Fully Kiosk: Launch local Android apps from your HA dashboard

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I made a REST command to launch an app on a tablet display but it is not working. I can ping the tablet from HA, and nmap shows port 2323 open. I have the paid version of Fully, and remote admin is switched on. But the Start App command does nothing at all.

What I am trying to do is this:
I have a smart doorbell with camera, but it cant be integrated with HA. I can detect when somebody presses the bell by forwarding notifications from my mobile, I can also have the camera app running on the tablet hidden by the HA GUI. What I would like to do is simply, when the doorbell notification triggers, bring the camera view to the front, on top of the HA GUI, then after a minute or so, bring HA to the front again. Basically just changing the Z-order of the two windows on the tablet. Is it possible to do this ? I was testing the REST command to try to determinee whether “starting” an already running application would cause it to appear in the foreground, but since the command did nothing, I was unable to test this.

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9

Did you try with direct http in browser? Open your browser and as url enter:
http://192.168.x.y:2323 (192.168.x.y is IP of your fully tablet).

It should ask you for password. Did you enter password in fully → remote admin?
If you get above page then remote access works, then your rest sensor can be wrong.
How did you create rest sensor? Here is my rest sensor for open chrome app on my tablet:

rest_command:
  kiosk_tablet_run_chrome:
    url: "http://192.168.x.y:2323/?cmd=startApplication&package=com.android.chrome&password=<yourpassword>"
10

Turns out i had a typo in the URL, after correcting that it works !

11

hi salsaman, im facing the same problem how did you bring the app to the background after a minute and showing the dashboard again. i need to open the amcrest app in the background otherwise it doesnt show the right view.

12

Hi,

is it correct that you managed to somehow “embed” the Amcrest app being therefore able to answer to the doorbell while having the Lovelace UI running in the background?? :astonished:

If yes can you please share you how to replicate this as I was looking for this for AGES?

13

This is great. I’ve now got a button my wall mounted dashboard (picture_elements card) that opens VLC. I didn’t need to dive into the rest command as I already had a Service that does it (Browser_mod?).

  - type: icon
    icon: mdi:traffic-cone
    tap_action:
      action: call-service
      service: fullykiosk.start_application
      data:
        entity_id: media_player.fire_tablet_media_player
        application: org.videolan.vlc
    style:
      top: 90%
      left: 95%
      '--mdc-icon-size': 50px
      color: red

What I’d like to do now is have an automation to open VLC and start an RSTP stream. Is it possible to add a ‘command line option’ that does this?

Edit: I’ve been told by the FK team that to pass a stream parameter to an app in Android I need to use the load_url service. So I now have:

service: fullykiosk.load_url
data:
  entity_id: media_player.fire_tablet_media_player
  url: intent:#Intent;launchFlags=0x10000000;component=org.videolan.vlc/org.videolan.vlc.StartActivity;end

which is just another way of loading the VLC app. I just need to find the additional content to add to my Intent that will tell VLC to start displaying a particular rtsp stream.

14

OK before I am going to waste time and fly into a rage lol can someone here please tell me if I can achieve to have my doorbell app opening when someone presses the bell and exiting it once I close the “call”? :sweat_smile:

15

There may be other ways, but off the top of my head:

  1. Assuming that Home Assistant knows when your doorbell rings, create an automation that is triggered by the ring to send a REST command (as with the Chrome example in my original post, obviously replacing the Chrome intent with one for your doorbell app.) This is nothing to do with the dashboard. Just call the REST service from your automation.

…then one of the following…

  1. Simply press back or home when done with the doorbell call if Fully Kiosk is running in kiosk mode.
  2. If Home Assistant is somehow aware that the doorbell call has ended (a sensor state change maybe?), create an automation that is triggered by that change which sends the REST command to bring Fully to the foreground.
  3. Add a reasonable delay–say 90 seconds?–to your automation from point 1 after it opens the doorbell app, then send the REST command to bring Fully to the foreground.

The REST command to use for 3 or 4 above is:

rest_command:
  fully_kiosk_to_foreground:
    url: http://192.168.xxx.xxx:2323/?cmd=toForeground&password=MyPassword
    method: POST
1 Like
16

I don’t use VLC, so I can’t say for sure. But, you can find VLC intent options here:
https://wiki.videolan.org/Android_Player_Intents/#Open_a_media_with_VLC_Player

I’d be curious about the solution if you make it work.

17

Cheers I am going to see what I can achieve with your example! :smiley:

Btw I’m going to use the Amcrest app (if that makes any difference).

18

@Cr4z33 Good luck. I don’t have any experience with the Amcrest doorbell. But, see the doorbell automation example at the bottom of this page. You will be able to use that same event as ther trigger to launch the app.

There might also be an event to indicate that a doorbell call has finished which you could use as a trigger for option 3 above. Listen for event type amcrest in Developer Tools/Events while making a test doorbell call in order to see if there is a call completed or similar event is fired.

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19

I will be using DahuaVTO2MQTT + Dahua integrations as they work way better than the Amcrest integration. :wink:

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20

I got advice from the good people at Fully Kiosk and got this to work (although the VLC often goes to the background with Fully Kiosk coming to the foreground. I have then to pick VLC from the list of open apps. I’m still working on that one)

action:
  - service: fullykiosk.load_url
    data:
      entity_id: media_player.fire_tablet_media_player
      url: >-
        intent://user:[email protected]:554/Streaming/Channels/101#Intent;action=android.intent.action.VIEW;scheme=rtsp;component=org.videolan.vlc/org.videolan.vlc.StartActivity;end
1 Like
21

Maybe there’s a timeout set to bring Fully back to the foreground?

22

This is a truly helpful post. Thank you!

1 Like
23

I am trying to make the same configuration work as well – have an automation trigger fully kiosk to launch an rtsp stream in VLC.

I’ve tried your code snippet and it hasn’t been successful. I did have to adjust the service name to ‘fully_kiosk.load_url’ instead of ‘fullykiosk.load_url’ from your config, but it still didn’t work. The automation doesn’t produce any errors, but the android tablet doesn’t respond.

Are you aware of any logs/debugs at the fully kiosk level I can check?

I’ve also tried the ‘fully_kiosk.start_application’ service and it successfully launches VLC. I just can figure out how to pass the rtsp URL parameters…

24

I’m no expert.

Does the stream work OK if you do it manually on the tablet? The format of the rtsp part will vary from one camera to another and by manufacturer.

Also, can you see any massages appearing on the tablet when you make the service call? I got some while I was experimenting, but they are fleeting with hardly enough time for me to read.

25

Yes, the rtsp stream opens when I manually open it via VLC. I don’t see any messages on the tablet.

I’ll keep messing around and see if I can figure out how to turn up some debugging. I’ll also reach out to the Fully Kiosk support to see if they have any ideas.

Thanks for your posts, they have helped put me in the right direction of accomplishing this.

26

I’m planning to run a tablet behind a one-way-mirror to display some information while brushing my teeth. No interaction with the tablet needed.

Experimenting with Fully Kiosk app and the homeassistant integration for a few days and seems to work fine up till now.

Before I start building the mirror hardware; How reliable & stable is Fully kiosk in combi with the integration? Does it just keep running after correct setup or do you encounter many issues which require to take out the tablet, reset etc.? Don’t want to build something and the find out it’s too much hassle/little WAF factor.

27

@Tyfoon Honestly I would go for MagicMirror instead.