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kev21986
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Posted: April 21 2009 at 18:08 \| IP Logged

Is there a good iPhone App that works with PH?

I am considering writing one. Is there any interest in it?

kev21986 wrote:

Its been a long wait and taken much longer than I ever planned but iHome is now in the app store.

Click here

Edited by kev21986 - December 04 2009 at 13:52

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Kevin Smith
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dhoward
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Posted: April 22 2009 at 22:37 \| IP Logged

Kev,

Currently no native iPhone app for PH. Im planning on writing one eventually since there has been several requests.

I think it would be awesome if you were able to come up with something.

Dave.

kev21986
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Posted: April 23 2009 at 07:24 \| IP Logged

I have been playing with the web based stuff, but I am just not happy with the initial load time. AJAX will let you update light status and that type of thing without reloading the page, but every time you bring up the page you have to wait for it to load.

I need to start messing around with iPhone programming at work anyways so I will give it a shot. Hopefully there is enough interest to justify the $99 iPhone developer program.

Kevin

http://Invisions.WordPress.com

kev21986
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Posted: April 30 2009 at 13:12 \| IP Logged

I have been playing with the SDK for about a week now and I think I can pull off a pretty cool App. I went ahead and bought the SDK and should have something to look at in a week or so.

Anyone interested in beta testing?

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judetf
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Posted: May 01 2009 at 06:41 \| IP Logged

Kevin,

I'd be happy to give it a shot!
jtf

kev21986
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Posted: May 01 2009 at 09:34 \| IP Logged

Dave,

I was originally thinking I would just make a socket connection but I am considering taking more of a web service approach. My thinking is that it would give a layer between the iPhone App and PH that the user would have some control over. That is how I built my web based control (PHP talks to a psp page). Does this make sense or would I be better off with the socket connection? Or is there a better way to interface?

jdt,

Thats great. I am still playing with the GUI. This is my first iPhone App so I am still getting to know the UI components and how all of that works. I am starting a Device view that lists all of the devices and status with buttons to turn on and off. What kind and how many devices do you have in PH? I only have Insteon so I am going to need help testing over types of devices.

Ultimately want a floor plan view to visualizes the device status and location.

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traviskleckner
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Posted: May 01 2009 at 10:45 \| IP Logged

I'd beta test as well.

4 keypads, 30 or so dimmers, Couple Relays, couple
appliance links (although not currently hooked up) and a handful of lamplinks. I'm controlling a couple
squeezeboxes via socket commands as well, so the ability
to run formulas/macros would be pretty much critical for
me.

Search for other posts by traviskleckner

judetf
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Posted: May 01 2009 at 11:05 \| IP Logged

I have only Insteon devices. Only a dozen or so, total at this point. Even split between KPLs and SwitchLincs. I make decent use of triggers and macros, and have my PH laptop as my iTunes machine, so perform macro-based controls of iTunes using Insteon KPLs (though the iPhone 'Remote' app works well, too).

jtf

kev21986
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Posted: May 01 2009 at 11:14 \| IP Logged

traviskleckner wrote:

My original thought was to make a pretty dummy proof app, but the more I think about it I want to give as much control to the user as possible. I am not sure I want to go as far as a UI builder but everyone has a different setups and needs.

I will add formulas and macros to my list.

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nadler
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Posted: May 01 2009 at 21:30 \| IP Logged

I will also be happy to beta test with my iTouch.

dhoward
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Posted: May 02 2009 at 21:29 \| IP Logged

Kevin,

Im really not sure what the best way to go would be. I know if I was sitting down and trying to do up say a Device Status screen for the iPhone, I would probably go with the socket server approach. Mainly I would do this because Ive already got some special commands that the Remote Device Status Client uses that I would try and leverage.

The way the current remote Device Status and remote Control Center works is by opening a connection to the socket server to retrieve information and to perform actions. It also listens on a UDP socket for any broadcast updates from PowerHome. In this way, there is never a constant connection to PH. If it were me, I would try to duplicate this model. The only problem though would be the UDP broadcasts. To solve this problem, I plan to write a UDP to TCP plugin for the broadcast server.

Let me know if you're interested and I'll put together some documentation on the GETDS (Get Device Status) socket server command. This data can be returned in several different ways including CSV and XML.

HTH,

Dave.

kev21986
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Posted: May 03 2009 at 14:02 \| IP Logged

I think I will prototype with http psp approach, but switch to the socket approach down the line. The http approach is simpler because the classes already exist but the socket approach sounds like the better choice in the long run.

I am interested in the socket server command you mentioned.

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kev21986
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Posted: May 05 2009 at 10:08 \| IP Logged

Learning how CoCoa works has been more of a pain than I was hoping, but I am starting to get it. This morning I decided it was time to start sending commands to PH. I don't plan to release the app like this, but it is using a psp page as a make sift proxy to get commands to PH. As I had expected it only takes 7 lines of code to do this. I was successfully able to turn on and off a few insteon groups when flip switches from the phone.

Here is a screen shot.
http://www.InvisionsTA.com/iHome.php

The switches work, but the list is hard coded and the other tabs are blank. The next step will be figuring out how I want to create the list and update each devices status. I think I will have the list stored in a local database. This will allow it to display the list without interacting with PH and let the user store settings per device. I am thinking that each device should have a few different display modes (switch, slider, segmented buttons (think radio buttons for 0% 25% 50% 75% 100%), and button (ie. all off)) that the user can decide between. The user would have to add each device/group they want to control. When you add a device it would give you a list of "available" devices from PH.

Edited by kev21986 - May 05 2009 at 10:09

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Posted: May 07 2009 at 08:43 \| IP Logged

kev21986 wrote:

I have been using a web base app for awhile now. I would be very interested in testing your app as well!
Thanks

kev21986
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Posted: May 11 2009 at 09:24 \| IP Logged

New screen shots.

http://www.InvisionsTA.com/iHome.php

The device list is loaded from a database stored on the phone. The device edit view needs some work, but it is loading and storing data in the db.

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Kevin Smith
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nadler
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Posted: May 12 2009 at 10:26 \| IP Logged

Kevin,
Looks like it is coming along nicely. Any chance the
app could upload the device list from PH's database at
least the first time so the user wouldn't have to enter
all that info?

I'd also be interested in the app finding wifi and
connecting or reconnecting automatically.

Noel

kev21986
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Posted: May 12 2009 at 11:00 \| IP Logged

nadler wrote:

Any chance the
app could upload the device list from PH's database at
least the first time so the user wouldn't have to enter
all that info?

I am thinking that when you add a device that it would give you a list of devices in PH. I haven't even started looking at that yet though. A bulk add is a good idea. Maybe a list of all the devices in PH and you can check the ones you want to add?

nadler wrote:

I'd also be interested in the app finding wifi

The phone should connect to WiFi on its own so that wont be an issue.

nadler wrote:

connecting or reconnecting automatically.

The settings are stored on the phone so you only need to enter that information on the first launch. After that it will automatically connect to PH when needed.

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Kevin Smith
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Posted: May 12 2009 at 16:51 \| IP Logged

kev21986 wrote:

Hi Kevin,
I'd love to test this as well. Please add me to the beta testers.

I have about 40 insteon devices.

One interesting thing I'd like to see is insteon keypad control. I have one of my keypads configured to control 2 zone volume, next/previous music tracks and source control. I would love to have the iPhone able to control this. I use the iPhone remote app to control iTunes, but it would be nice to control PH macros or insteon devices from an APP and not just via the PH web interface.

I know these may be out of scope for the initial app, just wanted to through them out there.

Thanks

Edited by ficklma1 - May 12 2009 at 16:52

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kev21986
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Posted: May 12 2009 at 17:18 \| IP Logged

ficklma1 wrote:

One interesting thing I'd like to see is insteon keypad control. I have one of my keypads configured to control 2 zone volume, next/previous music tracks and source control. I would love to have the iPhone able to control this. I use the iPhone remote app to control iTunes, but it would be nice to control PH macros or insteon devices from an APP and not just via the PH web interface.

I know these may be out of scope for the initial app, just wanted to through them out there.

Well the funny thing is that is exactly why I started writing this app. I have 2 KPLs and I am hoping my app will replace the need for 2 more. The device control concept is good but doesnt really meet my need. First, I need the KPLs status lights to update. Second, I want to have predefined "Looks" that I can call up with 1 button. I am thinking that each item in the list will control a device or group or fire a macro and have another display type that is just a button. So really "Device List" is a bad name for that tab.

So all that said macros will be there.

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ficklma1
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Posted: May 14 2009 at 17:07 \| IP Logged

kev21986 wrote:

ficklma1 wrote:

So are you saying you're going to have virtual devices that can be configured to fire PH Macros? In other words show a graphical representation of a KPL on the iphone screen and have the buttons "do" something, fire a macro, turn on/off a light, etc. and be able to label the buttons accordingly. That would be the ultimate. Even if you didn't have the graphical representation, it would still be cool to be able to accomplish the same thing via a standard iphone type GUI.

Edited by ficklma1 - May 14 2009 at 17:16

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