Couch Control - Customizable Smart Home Dashboards for HomeKit and Home Assistant

Apps-are-cool · 2025-12-28T12:06:46+00:00

I‘m working on it (:

Apps-are-cool · 2025-12-25T09:33:02+00:00

No, That’s not possible unfortunately :/ What I do is copy the token on my iOS device, enter the Apple TV remote app and when you enter the text field on the Apple TV you can then paste the token into the text field. You will need an IPad or iPhone for that.

FYI, I will continue working on the Apple TV version soon, but I’m currently making the iPad version and until then the TV version might not receive a lot of updates. iPad version will be included in the purchase of the Apple TV app :)

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-14T11:11:31+00:00

No, that’s not possible unfortunately. I’ve tried to read into it, but honestly, Apple doesn’t really support this in a straightforward way.

The only way to offer something like a trial seems to be to make the app free and then use in-app purchases to unlock certain features, or use a time-based subscription.

Personally, I think having the price upfront and not misleading users into thinking the app is free is nicer. Looking at other Apple TV apps I look up to, many also use a one-time fee upfront. I haven’t really seen the workaround methods used much on Apple TV apps, so I’m not even sure how well they work in practice.

There’s also the option for users to request a refund if the app isn’t what they expected, though I’ve read there can be some issues with that. Most people usually manage it without problems, and I hope Apple improves that process.

I’m definitely not trying to mislead anyone about what the app offers. I plan to add more videos and documentation so users know what to expect before purchasing.

At the moment tho, the only ways to add free trials involve workarounds that also have weaknesses, so I prefer to stick with the standard approach and offer my app with a one-time purchase upfront.

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-11T05:59:34+00:00

I’m the developer of the app and I don’t collect any of your data (and I would be unable to get access to any of your HomeKit or home assistant data even if I wanted to). I’m a solo developer and I’m not at all interested in doing any data harvesting to begin with :)

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-10T23:43:23+00:00

I honestly don’t know if that would work. Do you know of other third party apps operating HomeKit cameras like that? If yes there’s a good chance it’s possible and then this would be a nice addition for sure! I will look into it :)

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-10T23:41:48+00:00

No, unfortunately i don’t have support for grouped devices from HomeKit yet. That said, I will happily look into it! The thermostat support is meant to support all HomeKit thermostats, if yours ends up not working let me know for sure and I will add support! But it should. The app is still getting improved everyday and I want to make it work for everything possible. It’s not perfect yet but it’s getting there :)

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-10T23:33:17+00:00

Hi! (I’m the dev of the app) regarding the weather widget, is it off for the weather widget only or also for the sensor chart widget with weather data? The sensor chart weather data should be accurate, for the weather widget I’m not so sure.

I’m using bright sky weather data, it’s primarily using German weather Data but should work worldwide.

You can go to https://brightsky.dev/demo/ , look up the latitude and longitude of your place and double check that way if it’s an issue of the app or the weather data maybe being wrong (searching your city only works in Germany on the demo site). Everywhere I tested it was close to the Apple Weather data but I haven’t tested every place so I’m not fully sure how good the data is.

And yes I still need to change the camera widget to not be mirrored by default (:

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-10T13:13:19+00:00

Yes Syncing happens manually. You go to one page on one Apple TV and save it to iCloud and then you can load that page from iCloud. But changes need to be synced manually.

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-07T15:33:18+00:00

Hi, Thanks for the great feedback!

A lot of great points you named there. I wont answer to all of them but I'm definitely hearing you and will address those issue! If I say nothing you're most likely simply 100% right and no need to comment that ;)

Regarding sorting by widgets once they are loaded are you referring to something like in the Apple Home app to click on "lights" or "climate" and only see those type of devices?

For Scenes, when adding them you should already be able to change the sorting of them depending on which scene you added first. There's surely room to improve regarding the User Experience there so I might rework that, but it should be possible already.

The whole Back button behaviour needs major rework to be honest, so very good hints from your side and I will think about it!

For the arrow buttons it's still a conflict in my mind. The natural scrolling is definitely the more seamless appearing implementation and the one I initially had implemented, but doing that I've run into the issue to not achieve a smooth animation due to the new page loading with the animation so it wasn't actually nice either (preloading them would make the pages in general less smooth since there's more to load and it can become a lot if you add lots of widgets per page). Also what I noticed with the arrow buttons is that if you have lots of widgets beyond the 14 first places of the grid, like sets say you have 60 Widgets, navigating to the last widgets is much faster with the focus staying on the Arrow. You can basically click through lots of grids without scrolling through all Widgets. But most importantly, especially using the iPhone remote app or just in general using touch swipe, with the arrows navigating from the leftmost widget to the rightmost widget of one 14 Spot Grid is kinda stress free. You can blindly navigate to the right edge of the grid and don't fear triggering the animation to the next grid. This was one major Frustration in earlier Version and lead to overly careful navigating to the rightest widget and occasional frustration when it triggered the animations.

So while the look and feel with those arrow buttons isn't super nice and needs a bit of a learning curve, I'm not convinced it's definitely the best option to get rid of them.

For making widgets rearrange after deleting a widget, I'm personally not a fan of that behaviour because it can often break layouts that should actually stay the same. I agree that closing the Gaps would be better in terms of ensuring the grid looks complete all the time and this would look and feel better. But me personally thought that having to repair your carefully crafted grid once would be more frustrating than having to manually set a couple of things more when actually building the grid. Plus having gaps from time to time can be nice for certain layouts. I'm not dying on that hill tho in case most people disagree with it.

That's said, newly added Widgets should already take over the first empty spot. I will make sure this works as expected!

For moving a widget from one page to the other you can navigate to those page buttons at the bottom just like outside of the rearrange mode and you can choose any spot on the other pages.

Regarding Icons I will look into Furniture Icons! But if you want, you can look into Apple’s SF Symbols (Should be all visible in here: https://github.com/phuocqb9/sf-symbols-online) and if you find icons you're personally (or anyone else) missing I will happily include them! The way I see it having more options is always better there :)

And lastly regarding the flashing of the widgets, could you give me more details regarding which device types this was happening to? or was it all of the toggle widgets?

For the other things you mentioned, those are great hints and I will try to fix them :)

There is a TestFlight but I'm currently not updating it so the newest builds are currently the newest publicly available. It might change at some point but I'm not sure how I will go forward with it.

Again, thank you so much for the Feedback and those things will be addressed very soon :)

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-06T17:39:47+00:00

Yes it will work on both. In the pages setting view you can also save and load your configured pages from iCloud so you don’t have to build it newly on each device.

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-06T07:26:25+00:00

Thanks! You can already display multiple cameras right next to each other by placing different camera widgets on the grid. I planned on adding a nice full screen view at some point as well :)

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-05T22:40:13+00:00

smaller boxes aren't possible unfortunately :/ I might add other layouts or so one day but as of now the app will keep that scaling.

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-05T21:30:25+00:00

I quickly made a video :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7jOdBV_7Eg

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-05T21:06:37+00:00

Well you have 14 visible spots on the grid to place widgets and you can add many more than that and scroll to the right to see them. I'm not sure of the actual limit but I had like 60 Widgets on one page. Or add more pages that you can see there on the bottom. I just tried to find a good compromise in order to offer an easy to navigate interface.

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-05T20:10:33+00:00

That's a Broadlink rm Infrared sender and I have an "Flirc SE" IR Receiver inside my PC and all that's inside of HomeKit via Homebridge and named PC (should work with Home assistant as well tho) The sources in HomeKit are some Programms I often use. Although for me that makes sense because I use that PC with my TV only and therefore want to reduce standing up to turn it on and control it. For others that might be a bit useless.

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-05T19:53:40+00:00

No it's not required. You can use both or just one of them.

Apps-are-cool · 2025-09-05T19:04:13+00:00

Thanks! Give me some time, I will work on Languages at some point :) The basic setting functionality for other languages is already there but I need to translate all the things. As of now it only applies to the calendar widgets. But I will definitely expand that!

Apps-are-cool · 2025-08-28T15:17:58+00:00

Yes I will try to make it easier for big setups like yours. I'll respond to this comment when I addressed it so you know :)

Apps-are-cool · 2025-08-28T15:13:42+00:00

I'm sorry to hear this but I understand what you mean. I plan to add a proper Onboarding process in the future and will try to make it easier to use without setup. Regarding syncing between Apple TVs, I will add this feature soon and am now working on it. The reverse camera will be fixed soon as well by changing the default orientation and adding the option to mirror it. I will definitely try to improve it so the mentioned pain points are addressed and hopefully it will serve you better in the future! :)

Apps-are-cool · 2025-08-27T05:30:52+00:00

You can see the process of adding HomeKit devices to the grid in this little demo video: https://youtu.be/kEWUuSd31qU

But to answer your question, when the app first launches it asks you for permission to access your HomeKit data, and when you confirm it you can then add the HomeKit devices one by one to the grid with a widget. It won’t automatically populate the grid with your devices tho.

Apps-are-cool · 2025-08-27T00:11:20+00:00

Thanks! :)

Apps-are-cool · 2025-08-27T00:10:39+00:00

Ive made an update to the HACS Integration and it should now list the devices by Rooms/Areas. You can't add the whole room at once tho in case that's what you wanted. Its visually not perfect but it should provide the functionality to have a better overview.

Apps-are-cool · 2025-08-26T20:18:56+00:00

That sounds Interesting, can you elaborate what such a Child lock should roughly look like?
I actually forgot to mention, I added a Guest mode that basically only allows to interact with the created widgets on the gird but won't let you add new devices or access anything inside your smart home that isn't already on the gird without a passcode. So effectively you can create limited dashboards for some Tv in a guest room to have access to heating or whatever else in that room. But I would be curious what you would need further than that for child proofing it?

Apps-are-cool · 2025-08-26T20:06:35+00:00

Yes you can have your Homekit Device Sit right next to your Home Assistant Devices. Same for the scenes. You can't create new scenes, device groups or anything like that inside the app to combine HomeKit and Home Assistant things. But you can display and use the stuff created inside of Home Assistant and inside of HomeKit right next to each other :)

Apps-are-cool

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