John,
It’s good that you are seeing improvements in the AE App on the touch screen. I appreciate the feedback, but as you stated what you have is not intended to be a working version. It was a placeholder that we felt would not be there long, but that ended up not being the case as this development has taken much longer than expected. To be transparent, I didn’t do as good a job on this placeholder as I should have. It really should just let you know this is not a working version when it loads.
The new version will be much, much different “under the covers.” It will have a very similar look and feel, but the underlying operations will be different. What you currently have is a landscape version of the Android mobile app that is many versions and bug fixes behind what is in the store currently. So it kind of works, but not as intended.
The differences between how a wall-mounted touch screen will operate and the mobile app are similar but different in many ways. The touch screen needs the ability to act in the same way that a bus keypad acts. It has to accommodate the use of the device without “authentication” to the control. In the current version you have, you are using a user pin to connect. This essentially gives the touch screen the rights of that user. This is not the behavior we want from the touchscreen, or atleast not all the time. The touchscreen needs to have the ability to be its own device within the system. The mobile app is not intended to be “part of the system.” The touch screen will be supervised by the control, like a bus device. There will be a new section in programming called “Network Devices.” These are devices that are connected to the control via a network connection. The touch screen will be the first device. API integrations (Control 4, Crestron, Elan, etc.) will also be shown on this page, assuming they follow our API documentation. This page will also house “Linking” credentials that you as a dealer will enter into the panel. This will be a custom passphrase and access PIN. You just enter this once into the control panel setup, then instead of a PIN, you enter this info into the touch screen application after discovering it. This will establish a constant link between the control and touchscreen so that it is supervised and its IP connection is as stable as possible.
I realize this is more information than you asked for, but I wanted to share some additional information about what we are working on. Our app team is fully focused on the touch screen application, and I hope to have something more to share soon.
Thanks,
Mike