[ANSWERED]Apple Watch Extension

Not familiar with them. What are iBeacons?

They're small Bluetooth LE devices that notify iOS devices of their presence. In theory, you could put one in each room, and the iOS device would know what room it's in. If you search for iBeacon, you'll find some threads in this forum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBeacon

Just read about them on the Apple site. Sound very interesting.

I love Indigo to death... but I'd guess Apple Watch integration is years away. Indigo is the most solid and yet frustrating platform for home automation on the Mac there is. Solid in terms of what it does do. Frustrating in terms of how slowly it's developed, especially on the mobile side. Version 1.7 of the Indigo Touch was released on Dec 22, 2010 and not updated again until April 23, 2015- speaks volumes.

I get it: small company, limited developer resources and a focus on making the desktop server experience work with new automation hardware as it appears. That's fine with me and for the most part works well with the kind of goals I want it to achieve. But I'm guessing I'm also not alone in casting a watchful (no pun intended) and interested eye at all of the other apps that are coming down the pipe in this increasingly competitive market niche.

I have used the (unofficial) Indigo app on my pebble watch. While it would be great if I had 3-4 devices, with dozens of devices there is a lot of scrolling. Swiping through the list of devices on my iPhone is signifigantly faster.
i always just pull out my phone instead of launching the Pebble app.
I'm still working on determining my location within my house using iBeacons; it is non-trivial. My system still is only somewhat reliable telling the difference between me being in the upstairs bedroom or the basement.
All that said; I would love to have my Apple Watch ask me if I want to turn out the lights when I leave the room.

I've had my Apple Watch for 2 days now, so I've got at least a bit of real time experience under my belt.

One one hand, as expected, actually DOING things on the watch is not really a great experience. Using this to control an automation system interests me very little.

There is a place for Indigo Touch here though, and that's notifications/status updates. I'd like to be able to pull up one of the 'glances' and see certain pre-determined status items from my house (garage door open, alarm armed, etc...). Latency might be an issue with that however.

I don't need a quantum leap of intelligence to use my watch to control my hundred of instead devices. My devices are easily categorized in Indigo by zone/room. Plus garages, etc. So, lets say a list of 30 which is easy to scroll through to get to where I want. And having the ability to do things like favorites can avoid me using the non-used zones and I could easily have a zone of 10 most used zones with devices behind that list. VERY easy.

Having control on my watch allows me to stop reaching for my phone. Simple integration, voice controls would be super KEEN!
Again, avoid the constant reach for my phone. With my phone tethered to my iWatch and computer, I stop reaching.
For my home automation, I am at a stage of automation where I don't want to reach for my phone. I want motion sensors and scene or activity control to easily know what I want to do.
Or voice commands.

Just to chime in on the usefulness of using a watch to control your home. I agree with both viewpoints. I'm currently running a Moto360 and have rigged up an interface to Indigo using a combination of Dropbox, IRTTT, Tasker (Android) and python. I do not have a list of all of my devices on it. As a matter of fact, I don't have any. I'm not sure I could organize them where I'd be even slightly efficient in using them. That said, I do have about 3 or 4 action groups that I routinely fire off from the watch. One of the many cool features of Indigo is the ability to create action groups. For me, I feel that action groups and watches are perfect for each other. Necessary....No. Convenient...You bet.

Having a button on my watch that turns off all my house lights, arms my security system in Bedtime mode, checks the status of my doors/windows and alerts me through the house audio if something is amiss is really nice. Sure, I could pull out my phone and do it or setup a bedside tablet to do the same thing but using my watch is just easier for me. Another button to open my garage door when I get back from my run is convenient as well.

Jeff

Although I expressed my point of view some time ago, I have now used my Apple Watch for over a month now, and would welcome an Indigo watch extension even more than ever. I agree with the previous post that I would certainly not try to include everything, but the ability to scroll through rooms and access selected devices or actions would be really useful. I've tried using an Insteon hub, but it's isolation from Indigo makes that problematic.

On the other hand, I fear the absence of at least some minimal functionality will be a competitive disadvantage for Indigo, since a number of other home automation solutions do offer watch apps.

I know the developers of Indigo have a lot of competing priorities so all I can do is say I believe this is something that would be more widely used than people think.

I'm looking for a way to do this myself instead of waiting.

One possibility is to use the DO button app and the maker channel from IFTTT to call URLs to trigger scenes. There is no way to see if a light is on but I can use it to switch off all lights, enable alarm and such things. The rest is done on my iPhone.

Another one would be to program an Apple watch extension to call the URLs and show certain values.


Any other ideas?

I'd jump on this wagon... a simple interface to turn on/off would be fine... or at least turn scenes on/off

For those wanting rudimentary Apple Watch control of Indigo, take a look at the Roomie Remote iPhone app. I have been using the app on my iPhone and iPad for my home theatre stuff for the last year or so. It's not 100% reliable on the watch, but lots of fun to play with for now (until we see Indigo Touch on the watch, lol).

For those wanting rudimentary Apple Watch control of Indigo, take a look at the Roomie Remote iPhone app. I have been using the app on my iPhone and iPad for my home theatre stuff for the last year or so. It's not 100% reliable on the watch, but lots of fun to play with for now (until we see Indigo Touch on the watch, lol).

Interesting. Roomie Remote lists their Indigo support under Lighting. Do they support more than just lighting features of Indigo?

I'm considering getting a used Apple Watch if I can get it working with Indigo as well as my Pebble watch does with the Pebble MyData app. Has anyone looked at the free Watchbench iPhone app for prototyping javascript apps to work with the Apple Watch? Thanks.

--Dave

I'm considering getting a used Apple Watch if I can get it working with Indigo as well as my Pebble watch does with the Pebble MyData app. Has anyone looked at the free Watchbench iPhone app for prototyping javascript apps to work with the Apple Watch? Thanks.

--Dave

Got really close to developing a nice Apple Watch screen with Indigo buttons but I ran into a dead end. I don't think WatchBench can send a URL with embedded credentials for authentication, let alone digest authentication. This would be a deal breaker and I have not been able to get any response from the WatchBench developer. I suspect this may be a dead issue.

I'm convinced that this would be an easy programming task for anyone capable of using Apple WatchKit SDK. Unfortunately, this level of development is beyond my expertise. I'm hoping to get my son to help but he is too busy at the moment.

I've also tried the Workflows iPhone App that can be run on the watch. I've had some success but authentication has been hit or miss and the interface is not as nice as I would like.

Has anyone had any success with any Apple Watch tools to send authenticated URLs to Indigo? What we really need is the equivalent of Indigo Control Pages to run on the watch.

--Dave

I just tried an app called Home Remote from Bouncing Ball Games and it seems to do most of what I need without any programming. It can issue Indigo compatible URLs with embedded authentication and https. It can even issue multiple actions. The buttons appear on the Today iPhone screen and in the app and glances screens on the Apple Watch, including voice control. I don't see any way to get status feedback but this could be done with a web browser on the phone or with Indigo Touch. Also, if I really need feedback from a button, I could send myself an iMessage. I think the app is only a couple of bucks or so.

Note that this could be a very convenient app on the iPhone ,even if you don't have an Apple Watch, since the buttons appear right on the Today screen with a simple swipe down on the phone.

Some other details: I needed to use spaces instead of %20 in my Action names, etc that are embedded in the URL. Also, I put the full URL in the URL text box since I could not get the put/push screen to work yet with a name and password which probably uses digest authentication. However, I think this may work eventually.

Please let me know if anyone else tries this and has more info to share.

--Dave