Share My Creation Almond+ Lamp Controller App+Widget

After reading on the Almond+ forum that it will be some time before a widget is available, I decided to have a go at my first widget with B4A. After all, can't have my wife fumbling around to turn WeMo bulbs on/off in the bedroom...

It is in the play store [since Jan '15]. If you don't have an Almond+, it won't be of any use to you.

Update 8/25/2015: Added additional device type support (MultiLevelSwitch, BinarySwitch), added In-App Widgets, added capability for more than one Home Screen Widget of the same size/layout but with unique settings. Added configuration for Widgets: text color, background color/transparency. Added optional restriction to one SSID.

Update 3/29/2015: Improved graphics, and an additional portrait layout.

Update 3/12/2015: now features a widget-like control available for the Notification Drawer! Works just like the Widgets on the desktop, but available anytime you can access Notifications.

On the widget, the little house icon when tapped will open the app. Tap the yellow progress bar or the lamp label to advance to the next lamp. The play store description has more information. The app and the widgets share the configuration; set from the app.

The third image promotes this was made with B4A, and with B4A-Bridge-Relay.
Thanks again, Erel, for creating B4A (etc)

-Chris, @ The 12Lab

 

[mr23]

An update has been posted up today. The widget has been expanded to

Allow control of illumination level at 6 levels
- off, lowest on setting, 1/4,
- 1/2, 3/4, full on

And now you can make various selections of lamps
- select an individual lamp
- or select from a 'location' of lamps (ie subset of All lamps)
- select the whole set of lamps at a 'location'
- or select All lamps
to perform an illumination operation upon.

Play has a paragraph of description on operation of the widget. Could be expanded, but the Superbowl is starting...

 

[mr23]

And now available in several widget layout sizes

 

[mr23]

Updated for compatibility with FW R070+.
Update: and now for FW R070as beta. Should be more tolerant of future firmware updates.

 

[mr23]

v18. Added a 'portrait' layout widget, and corrected centering on the others.
It would be nice to have better widget layout/scale/sizing capability, a lot of the effort goes into that.

 

[mr23]

Wrote up a quick post on the app+widget at http://the12lab.com/almond-light-controller-appwidget/

 

[mr23]

v24 in beta and going live soon. Now features a Notification Drawer 'Widget'. Works just like the Widgets on the desktop, but available anytime you can access Notifications. Has options for

• enable/disable the Notification widget
• mark as OnGoing
• adjust priority down to Min or up to Max
• choose 1 of 3 available layouts for the Drawer

This post goes into a little detail on how I quickly added a 'widget' like control to the notification drawer; no hand-layout-edits necessary. A couple of minutes later I had a "choice of layouts" working. Sweet! B4A comes through again.

 

[mr23]

v26 updates the 'graphics', now using a Lamp shape on an 'illuminated background'. A 1x5 Tall/Narrow layout is now available.

 

[mr23]

Latest version adds additional device type support (MultiLevelSwitch, BinarySwitch) to the previously supported MultiLevelSwitchOnOff.
Added In-App Widgets
Added capability for more than one Home Screen Widget of the same size/layout but with unique settings.
Added configuration for Widgets: text color, background color/transparency - to enter configuration mode, click the (Home Screen) Widget background.
Added optional restriction to one SSID.

 

[mr23]

Updated for Almond+ firmware R083 - Securifi did away with the POST command format for controlling devices and implemented it in the WebSocket server. This has a benefit of dramatically speeding up the control of many lamps.

 

[mr23]

Apologies are in order to those negatively affected by release v34.

v35 was just released to address some lingering issues, but more importantly to fix a just discovered issue with the app's device loading code that resulted from a previously unknown issue with the IDE/compiler 5.5 in Release mode. It resulted in new users unable to see any devices, and a few negative reviews and 1-stars in Play store. This is now fixed. The Login and device capture sequence was also improved.

If you had problems and stopped using it, please give it another try.