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Hi All,
We are in the process of getting ready a new mobile app for OpenGarage. This new app is written by Deniz Guler and is built with React native. Its main goal is to unify the user interface and eliminating the currently confusing situation of having three different UIs (built-in web interface, Blynk, OpenGarage mobile app). The new app supports OTC token (see OTC announcement here), and it will look the same whether you access OpenGarage in a web browser or using the mobile app. There is no longer need to use Blynk as we transition to OTC token.
We are now releasing the current version of the app as an alpha test. Please see below for detailed instructions. Because we don’t have a variety of devices to test the app on, we are calling for help from users to help with the alpha tests. We greatly appreciate if you can give it a try and let us know any bugs / missing features / UI improvements that you may find. You can reply in this thread directly. Thanks!
How to install the app
- For Android users, you can download the app (in .apk format) and install it on your phone. You need to enable developer mode and give it permission to install this app.
- For iOS users, the alpha test is currently not available due to the complication of installing an app outside of the app store. However, you can test the web version of the app using either a browser on your phone, or a desktop browser.
- You can download the web version of the app here and unzip it. To run the web app, you can either install Apache server and move the entire content of the folder to your Apache’s /var/www folder, or you can use Python to launch a web server locally at the folder.
- For convenience, we uploaded the web app to: https://ui.opengarage.io/ so you can try it without installing the web build yourself (though there are restrictions, see below).
- As usual, the app is open-source. If you want to check out the source code or build the app yourself, please go to its Github repository and check instructions here.
How to use the app
- To begin, we highly recommend you to update your OpenGarage firmware to 2.2.0 beta, by following my previous post here. The reason is that firmware 2.2.0 beta supports OTC token, so remote access is immediately available, and it’s best to use the new app with OTC token.
- If you don’t want to update your OpenGarage firmware yet, you can still test the new app with your existing firmware. The main restriction is that since the new app does NOT support Blynk token, the only way to add a controller to the app is to use its local IP. This works with the Android app as well as the web app if you launch the web server yourself locally — on the other hand, local IP will not work if you use the web app at ui.opengarage.io, due to issues with HTTPs mixed content. So long story short, existing firmware will only work with the Android app and your own local web version of the app.
- To start the alpha test: if your OpenGarage has firmware 2.2.0 and you’ve obtained OTC token, just use the token to add a new site / controller. Remote access is automatically enabled with OTC token. If you don’t have OTC token, you can add a site by using your controller’s IP address. Remote access is not available with local IP so the access only works if you are at home on your network.
Below are some screeshots of the new app:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/GoGSgDjjnKUERV5dA
As we only had a short amount of time to prepare the app, I am sure there are bugs / improvements that need to be fixed. Please feel free to leave comments / feedback below. Thanks!Hello Ray, looking forward to the new IOS app. I updated to beta firmware and saved the URL in my browser on my Iphone and it works great from that interface. I wonder if you will now be able to add this to “carplay” in our enable vehicles There are many new apps added recently so perhaps it is now possible. I would be very nice to be able to pull the app up on the display in the car and Push the Button!
Dennis
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