About

About me and why I created this app

Backstory

I used to work at Wink which is what brought me into the smart home space initially. I thought Wink had a great app / UI -- but was missing a very big thing for me.. A dashboard view. I worked on my own time to create one for the Android app and called it the Wink Dashboard (see picture here). I had been using it on 2 wall mounted tablets for over a year. I really tried to get Wink to release it to the public but at the time they had other issues ($$) to deal with so it never really went anywhere.

When I got the notice that Wink was going to charge $5/month to keep my devices working, I made the switch to Hubitat. It was between Smartthings and Hubitat and both seem very flexible but reading through reviews I got the feeling Hubitat would be the better option.

Switching all of my devices from Wink took some time but was fairly easy. However, when it came to viewing all of my devices on my phone or tablet -- I felt like Hubitat really needed some work. I tried creating a standard 'dashboard' but it felt like a frustrating process and the end result was pretty hard to look at compared to the competition..

I did eventually find sharptools.io and integrated it. The UI looked really nice and it had a full-screen option too which was great. But, being an Android developer I thought a native app could do much more. Plus, sharptools.io also required a monthly fee once the trial period ends and all of my device traffic had to go through their servers - taking away one the best benefits of the Hubitat in the first place!

So, I found the Hubitat MakerAPI and started to create my own Hubitat Dashboard app..