartthings Cloud. I am using their service with their hardware. Since they don’t charge anything extra for the service, and that there is no other option if I want to use ST/Alexa, I am going to live with that, trusting companies like Samsung, Amazon, Google. If one day your company grows as much (or at least 1/100th of one of them), maybe you could consider supplying a total solution and distribute your app with a dedicated hardware (closed tablet for this uniq purpose) with a price of 25$ , then I can consider your solution as Amazon/ST/Google solutions.
Until that day, I am going to avoid using additional remote servers for my smart home solutions.

Btw, I am also using Ring doorbell, Neato Botvac Connected vacum cleaner, Logitech Harmony and several other cloud based solutions. But they are really different from my point of view. They all include a hardware in their solution and there is no other way of achieving what they supply without their hardware+software+cloud solution. Yours is different. As you said, it is a web page and there is no reason to run it on a remote server when I already have one LAN server. The only reason might be that you want to protect yourself and making people bound to your environment.

Thanks for your time reading this.

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So you are ok with being bound to a companies 3rd party software so long as there is a piece of hardware supplied with it? This makes no sense to me.

Supply a Tablet with the ActionTiles software pre installed for $25.00? That’s never going to happen, not for $25.00 anyway. Maybe $125.00.

If you want additional services with Amazon such as Prime or Music, you pay a monthly service to access that functionality. To me, ActionTiles is the equivalent of this in that it is providing an additional service to SmartThings for a one time cost. I look at this as an upgrade cost to something Samsung / SmartThings doesn’t currently provide with their native app.

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I didn’t say that. I don’ t understand how you took it that way. I said; I am ok because there is no other option. “the solution is provided end-to-end.”

well, that is what Amazon is doing. They sell their Echo Dot with 29USD price , and colored tablet with 49USD price. These , as hardware, are worth much more than that.
Btw, I am not looking for a tablet together with what you are offering as a service. That’s not my intension. And my concern is not money. Yesterday, I wrote that I am willing to pay 30$ as long as I could host the web page at my LAN server. Money or hardware is not the concern here. You totally misunderstood. (or prefer to misunderstand) All I am saying is that, Amazon is offering an end-to-end solution, hardware/software/cloud service included with a very low price. How are you comparing ActionTiles with such an end-to-end solution ? That’s what I don’t understand.

ActionTiles is not providing an additional service to main service “ActionTiles” . That’s my main point. I think you understand it.

ps.

I don’t want to keep this thread busy with my ideas on this matter. This is my point of view and it makes no sense to you. (because your earning model is not suitable)
So there is no point in keeping this thread busy with my negative ideas.
I have great respect to your product and your business. (and others) Keeping it busy with negative ideas is not a good way of supporting this thread.

good luck.

Actually I find this discussion kind of interesting.

What’s your concern re: remote servers if it’s not primarily reliability?

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I said an additional service to SmartThings. It is an additional way of accessing, displaying and controlling SmartThings devices.

If you purchased a new mobile phone and it came with a default Case, but you didn’t like that Case, you would go out and purchase a 3rd party case in a different color, material or style that better fits your needs from what originally came with the phone. And you are going to pay somewhere between $10 and $30 for that new case. It’s exactly the same thing.

you can read above. I believe I wrote it clearly in the paragraph starting with “Reliability is not my primary”