Web Remote Customisation

Wed Jun 8 18:22:31 EDT 2022

Hi, Marty,

Slow response - crazy time if year.  But, yeah, I’ve been using XTension since a Quadra 640 was considered overkill for running it, and we all celebrated the pitter patter if skyway racers flitting through the trees.   I think I’ve actually purchased a license four times…

I don’t actually have any x10 stuff running anymore.  Lots of zwave, and a little but if zigbee, plus quite a few little esp32/esp8266 based things on WiFi.  Definitely prefer the faster speed, greater reliability, and two way communication of zwave over x10, and I like that zwave doesn’t use the over-cluttered 2.4 ghz band, where all that WiFi needs to be.

Definitely recommend adding some conversationalty/personality to your system via notifications.  It gives the house a bit of personality, but mostly, it makes it less easy to become accustomed to, and this ignore, notifications.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 3, 2022, at 19:49, Marty Roberts <marteyroberts at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  Lol at the snarky responses, Chad ��
> 
> The speech and notifications are well worth looking at then, by the sounds �� I’ve gone to the trouble of writing AppleScripts to send audio to whatever room I’m in and making a basic notification script for the Web Remote atm, but having something already done sounds like it is a better option. 
> 
> Wow, so you’re an XTension long-hauler eh? I would definitely use more X10 stuff in my setup, but the devices operate on a different frequency here in Aus (433 MHz, as opposed to 310 MHz in the US) and there just aren't any to be found new here- even used ones on eBay are non-existent (Door & Window sensors, cameras and bells/alarms etc). I did manage to score some new X10 motion sensors from the UK though (Europe shares the same frequency as here), which was awesome- even with the postage costing as much as the devices themselves haha ��
> Will check out Home Assistant on Youtube- thanks for the tips. 
> 
> 
> 
>>> On 18 May 2022, at 9:12 pm, chad at holeinthewoodsfarm.com wrote:
>>> 
>>> Yeah, home assistant mostly for ESPresence (tracking the location of things/dog via ble beacons/tiles), ESPHome (interfacing with lots of cheap sensors), and ui.  Recently, I’ve been shifting some notifications to it.  I like the way it implements notifications via the mobile app, especially actionable notifications, like “person detected on security camera (show image).  <OK> <call police><have computer insult him another time><Fetchez la vache>“.  
>>> 
>>> But also text to speech - with espresence, it knows what room of the house different people are in, so I can have the system speak notifications in whatever room(s) makes sense, unless no one is there to hear it, in which case it goes to the mobile app.  And it integrates Jinja2 Templating for those notifications, which lets me randomize the spoken text a bit more flexibly (and faster in processing that randomization) than AppleScript.  I then use AWS to create the actual spoken sound, rather than macOS, which lets me get some really rather humanistic speech (it fails over to a local voice if the internet is down though.  Only thing I allow in my system to send data to the cloud…).  Combined with the randomization and a lot of snark in my notification text, it becomes a lot more difficult to accidentally block out the notifications (just heard “pardon me, but I’m pretty sure Paislee needs to potty”, which means the dog has been waiting by the front door for 90 seconds.  Not too much snark in that one, but I think if you worked out all of the combinations, it could have been said 24 different ways).
>>> 
>>> So, home assistant does do a lot of cool things very well, and generally quite fast.  But, it can’t integrate with other software as easily as XTension, and it’s not as good at complex logic unless you really dig in to yaml and/or python, both of which are slower/harder to develop in quickly than AppleScript.  And, having had XTension as the backbone of my home automation since 1997, well….  I still have a lot of logic and scripts I wrote 25 years, dozens of computers, 4 houses, and 2 towns ago at the heart of what I expect the house to do.  There’s a huge home assistant YouTube community, but a lot of the “amazing” things they’re just now able to do are things XTensionistas we’re doing 25 years ago with X10 modules and skyway racers.
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> 
>>> On May 18, 2022, at 03:12, Marty Roberts <marteyroberts at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Haha sounds right, after checking out your site! �� �� Looks great.
>>> 
>>> Oooh ok gotcha. Sounds like an awesome setup �� The ESP moisture sensor nodes sound cool. Sounds like you’re doing more I.T. stuff as a Farmer than most I.T. jobs haha
>>> 
>>> So you’re still using XTension, but just using Home Assistant for the UI stuff and devices XTension doesn’t support then? I was keen to use some of those cheap Xaomi or Aqara sensors that you mentioned, too, but don’t know that they work with XTension. Pretty sure they don’t. Def gonna have to look into Home Assistant then. 
>>> 
>>> Having something that looks slick like that would be awesome. 
>>> 
>>> Marty.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 18 May 2022, at 11:37 am, Chad Gard <chad at holeinthewoodsfarm.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I’m not sure ‘less work’ is something that could ever be obtained.  ;)
>>>> 
>>>> Right now, the irrigation UI is just an idea that hasn’t been implemented. I have a few steps to go, to include sourcing a 2” solenoid valve I both like and can afford, spending a quality week with a trencher, and choosing a soil moisture sensor - and extending wifi to those sensors (leading candidate is a very cheap xiaomi ble sensor - probably several per zone to average and cross-check each other, connected via an/several esp32 running ESPHome, hence needing wifi.  I have wifi out there now, except the outdoor access point keeps connecting via wireless mesh to the indoor network, which is too weak to be reliable, rather than via its cable.  It’s powered by poe, so the cable is there anyway.  I assume I made a bad connection between the switch, patch panel, two surge suppressors, and the access point.  That’s a lot of crimping and punching…).   With other big farm projects underway, it’ll likely be a winter and/or next year project.
>>>> 
>>>> There are some ui things I’ve done since melding home assistant into my setup that have made things more efficient, though.  It’s mobile app just works very well, and I’ve integrated displays for temperature monitoring for the walk in cooler, germination chamber, greenhouse, high tunnel, and outdoors, for example, which also logs the data required for FSMA and GAPS compliance, rather than manually checking and using paper.  And I recently added an nfc tag that will automatically log when someone cleans the portapotty or the bathroom, rather than recording on paper, again for regulatory compliance, but also so I can more easily keep tabs on things.  Considering geotagging fields and buildings, to help with employee records of what they did where, and may even integrate time tracking into that, both for monitoring our costs and tracking payroll.  Still debating that one.
>>>> 
>>>> I do know how I would implement the plan today, as far as the UI goes, though. The floor plan integration in home assistant uses an svg graphic as the floor plan, and css stylesheets to modify how elements in the svg graphic are represented.  It’s pretty slick, actually, and easy to do things like Sean’s Harry Potter map, without having to worry about overlaid buttons not lining up with the background if you zoom or display the interface on a screen of a different size or orientation.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> —  -
>>>> Chad
>>>> 
>>>> -What's Cookin' at the Farm?  Recipes, menus, and more at http://twie.holeinthewoodsfarm.com
>>>> 
>>>>> On May 17, 2022, at 8:31 PM, Marty Roberts <marteyroberts at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hey Chad - That sounds like a very impressive setup! I will look into Home Assistant and JSON now- cheers.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Do you find having the UI makes your farm more efficient, with less work for you? I imagine yes.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I have seen MQTT mentioned in the XTension release/help docs ��
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 18 May 2022, at 7:55 am, chad at holeinthewoodsfarm.com wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I’m currently running Home Assistant alongside XTension (mostly for the ESPresence and ESPHome integrations), and have largely shifted what gui I have to that ( by my way of thinking, if I have to interact with an interface, it’s not home automation, it’s home remote control).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But, there is a floor plan integration with home assistant that allows precisely the same type of effects (and more) that you describe.  My current plan for it is for my irrigation - not a floor plan, but a field plan of our farm, which will color fields based on state - grey if not planted, green if sufficiently watered, blue if irrigation running, different shades of yellow to red if too dry or too wet.   Click on a field to have irrigation start or stop manually, long click to bring up details and settings (ie, if it’s in carrot germination mode, water in short intervals, no less than once every two hours).  The. Use Bayseian sensors to quasi ai decisions in what irrigation to run when.  Haven’t decided on what soil moisture probes to use - it’s a fossil between something cheap and disposable in case an employee runs over several with the tractor or they just get lost, or something more durable that will last.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Anyway, I currently just use json to “talk” between XTension and home assistant, but it’d be nifty to use an mqtt broker instead…
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On May 17, 2022, at 16:18, Sean Lavigne <sean at houselavigne.us> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> About 15 years ago I ran both XTension and another home automation program because we had Insteon switches in that house.  While I love the simplicity of using XTension, I couldn’t really get a good grasp on the web interface side.  In the other program, I had a background that was the floor-plan of the house:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> <Scroll_Background4_1024x704_upper_level.png>
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> When you selected any of the room names, a button which was a graphic that covered each room would change state.  The button was transparent when the lights were on (as pictured above) and when they were off the room will be partially filled with “pencil lines” to indicate that it was dark.  We might have been reading Harry Potter around that time…  
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In the large empty area we had our weather station readout and a smaller version of the basement floorplan that you could click on to load it as the main floor plan.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I would LOVE to do this in XTension, along with a mobile friendly version, but I definitely don’t have the knowledge to do so.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Sean
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> On May 10, 2022, at 7:15 PM, Marty Roberts <marteyroberts at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Hi again everyone!
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Just wondering if anyone has set up some cool web remote interfaces?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Has anyone had any luck with using <img> tags in HTML description units? 
>>>>>>>> Managed to change the fonts of the grouping rectangles? 
>>>>>>>> Mess with the colours of the toggle buttons? 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Some things I would love to be able to do and see would be: 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Embedding images into the HTML description. I have tried doing this with the full path to the Icon folder (where the png is stored), but just get the broken image icon. I feel displaying an icon or image on a UI is better than text most times. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> <Screen Shot 2022-05-11 at 9.57.38 am.png>
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> When trying to use an <img> tag in the HTML description, using the full path to the icon.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Changing the colour of the toggle buttons to something more standardised i.e.: the grey off state and green background for on (not the whole button like it currently has- just the slider part), rather than the blue & yellow. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> <toggle buttons.jpg>
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> As an example of a more standard iOS/Mac button: only the slider’s background colour changes, not the buttons themselves (above), versus XTension’s colours being across the entire button (below).
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> <Screen Shot 2022-05-11 at 9.55.17 am.png>
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I actually prefer XTension’s squarer buttons, but would prefer the top image’s colours.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Be able to customise background colours, border colours and fonts of the grouping rectangles & icons. The system font of Helvetica Neue gives it a much more modern and cleaner appearance - although the difference is very subtle - imo. Having control over background colours would make something like creating a dark mode for night time use possible, which would be easier on the eyes in the wee hours lol.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> <Screen Shot 2022-05-11 at 9.59.30 am.png>
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> The font XTension uses (above) versus macOS’s system font (below). 
>>>>>>>> I was able to specify the font in HTML- subtle, but looks nicer - but being able to choose the font UI-wide would make a big difference in the look of it imo.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> <Screen Shot 2022-05-11 at 9.59.09 am.png>
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Rather than trying to customise/“hack” the web remote stuff, has anyone created a full HTML web page UI with something else XTension may offer?  
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> So yeah- if anyone is willing to share some cool tricks and ideas they have made for theirs, I’d love to see them! Also, my jump into this has really made me realise how much work James has put into XTension! It’s such a cool app to be able to do so many varied things with and customise. 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Thanks for your time reading and hope to hear any responses you might have! 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Marty.
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