Smarter Home grouping (Dashboard options?)

Hi Guys,
Im hoping this solution exists somewhere.

In my house I have 13 different light switches in 5 different rooms. In each of these rooms I have a tablet that controls the various different things from TV’s to Lights etc etc. Now this in theory is great, but the problem that I have is that my “Favorites” home page on ST is starting to look like a complete dogs breakfast.

What Im looking for, is something that will allow me to customize a favorites page for each room within the ST app to only deal with the items in that area.

As an example: my living area consists of Lounge, Dining room and kitchen. But also has a harmony hub, tv, amplifier, fire tv etc. I essentially want to create a favorites page that will only deal with those items on a SPECIFIC tablet.
Then the next tablet would need to deal with the bedroom, study etc.

Is this currently possible in ST?

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HI Gilbert,

This isn’t a feature in the SmartThings App, but it is one of many features of ActionTiles: The web-based dashboard Panel builder app we built specifically to cover the convenience of arbitrary groupings of Things as you described in an unlimited number of Panels per License (i.e., per SmartThings Location / Hub).

Many of our Customers do exactly what you are looking for; creating Panels for:

  • specific rooms or areas in their homes
  • specific family members, even for children to control just their own lights and perhaps a “panic button” to alert the parents
  • sets of Tiles of a particular purpose like all the Temperature Sensors, Security Sensors, or … Battery Levels.

ActionTiles includes secure Panel Sharing (granular sharing to other ActionTiles Accounts secured with login and password, limited to the specific Things on that Panel(s) and revocable instantly).

And many other features! We’re super popular with a 4.9-Stars Reviews rating on Facebook.

Explore free for 14-Days:

And here’s a great overview video if you want to “sit back” and watch first:

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Not possible in the official app, but there are several third party dashboard apps that can do this.

The most popular is certainly ActionTiles. ( I have no connection with any of the dashboard projects or companies. :sunglasses:) Lots of features, the developers are active in this community, very popular. There is a one time license fee of around $30 per hub (not per tablet).

If you also want to look at some of the free options, see the “dashboards” quick browse list in the project reports section at the end of the following article in the community – created wiki. Choice is good. :wink:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Quick_Browse_the_Community-Created_SmartApps_Forum_Section

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@JDRoberts… Could he create an account for each tablet? The different accounts would each have their own favorites page, wouldn’t they? Or is the favorites page tied to the location, not the account?

All that said, it’s more trouble than it’s worth, and ActionTiles is definitely the better choice. It was just the way he worded it made me think that having an account for each tablet might accomplish what he’s wanting in the main app. Though, I’m going to defer to you because I definitely haven’t tried anything like that.

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This is a good question (and a decent idea if it works). Give it a try? I don’t give out access to the SmartThings App (Classic) to anybody but myself, so I don’t know offhand.


The Favorites Page of the SmartThings Classic App is a nice tool for very basic organization of a few Things - but ActionTiles is a whole other league here… Especially since it fulfills the OP’s use case by design.

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So, yes, actually, it looks like that does work. The favorites screen is tied to each user, not the location, so you can create multiple SmartThings logins… Then, going to More, click Manage Users. Add the accounts for each tablet. Log into SmartThings with the appropriate login on each tablet and set up your favorites screen for that room.

That still gives you full access to the app, though, so if the OP is wanting to limit access for some reason (say a kid turning off the lights in a siblings room to make them scream…), ActionTiles is still a better option, and less work over all…

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Hi Everyone,
thanks for this! it worked perfectly, except for having to create a bunch of ST accounts…

my main issue here was that I have close to 100 “smart things actions” from turning TV’s on/off plus various inputs through harmony, plus lights and shade controllers. Essentially meaning it just took you forever to find what you are looking for.

By creating the accounts, I could create a favorites menu for each room that then only dealt with the items in that room. Simply put, I could configure each tablet in each room to only show the 20 or less devices to deal with in that room.

Of course switching to the “my home” tab would then let you control all of the devices if you wanted to, but certainly helped to declutter the dashboard page.

I know the new smart things app allows you to set up rooms and will likely be the way forward, but currently will not let you control any Fibaro products which is 70% of whats in my house for lights, automatic shades/blinds etc.

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