Feature suggestions for the LocalDeck Configurator

homeautomationnutter

As im testing the product out more, im finding more things that Id like to see baked into the configurator to make peoples life easier rather than having to dig into the code and create custom snippits that would then get overwritten by the configurator.

Multi-press actions - Single, Double, Tripple press and hold
Key LED brightness control - If the “Follow Brightness” option isnt selected, allow for a custom static brightness
Key LED colour control - If the “Follow Colour” option isnt selected, allow for a custom static colour
Maximum LED brightness - Global control that would allow a maximum brightness to be set for all keys with a single selection
Day and night mode for the LED brightness - This could either be set times or better yet allowing to use a binary HA entity such as “Sun”, a light entity or whatever

Just a couple of things off the top of my head. 🙂

Im looking forward to all the ways people think to put this device to use!

Many thanks!

jms

homeautomationnutter I would very much like all of these features too. Would be happy to contribute.

If you don’t “follow brightness/colour”, which is normal for switches and boolean inputs, the brightness level has no effect and is bright white.

I’d very much like static colours and brightness on each button. It means you can logically group by colour.

I’m not too bothered about the day/night mode, although that would be handy. I would prefer a manual brightness level that affects all buttons, either as an absolute or relative adjustment, but something that allows me to use a HASS automation to set the whole devices brightness to say 10% or 0%.

AAllport

Thanks for taking the time to write this feedback homeautomationnutter,
Detailed feedback like this makes our life easier!

Something I’m cognisant about is the amount of stuff we’re baking into the deck itself.
The possible configuration for any single button is starting to get a little unwieldy,

That said, there are improvements around the configurator and docs we can take a look at!

Custom Snippets

It’s worth noting that you can import one config and then override certain parts.
We’re considering adding a flow in the configuration to convert the config file to be fully managed and then imported from (e.g.) a .localbytes folder. (See ESPHome -> Packages -> Extend
That said, it’s not the top priority at the moment.

Multi-press actions

So this is (somewhat) doable at the moment.
We fire off an esphome.localdeck_button event with the device and button in its data, so you can create an automation to listen to them!

I do this with “LocalDeck Bindings”, which handles my media controls (play/pause, skip/reverse)
I know a few people who use HA Switch Manager to achieve something similar.

Key LED brightness/colour

Love it! This could be a nice easy win
Especially if we go down the route of using the browser colour picker and a brightness slider.

Maximum LED brightness

On the fence about this one…
We do currently have a brightness slider which will scale any followed-entities, a number.
Additionally, I’m reluctant to add further processing if someone calls light.turn_on from HomeAssistant,
I will ponder, though!

Day and night mode for the LED brightness

It’s unlikely we’ll add this to the deck itself, but I’d love to put together a collection of blueprints that can be used to achieve this.
Realistically it’ll take a time period (or sunset/rise offset) and then set the brightness entity that we have

homeautomationnutter

AAllport Hey Adam!

Many thanks for taking the time to read through! Being able to work so closely with a manufacturer on issues or suggestions is why I love these kind of projects and products. I had no immediate plan for the LocalDeck, but thought it was a cool concept and wanted to support the idea and the community! 😃

As such, please don’t take any of my criticisms as anything more than constructive feedback, my aim is to hopefully aid in future functions, based on suggestions that may have either not been thought about already, or that could simply be useful to myself or someone else!

Custom Snippets

That’s an interesting concept! I appreciate that I am able to fully take over the code and just ditch the configurator to add my own custom functions, I was just thinking about things that could potentially be baked in as default options to enhance the functionality and/or versatility of the product for the masses, not just hardcore tinkerers. 🙂

Multi-press actions

Ah, I wasn’t aware this was the case! However, I have indeed now seen that you offer single and double press events. 🙂 I haven’t heard of HA Switch Manager before, but it certainly looks intriguing and I will have to explore this!

Key LED brightness/colour

Fantastic! I look forward to hopefully seeing this sometime in a future release in that case. 😃

Maximum LED brightness

I saw the built in brightness slider that you have exposed within HA, which I initially thought would do exactly what I want! However, as it only effects the followed-entities, these are likely to already be less bright than non followed-entities.

For example, if I have a bunch of the buttons set as lights and have them follow the brightness, they look lovely and often produce a soft glow to match the lights in question (assuming the light entities they are tied to aren’t set to 100% of course). However, if the other buttons that are based on binary entities are lit, they are dazzling in comparison!

If anything, I wish that I could also set a minimum brightness as I have noticed that if I set a button to follow an entity’s brightness, but that entity is set to a low brightness within HA, the button on the LocalDeck wont turn on at all! I initially thought something wasn’t working when I tied some buttons to lights that I only set at 1% as the LocalDeck buttons didn’t light up…until I turned up the brightness of the light entity in question, then the LocalDeck followed.

I appreciate that I could adjust the brightness of said buttons within HA as part of an automation and such, but its so much extra effort for what I would have personally expected to have built in as an option.

Day and night mode for the LED brightness

This would be a mute point if the LED brightness slider you expose within HA did manage the overall button brightness, as I appreciate this could very simply be added to an automation to base the brightness on whatever one desires!

Thanks again for your continued efforts!

AAllport

homeautomationnutter Being able to work so closely with a manufacturer on issues or suggestions is why I love these kind of projects and products.

Admittedly, I first thought you meant we were working closely with a manufacturer.
Then I remembered we don’t have one and make it in-house
Then I realised you were calling me the manufacturer…
Clearly, I’m not quite used to this feeling yet 😂

homeautomationnutter As such, please don’t take any of my criticisms as anything more than constructive feedback

I’ll say to you what I’ve said to a few people recently…
You’re having a calm conversation; I’ll always listen to that! It’s really handy getting actual feedback from a variety of viewpoints.

homeautomationnutter I was just thinking about things that could potentially be baked in as default options to enhance the functionality and/or versatility of the product for the masses, not just hardcore tinkerers

Oh absolutely. It’s difficult to strike a balance between usable for newer people, and extendable for power users.
At the moment, we’re somewhat in the middle ~~difficult for everyone~~ a lot of options and as not much clarity as I’d like. (This is what happens when a backend-focussed dev does frontend 😂)

homeautomationnutter Ah, I wasn’t aware this was the case!

I’ve seen this a lot recently, so we’ve got plans to do a Getting the most from your LocalDeck post/video with some of the more advanced features, like multi-press, passive notifications (using a button as a notification light, as opposed to an action), and a few other tips and tricks.

homeautomationnutter I saw the built in brightness slider that you have exposed within HA, which I initially thought would do exactly what I want! However, as it only effects the followed-entities, these are likely to already be less bright than non followed-entities.

Ahh, okay, I see what you’re saying. I will mull this over.

At the very least, having a custom RGBA for the following non-brightness entities is a first step, as getting more sliders right will require a lot of finagling.
Case in point: We’re aware of an issue where the brightness slider will only impact an entity that is changing and not states we already know about.
I’ll think and chat with a few insiders and try to map out the next steps. This, then, at least opens the door to guided contributions from others, should they wish!

There’s certainly a lot in the pipeline, and honestly, I can’t wait to see what people are getting up to with their deck Share your Projects &LocalDeck please :p)