Recently, I’ve been diving deep into enhancing my smart home setup, and it’s been an exciting journey! I’ve been using SmartThings for a couple of years now, and while it’s fantastic for controlling devices, the user interface has always been a bit lacking for my needs. I decided to explore other platforms like OpenHAB and Home-Assistant, but each had its own set of challenges. OpenHAB didn’t support all my devices, and Home-Assistant had some UI limitations that I just couldn’t get past.
After spending a few days tweaking and testing, I realized that the best solution might be to create my own custom UI. The goal was to have a dashboard that allows me to quickly see what’s happening around the house while keeping things simple and clean. I also wanted to integrate control for my Apple TV, which I couldn’t do directly through SmartThings.
Here’s what I’ve been working on:
- Dashboard Design: Inspired by some themes I saw on OpenHAB and Behance, I aimed for a sleek, modern look. I’ve incorporated graphs from Grafana to visualize energy usage and temperature trends over time.
- Device Control: I’ve streamlined the controls so that I can manage multiple devices with just a few taps.
- Apple TV Integration: While it’s still a work in progress, I’ve made some headway in getting the Apple TV controls to work seamlessly within the same interface.
I’d love to hear what features you’d like to see in a custom UI or any tips you might have for improving the design and functionality. Let’s collaborate and make our smart homes even smarter! 