InControl For Windows Phone 7 - Wish List

[lamanmi]

All,

I am starting to ramp up the next version of InControl for Windows Phone, as such am starting to gather ideas for new features. Here are some to get started:

• Metro User Interface
• Device Status to display on the Location Screen (to eliminate having to go into each device)

I will try to incorporate as many new features as possible.

Thanks!!

[darren-mc]

I think the idea of the metro feel is great:

How about Live Tiles/Toasts -> for key status updates EG House Alarm

Cheers,

Darren

[johnoc]

I'd also like to have the ability to control two HS Servers... I know, not easy!!! I have a lake house which also has HS running it, so being able to control both homes would be awesome.

[humphreysr]

Maybe a longer timeout. I always have to hit refresh when I first start. Also a way to look at an image (i.e. my webcam).

I also assume you will recompile for Mango so we can get multi-tasking

one more thing... How about the ability to pin a device to the start screen. Now that would be really cool.

[walshy002000]

Any chance of getting a switch button added next to the device item when displayed in the list? Would make it a bit quicker to control simple on/off appliances (see mock-up below). Also any chance of the icons being metro-fied?

[GlennWo]

Wish List Items

I don't have multiple HomeSeer locations but could see how that would be useful if you could add that functionality for those that do. All the other suggestions above I would use on a regular basis.

I have some status indicators (i.e. Garage Door contact sensors) that it would be nice if I could see all of them on one screen without having to go into each sensor individually. Also be nice to see light switch status and turn them on and off from one location screen as well. Would be nice to have some added thermostat connectivity and control. That seems to be lacking in current version as well. I can provide more details on the issues I am having with thermostats currently if needed.

BTW, thanks for a great application. I was an early adopter and love InControl on my WP7 device.

Thanks.

[lamanmi]

Walshy002000,

Thanks for the ideas. Both are actually on the todo list. Most likely I will get the current beta version launched and then work on these as a next version.

Any chance of getting a switch button added next to the device item when displayed in the list? Would make it a bit quicker to control simple on/off appliances (see mock-up below). Also any chance of the icons being metro-fied?

[lamanmi]

GlennWo,

Thanks for the ideas, seeing the status on the main page (list of devices) will be coming in the next version (probably after the current one in beta).

Thermostats do work in the current version, however, as there are many different types that use different ways to talk to HomeSeer sometimes they are tricky to set up. Let me know which type you have and the plug in version for it that you are using and we can see if we can get you fixed up.

Thanks!

I don't have multiple HomeSeer locations but could see how that would be useful if you could add that functionality for those that do. All the other suggestions above I would use on a regular basis.

I have some status indicators (i.e. Garage Door contact sensors) that it would be nice if I could see all of them on one screen without having to go into each sensor individually. Also be nice to see light switch status and turn them on and off from one location screen as well. Would be nice to have some added thermostat connectivity and control. That seems to be lacking in current version as well. I can provide more details on the issues I am having with thermostats currently if needed.

BTW, thanks for a great application. I was an early adopter and love InControl on my WP7 device.

Thanks.

[GlennWo]

Beta update and Thermostat info

I recently installed the Beta update 2.0.3 and it did fix the issue I was having with the original WP7 app crashing when I tried to access an event from my WP7 with the previous Beta plug-in so thanks for that fix.

I also installed the new WP7 app and have done some playing around with that as well. No show stoppers yet but I do have a few observations.

1) If I swipe 4 or 5 times rapidly to go to another location, I can easily get ahead of the WP7 app. I stop swiping but it still pans several screens before it stops.

2) Swiping to get to your location is very much Metro style and works great if you have limited number of locations but I currently have 13 locations (I know, I need to consolidate ). With that many locations, it is sometimes difficult to quickly get to the location you want to control via the swipe motion. It wasn't a problem with the previous app as it started with a scrollable list of all your locations. It would be nice if you could implement a jump list or special screen (maybe accessible via the options buttons) that would regain this quick location jump functionality. Or maybe make this an optional start screen for those like me with too many locations.

On my thermostats, when I go to the InControl plug-in and click on thermostats, under Supported Thermostat Plug-ins it says "no supported plugins found" and under Custom Thermostat Devices it says "no custom thermostats found". What I have is an HAI OmniPro II homeautomation panel with 5 OmniStat2 Thermostats connected to it which is then tied to my HomeSeer Pro via a serial cable and the HAI Plug-in version 2.0.0.19. The thermostats show up under the HAI HVAC screen on HomeSeer. They also show up with their individual functionalities tied to device codes on the Device List.

Currently I am using VBScript with HAI function calls and hard coded setpoint temperatures via HS Events to allow InControl to at least turn on certain AC zones remotely when needed (i.e. Guest Suite).

Is this something I could implement using your custom thermostat screen? I haven't tried that yet but willing to give it a try if that is the right approach to give me individual access and control to the thermostats.

Thanks in advance for your help,
GlennWo

[GlennWo]

Thermostat update and issue

OK, I was able to look at the Custom Thermostat functionality last night and I was able to get an HAI Thermostat added to InControl by using this process and a few custom scripts. Got it all debugged and working on the first Thermostat and everything worked fine until I added a second Custom Thermostat, that's when I started having problems.

When I clicked on ADD, it added a second line with a new Custom Thermostat number but it erased everything on the first line and replaced it with the new second line (i.e. line 1 and line 2 looked exactly the same and I lost the Custom Location and Name parameters). Clicking on ADD again created the same behavior. In other words, a third line was added with a new Custom Thermostat number and it replaced line 1 and 2 with this same view. When I saved at this point and went back to my Windows Phone, it just showed the last Custom Thermostat added.

Since I didn't know what was happening and thought I was loosing my configurations, I didn't customize each thermostat via the web interface but instead opened up the hspi_InControl_WP7.ini file to see what was up. I found that each of the thermostat numbers and configurations were there, but down at the bottom of the ini file, it replaced all the Thermostat names with the last one entered.

NumThermos=3
CustomTherm_1=Custom_6215
CustomTherm_2=Custom_6215
CustomTherm_3=Custom_6215

Seeing what I thought was the problem, I then manually edited the ini file to add all 5 of my thermostats and modified the lines to customize the settings and scripts for each thermostat. After a few hits and misses, I was able to get this working and showing up appropriately on my Windows Phone but any time I try to use the web interface and Custom Thermostats, it once again shows me 5 identical lines and if I hit save, it creates the same problem with duplicating the same name for all 5 thermostats at the bottom of the ini file.

NumThermos=5
CustomTherm_1=Custom_3717
CustomTherm_2=Custom_3717
CustomTherm_3=Custom_3717
CustomTherm_4=Custom_3717
CustomTherm_5=Custom_3717

So, functionality is working great but there seems to be a problem with the web interface for Custom Thermostats when you have more than 1 Thermostat. I am running the latest 2.0.3.0 beta plug-in. I never tried this with the previous version of the plug-in so I don't know if this is unique to the beta or not.

Let me know if this explanation isn't clear or if you need additional information or a copy of my complete ini file.

Thx,
GlennWo

[GlennWo]

WP7 Beta - Thermostat experience

First, a little background.

The way that HomeSeer is connected to my thermostats is via the HAI plug-in which uses a serial link and pollling of the HAI panel to get the status of various components/zones, etc. including thermostats. This is a slow and inefficient method but it's all we have today to connect HS and HAI panels.

So, why am I telling you this. With the older version of the WP7 InControl app, I can click on the up or down temperature several times and then I can stop and watch over the next several seconds as the displayed temp setting changes a degree at a time until if finally catches up with the requested setting. I believe this is due to the slow nature of the commands being sent out and the status being received via queuing from the thermostats.

When I do this same set of steps using the new WP7 InControl beta app, I will get repeated error screens displaying the following message "The HomeSeer server did not respond in a reasonable time to load the locations. Please be sure it is accessible through the internet. Click the refresh icon below to try again.". It then gives an option to send the error report to support@lamansoft.com. (BTW, there is no refresh button at this point as the message says there should be.) Anyway, I seem to get this error every time I try to adjust the temperature more than 1 degree at a time without waiting for the long refresh cycle in between.

This timeout may be just something you have in place for debugging during beta but it causes problems with adjusting my thermostats whereas the previous version did not have this issue. Also, going to an immediate "loading" screen and refresh as soon as any entry is given (which may take several seconds) is a less desirable user experience than the previous version which didn't clear the screen but continued to let you make changes and the settings would update over time as the status updates were received.

As always, thanks for listening.

GlennWo

[lamanmi]

GlennWo,

For #1, I'll see if there is anything we can do to speed up the swiping, although not sure there is going to be much we can do. For #2, I am working on some concepts to provide alternative methods for accessing device information that should help large setups.

Thanks.

I recently installed the Beta update 2.0.3 and it did fix the issue I was having with the original WP7 app crashing when I tried to access an event from my WP7 with the previous Beta plug-in so thanks for that fix.

I also installed the new WP7 app and have done some playing around with that as well. No show stoppers yet but I do have a few observations.

1) If I swipe 4 or 5 times rapidly to go to another location, I can easily get ahead of the WP7 app. I stop swiping but it still pans several screens before it stops.

2) Swiping to get to your location is very much Metro style and works great if you have limited number of locations but I currently have 13 locations (I know, I need to consolidate ). With that many locations, it is sometimes difficult to quickly get to the location you want to control via the swipe motion. It wasn't a problem with the previous app as it started with a scrollable list of all your locations. It would be nice if you could implement a jump list or special screen (maybe accessible via the options buttons) that would regain this quick location jump functionality. Or maybe make this an optional start screen for those like me with too many locations.

On my thermostats, when I go to the InControl plug-in and click on thermostats, under Supported Thermostat Plug-ins it says "no supported plugins found" and under Custom Thermostat Devices it says "no custom thermostats found". What I have is an HAI OmniPro II homeautomation panel with 5 OmniStat2 Thermostats connected to it which is then tied to my HomeSeer Pro via a serial cable and the HAI Plug-in version 2.0.0.19. The thermostats show up under the HAI HVAC screen on HomeSeer. They also show up with their individual functionalities tied to device codes on the Device List.

Currently I am using VBScript with HAI function calls and hard coded setpoint temperatures via HS Events to allow InControl to at least turn on certain AC zones remotely when needed (i.e. Guest Suite).

Is this something I could implement using your custom thermostat screen? I haven't tried that yet but willing to give it a try if that is the right approach to give me individual access and control to the thermostats.

Thanks in advance for your help,
GlennWo

[lamanmi]

GlennWo,

Glad you got it working, I'll add the interface issue to the bug list.

OK, I was able to look at the Custom Thermostat functionality last night and I was able to get an HAI Thermostat added to InControl by using this process and a few custom scripts. Got it all debugged and working on the first Thermostat and everything worked fine until I added a second Custom Thermostat, that's when I started having problems.

When I clicked on ADD, it added a second line with a new Custom Thermostat number but it erased everything on the first line and replaced it with the new second line (i.e. line 1 and line 2 looked exactly the same and I lost the Custom Location and Name parameters). Clicking on ADD again created the same behavior. In other words, a third line was added with a new Custom Thermostat number and it replaced line 1 and 2 with this same view. When I saved at this point and went back to my Windows Phone, it just showed the last Custom Thermostat added.

Since I didn't know what was happening and thought I was loosing my configurations, I didn't customize each thermostat via the web interface but instead opened up the hspi_InControl_WP7.ini file to see what was up. I found that each of the thermostat numbers and configurations were there, but down at the bottom of the ini file, it replaced all the Thermostat names with the last one entered.

NumThermos=3
CustomTherm_1=Custom_6215
CustomTherm_2=Custom_6215
CustomTherm_3=Custom_6215

Seeing what I thought was the problem, I then manually edited the ini file to add all 5 of my thermostats and modified the lines to customize the settings and scripts for each thermostat. After a few hits and misses, I was able to get this working and showing up appropriately on my Windows Phone but any time I try to use the web interface and Custom Thermostats, it once again shows me 5 identical lines and if I hit save, it creates the same problem with duplicating the same name for all 5 thermostats at the bottom of the ini file.

NumThermos=5
CustomTherm_1=Custom_3717
CustomTherm_2=Custom_3717
CustomTherm_3=Custom_3717
CustomTherm_4=Custom_3717
CustomTherm_5=Custom_3717

So, functionality is working great but there seems to be a problem with the web interface for Custom Thermostats when you have more than 1 Thermostat. I am running the latest 2.0.3.0 beta plug-in. I never tried this with the previous version of the plug-in so I don't know if this is unique to the beta or not.

Let me know if this explanation isn't clear or if you need additional information or a copy of my complete ini file.

Thx,
GlennWo

[lamanmi]

GlennWo,

Thanks, I have been able to reproduce the issue and have a line on how to correct it. I'm not sure it will make it into the next release, but if not, it should be in the one shortly following that.

First, a little background.

The way that HomeSeer is connected to my thermostats is via the HAI plug-in which uses a serial link and pollling of the HAI panel to get the status of various components/zones, etc. including thermostats. This is a slow and inefficient method but it's all we have today to connect HS and HAI panels.

So, why am I telling you this. With the older version of the WP7 InControl app, I can click on the up or down temperature several times and then I can stop and watch over the next several seconds as the displayed temp setting changes a degree at a time until if finally catches up with the requested setting. I believe this is due to the slow nature of the commands being sent out and the status being received via queuing from the thermostats.

When I do this same set of steps using the new WP7 InControl beta app, I will get repeated error screens displaying the following message "The HomeSeer server did not respond in a reasonable time to load the locations. Please be sure it is accessible through the internet. Click the refresh icon below to try again.". It then gives an option to send the error report to support@lamansoft.com. (BTW, there is no refresh button at this point as the message says there should be.) Anyway, I seem to get this error every time I try to adjust the temperature more than 1 degree at a time without waiting for the long refresh cycle in between.

This timeout may be just something you have in place for debugging during beta but it causes problems with adjusting my thermostats whereas the previous version did not have this issue. Also, going to an immediate "loading" screen and refresh as soon as any entry is given (which may take several seconds) is a less desirable user experience than the previous version which didn't clear the screen but continued to let you make changes and the settings would update over time as the status updates were received.

As always, thanks for listening.

GlennWo

[GlennWo]

Thanks for all the updates on the feedback. I have a few other issues I have seen with the beta client that I will document later tonight or tomorrow and post for you.