Neptune Aquatics

"DIY" Apex Dashboard for iPad

reef89 said:
Is this only available in iPad App Store. I tried looking it up and nothing popped up
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ya. iPad only at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reef-tiles/id1564337309

In the end my personal goal was to have a big screen above my tank with the parameters easily visible. To me that led to iPad app (gave some thought to "cheap android tablet"). I initially started as making it work on iPhone and iPad but got stuck on how I'd want the UI to work on a small screen. As I was working through that I found less reasons to make it work on the phone. The Fusion app works fine in a phone context, id never mount my phone to a wall - plus fusion works anywhere whereas this relies on being on the same wifi as the apex.

that was how I ended up as "iPad only". I can probably get it to work on an iPhone I just need to be convinced that its got a specific use on the phone that Fusion cant already handle
 
phatduckk said:
ya. iPad only at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reef-tiles/id1564337309

In the end my personal goal was to have a big screen above my tank with the parameters easily visible. To me that led to iPad app (gave some thought to "cheap android tablet"). I initially started as making it work on iPhone and iPad but got stuck on how I'd want the UI to work on a small screen. As I was working through that I found less reasons to make it work on the phone. The Fusion app works fine in a phone context, id never mount my phone to a wall - plus fusion works anywhere whereas this relies on being on the same wifi as the apex.

that was how I ended up as "iPad only". I can probably get it to work on an iPhone I just need to be convinced that its got a specific use on the phone that Fusion cant already handle
Click to expand...
That all makes sense except for 2 things- lots more people have old iPhones sitting around than extra iPads, and iPhone screens are pretty large now. An old iPhone mounted to the wall or inside the cabinet would be a good size for a lot of people.

Thanks for posting the link!
 
JVU said:
That all makes sense except for 2 things- lots more people have old iPhones sitting around than extra iPads, and iPhone screens are pretty large now. An old iPhone mounted to the wall or inside the cabinet would be a good size for a lot of people.

Thanks for posting the link!
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Fair enough. At some point I’ll revisit the code and see how much there is to tweak to get iPhone looking better (it works just looks whacky).

in the end my eyes are terrible and I had an extra iPad and I really wanted to see the numbers while I was feeding, cleaning, walking by etc … passive mode.

once work calms down I’ll start working on more stuff and iPhone support is definitely on the list.
 
Just downloaded and ran it. Pretty cool and easy. For challenged people like me- you go back to the tiles view from detailed view by a big swipe downwards. Same for settings.
 
phatduckk said:
Fair enough. At some point I’ll revisit the code and see how much there is to tweak to get iPhone looking better (it works just looks whacky).

in the end my eyes are terrible and I had an extra iPad and I really wanted to see the numbers while I was feeding, cleaning, walking by etc … passive mode.

once work calms down I’ll start working on more stuff and iPhone support is definitely on the list.
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If the API is not too heavy, what about an ESP32 based solution with a 3.5" screen?
Or even a Raspberry Pi with a 5-7" screen.

That would put the BOM cost at about $50.

Similar to what I have on the AQI sensor I am working on: https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/‘tis-the-fire-season-air-quality-monitor-build.28981/post-430411


  1. Something like:
    ESP32+Screen: https://www.seeedstudio.com/ESP32-D...JWqy9rjJEHzHUGfWzD1PbucBll-czQ54aAiNqEALw_wcB
  2. RaspBery Pi + screen: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1784.html
 
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JVU said:
Just downloaded and ran it. Pretty cool and easy. For challenged people like me- you go back to the tiles view from detailed view by a big swipe downwards. Same for settings.
Click to expand...
Help ballon/tutorial type things are also on the list. I figure if I tried to get it perfect before releasing it it wouldn't be live for another couple months.

If folks want I have a demo from a pre-release build. It walks thru most/all of the feature
 
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thesassyindian said:
If the API is not too heavy, what about an ESP32 based solution with a 3.5" screen?
That would put the BOM cost at about $50.

Similar to what I have on the AQI sensor I am working on:


Something like: https://www.seeedstudio.com/ESP32-D...JWqy9rjJEHzHUGfWzD1PbucBll-czQ54aAiNqEALw_wcB
Click to expand...
That would definitely work. Puts up a decent barrier to entry though ...

My first goal was to do it using client side JS so it could be runnable from any browser on any device. I gave that a crack targeting any cheap tablet (even a new Kindle fire is pretty cheap) as the hardware. I thought that would be the best balance of cheap & non-tinkerer. But alas apex doesn't allow XHR requests from non-origin.
 
phatduckk said:
That would definitely work. Puts up a decent barrier to entry though ...

My first goal was to do it using client side JS so it could be runnable from any browser on any device. I gave that a crack targeting any cheap tablet (even a new Kindle fire is pretty cheap) as the hardware. I thought that would be the best balance of cheap & non-tinkerer. But alas apex doesn't allow XHR requests from non-origin.
Click to expand...
Very true. For the case if the RPi, if a precompiled SD card image is posted, all the end user would need to do is copy it to the SD card, and boot up.
(Adding WiFi Credentials etc could be a dropdown menu on the screen).
 
All totally possible but not quite accessible for a person who's not pretty techy. I have a PHP script that more or less does all of the above. Then the argument is whether setting up a web server (on a Mac its just a checkbox) is easier/harder than using an RPi or dealing with containers.

I figure if folks are technical enough to do any of those things they can more or less cook up their own solution... shove it into Elk, Grafana etc etc & do way more sophisticated things. Honestly even a cron job that shoves the JSON into MongoDB/CouchDB (or any of the document DBs) would be minimal work; toss up a simple UI and youre done
 
JVU said:
Right now it is pretty drop-dead simple to setup and use, which I think is a huge plus for most people.
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Thanks! thats how/why I ended up doing an iPad app. Tinkerers can do whatever they want. I couldn't think of anything more familiar to non-software folks than installing an app or accessing a web page (web page wouldn't work, so app it is)
 
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I really like this!!!
20210625_220815.jpg
 
Plankton said:
Think there might be support for android tablets?
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I'd have to write the app over again. The honest answer is "maybe". I can potentially get excited about learning/using Kotlin so its not a 0% chance. When I get a few things off my todo list ill give it some serious thought.

The graphing library that I use is actually originally an Android library that someone ported to iOS. So, the most "complicated" bit would translate pretty easily. I cant imagine it taking too long - maybe a month.... mmm, im kind talking myself into it LOL
 
phatduckk said:
I'd have to write the app over again. The honest answer is "maybe". I can potentially get excited about learning/using Kotlin so its not a 0% chance. When I get a few things off my todo list ill give it some serious thought.

The graphing library that I use is actually originally an Android library that someone ported to iOS. So, the most "complicated" bit would translate pretty easily. I cant imagine it taking too long - maybe a month.... mmm, im kind talking myself into it LOL
Click to expand...
I found a used iPad so looking forward to playing with reef tiles!
 
phatduckk said:
Do you have 2 PH probes (first one is in your Calcium reactor perhaps)? The icon on the green tiles is definitely the PH icon but the first one says "ALK". You could have found a bug if the first one's not really a PH probe!
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It's for my kh guardian. The module for it plugs into the ph probe. So I do have two ph probes. I had to rename it alk
 
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