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Entity control from iOS widget (reddrefuge.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Does anyone know if the 2024.5 Companion App update for iOS removed the ability to control entities from the widget? I've read the release notes but there's no mention of any features being removed.

I could absolutely swear that I had a working widget with most of my lights on it, a solitary button for each light, that I could single tap to toggle said light.

Then, a few months or so back, I noticed the widget didn't seem to be working. The entity icons had change to black, round shadows, and tapping them did nothing.

I deleted the widget, thinking it got corrupted somehow and have never been able to get it back exactly as described above.

Now, it seems that only thing I can do with widgets is use Actions. Some Actions have been auto-created by the Companion App for each scene on my server, and I can obviously create my own Actions, to trigger automations.

But, I don't want to have to frig around with Actions (using input_booleans and automations) to do something as simple as turning a light on or off.

Am I dreaming? Did the iOS widgets never have this ability? Or am I missing something really obvious to configure entities onto a widget?

Thanks in advance for any useful advice.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

So you can't possibly conceive that a single finger tap on a home screen widget to control a light is far simpler, and takes less effort, than having to open the app each time, potentially scroll to the location of the entity you want to control, then tap?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Believe it or not, I do understand that :)

But then I have about 15 of these switches here, and in my home it feels like I have just started to make it smart... would you want to create 15 widgets then, instead of using the 1 app?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Worst kind of commenter. I bet when people ask for advice on buying sneakers you list 5 pair of sandals, and bait to start an argument against wearing shoes...

Anyway OP I also just looked on my iPhone and get the same results as the top poster for widgets. Does indeed look like they changed it at some point. I am also sure I had one with buttons for lights on both the phone and watch.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Disappointing that, if this was a thing, they removed it. Seems like the very definition of regression to me.

At least I know I'm not imagining it. Or that I'm not the only one. ;) Cheers!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

He is probably talking about light switches like a porch light or garage light that you want quick access to when you get home and for some reason your automation never switched it on, so you want to quickly access it on a homescreen via a widget, and not have to go into the app and search through multiple dashboards etc. His use case and therefor his question is totally valid.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yep, that's it. One of my most frequent uses of this widget was to turn the kitchen light off - the teenagers are forever walking in to the kitchen while we're watching TV in the loungeroom nearby, then forgetting to turn the light off when they leave again.

Having a quick access widget for it just made it such a non-issue for me to turn it off. No fumbling and swiping for the app, and no interrupting what we're watching to issue a voice command.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Nah - not a widget per light. Per my OP, I had a widget that had a number of lights on it. The number varies based on widget size. I think mine had about 12 entities on it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Look into the Shortcuts app. This is Apples answer to creating automations on your iPhone. While I’ve never tried this, I see that it can send actions to the HA app. Perhaps that will do what you want

So your options include

use your HA dashboard
create a link to an action or scene in HA
configure HomeKit bridge and use a HomeKit dashboard
configure HomeKit Bridge and use Siri
Use the Shortcuts app to automate the HA app

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I use Shortcuts with NFC tags to automate some stuff with HA, and could probably achieve something on an entity by entity basis.

My point is that we used to have the ability to put a widget on the screen with about 6 or 8 entities on it, for simple, single-click access. And now we don't. Seems silly to have taken it away from us.