I have an Android based tablet which I’ll be using as a MainUI based controller for lights, music, scenes, etc.
What would you advise, make this web-based or use the android app.
I’M not sure what the advantages of one or the other are.
Any Android app simply shows a webview of whatever openHAB UI you choose, using the Chrome rendering engine. I would say that the advantages of the openHAB app or HabPanelViewer are:
- Launch the UI immediately on startup
- Send data from the Android device to your OH server
- With HabPanelViewer, control the Android device
It might be possible to do #3 with the openHAB app, but I haven’t tried. I use HPV on a Fire HD 10 tablet mounted on a wall, so that I can turn the device’s display on when I’m home and off when I’m away or sleeping.
Is it possible though to have the android app prefer Main UI mode and not the legacy sitemaps?
Yes, that’s in the app settings.
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That’s not the case for sitemaps on the Android app. In that case everything is rendered by the app. It’s not just a webview.
And even as a webview for HABPanel and MainUI, there are minor differences (e.g. there’s no pinch to zoom in the app).
If you follow Github you’ll see there was a huge controversy over changes to the look-and-feel of sitemaps in the Android app this past week.
I believe it might even be possible to set the Android app as a launcher itself, giving you essentially kiosk mode. At least that’s the impression I get from the titles of some of the PRs that have gone by.
Oops, I forgot about that. Coincidentally, my app also just updated to the new layout.
That’s what I was referring to, but in retrospect I was incredibly vague.
With OH3 I already migrated from sitemaps / HabPanel to MainUI.
To keep things simple I’ll stick with that.
I like the idea of the Openhab App that you can send device info to your system.
Is there any differece to be expected performance wise?
Ill be using a Lenovo Tab M10 (2nd gen)
Note that HabPanelViewer is named as such because it was designed with HabPanel in mind. However, since it renders a webpage you can use it with any URL you choose as the start page, including MainUI pages.
Rich corrected me on sitemaps, but the openHAB app uses web view to render MainUI. So, it should be the same as the Chrome web browser in terms of performance. Only way for you to be sure is to install it and find out.
Thanks for the extra info.
I’ll sure be testing. Good to understand the differences (and similarities)