I’m hoping to be able to use the New Dashboard, but some key capabilities seem to be missing from the Android version. I finally figured out how to select the “Configure Dashboard” screen, but it doesn’t show any choices for Adding or Deleting Devices, Scenes or Cameras, with the only exit choice being “Done”, lacking the Add, Delete and Save selections shown on Alina’s video, which presumably used the Apple version of the app.
I did manage to add a few Devices, and found that tapping the icons would cause the desired actions, but none of them showed the updated device status, unless I exited and reopened the app again. I’m hoping there will be updates coming soon that will make this a fully functional feature on the Android app. In the meantime, please don’t remove the existing Dashboard.
I finally got around to trying the dashboard on my iPad and it works very well, still a lot of wasted space that could easily be solved by sorting the icons from left to right, top to bottom on each “page”.
Apparently, the Apple version of the New Dashboard actually works, based on Adina’s video, but I’m wondering why Vera would release this half-functional Android version?
Maybe I’m just “doing it wrong”, as Steve Jobs once said, but I’ve tried using on three different Android mobile devices, on a range of OS levels, all with the same, disappointing results.
I think this is a dynamic layout decision actually.
Since the sections scroll horisontally (overflow auto) they need to have a fixed height. So the icons stack from left top to left bottom. And when they don’t fit in viewport there will be a horisontal scroll. They could of course make it a oneliner, but that could also result in a very loooong row if many devices in your section.
Otherwise the content would have to be stacked from left to right and wrap when not fit on the row, which would produce a vertical scrollbar.
After reading many negative comments, watching the demo on YouTube, figuring out how all the customization menus work, and spending about 45 minutes designing the dashboard for one of my 4 Vera units (one with 100+ z-wave devices), I do like the new Dashboard. I haveused both the Vera and VeraMate apps and find the new Dashboard to be superior replacement for my purposes to the VeraMate. I do wish the Thermostat icons displayed the temperature. Thank you for the work getting the dashboard to this point.
I have to agree with the Thermostat displays lacking useful info unless you open them up.
I still use Vera Mate as it’s display is less touches to view and change the stats but I realize it’s days are numbered.
Vera Mate will also show if your heating or cooling is actually running which Vera Mobile still does not do.
That feature happened to save me $$$ when I was away and had the AC on and noticed it was running but not cooling down so I was able to turn it off before damaging the equipment.
If you’re interested in another alternative approach, you might look into incorporating Home Assistant and NodeRed into your Vera setup. I have a Vera Edge and a Plus, and after the most recent meltdown I cobbled together a new system using an old Raspberry Pi from my junk drawer with an Aeotec ZStick to get ZWave capability, and played with Home Assistant as the software part (aka HA).
In doing that, I’ve discovered that Home Assistant can “integrate” with a lot of other systems, including Vera Edge or Plus to get to their ZWave functionality. So apparently I don’t really need the ZStick but could use my Edge/Plus instead. I haven’t tried that yet, but it seems to be possible to use HA as a front-end to an existing Vera setup.
NodeRed is an addon to HA, and provides a very powerful and well-supported programming environment where you mostly use a graphical editor to “wire” modules together to get it to do what you want.
I’ve been learning how to do things like automations and scenes in NodeRed. But it also has modules which can be plugged together to create a UI designed as you choose to do it.
It’s all open-source, and there are tons of tutorials, active forums (1200 messages since I joined about a month ago), and Youtube videos to show how to do things with HA and NodeRed.
Seriously guys and girls, you need to fix this as a priority! If my wife or I are out of the house And want to run a scene or flick a switch, the app just bloody sits there doing SFA for ages with no visual indication that it’s trying to update device status. Half the time I can figure it out by the fact that the house status is wrong but it’s still ridiculous that this is the case!
It’s beyond a joke, really, this is UI freaking 101!
Tell me about I’ve requested this so many times when they’re updating the UI a year ago. Still no response, it’s 2019 and we don’t know when our home control app is updating device states…
At home on local wifi there’s no issues, it’s when I’m out and about. Yes I’m in Australia, but this shouldn’t be an issue considering how fast our 4G networks are.
