Driving Mode

Hi there,

I have created a view that opens when my car BT is connected. On this view, I have the date and time, multiple rows of apps that I can click on to open, the current geocoded location, and the current speed.

The way I’m getting the current speed and location is via Tasker accessing the phone’s GPS. The speed is updated every second, and the location every 5 seconds. It works great, although with a slight delay.

I’m sending a webhook each time to my server to update these values, and it just seems like a big waste of resources doing it this way.

Would it be possible to create a sensor for speed and geocoded location directly from the phone’s GPS? This would save a lot of hits to the server, not to mention phone data.

Also, is there a way to call an app on the phone directly from a button card? Currently, I’m calling a joaoapps_join service to Tasker, which then opens the app I want.

Another thing that would be nice, is to be able to launch the companion app to a specific view via intent. The way I have it now, the car mode view is the first view, so I am just calling the app directly. Would it be possible to call the app via Tasker and load a specific view?

I’m not sure how much work would be involved, but I think that these would be great additions to the app.

Thanks again for the all the work on this app, it’s definitely come a long way.

There is already a geocoded sensor that you can use. speed is also already an attribute of the device_tracker

Already doable via new notification command: Notification Commands | Home Assistant Companion Docs

Not possible yet unless you create the service call with a notification to perform it.

Thanks for that information. I have tried using those values for speed and geocoded location, but they are basically unusable in this case, especially the speed for a speedometer. The updates are simply nowhere near frequent enough. Pulling the value directly from the phone’s GPS I think would be great for this use. Any chance of adding it?

Regarding launching the app to a specific view, what intent would I use in the title?

Thanks!

That is exactly what the device_tracker attributes are. If you are using google maps navigation you should expect to see updates near real time every 30-60 seconds. Otherwise updates will show up as we get them.

that is up to you to determine, every app is different.

I think I’ll stick to firing a webhook every second, the device tracker data doesn’t update as regularly as I’d hoped.

Regarding the intent, is there a specific intent to load a view directly in the companion app?

Yea device tracker will never update that frequently.

you mean from HA frontend? Not using an intent, for that you use either:

or starting from android example here:

to click on the notification, may need to use tasker to perform the click there.

If you want it to be something triggered and not click on it, id suggest you submit a feature request for that as we should handle that case differently than doing an intent. We would make it similar to the options you see linked above wiht the lovelace path and what not.

Thanks mate!

I love HA too, but sometimes a purpose built app is the way to go. Think agama car launcher.