Touchscreen GUI Functionality most wanted?

[jwilson56]

I am curios as to what is the top 10 most wanted functionality in a GUI such as CQC or Mainlobby? For mine the number one would be music... but I was wondering what other people's wants and needs are. If you could list your top 10 in order of desire it might spur others with new ideas.

 

[AnthonyZ]

Without question, in our home, it's quick and powerful access to weather info. The more the better. There is no doubt that our weather page is the most used and appreciated. Cameras may be the next best thing we've done with our touch screens and then all the other "stuff". I've actually just today put up a new album of screen shots of our main CQC rig at photobucket. You can see it here.

 

[DavidL]

Weather (most WAF)
CallerID
Time of Day
Photos of the kids (random pics)
Lights (All Off at night is the favorite)
Music (multizone is the key)
RSS Feeds (quick look at the news highlights)
Movies (low use, high pizzaz when used especially when guests are over)
Sprinklers (just for override - they run on a schedule ordinarily)
All Other

 

[ricks]

We use touch screens in the kitchen and all bathrooms and iphones everywhere else. My list is ordered by how often we use each.

Multizone distributed CD quality audio
Multizone distributed HD Video
Security, Surveillance & Fire/Life Safety
Resource monitoring (electric, natural gas, water)
Family calendar and reminders
Meal recipes, cocktail recipes, shopping lists (kitchen touch screen - shopping list to iphone)
Health Tracking: Weight, BP, running, bicycling, etc (bathroom touch screens)
Lighting (most lighting is scheduled but we use touch screens to set scenes, control remote lights and set lighting schedules)
HVAC (mostly scheduled, same as lighting)
Formerly CID - switched to all cellular, dropped land line - no more spoken CID but doesn't matter when your phone is in your pocket

Very minimal use: Weather, News, Sports, Finance, photos, web, email, etc. I thought this was very cool but no one else did. After awhile I found that even I didn't bother to look at it for this. It was easier to get this info through other sources like cell phone, computer or TV. I filed it in the category "just because I can do it doesn't mean I should do it." Different strokes for different folks.

Rick

 

[twilo123]

wow that's a nice interface Anthony. excellent job on that one.

 

[beelzerob]

1) Weather (forecast, and especially, radar)
2) Security (doors and smoke alarms)
3) Other

Pretty much all other pages after that are used just by me for my own info and edification.

 

[Mike C]

Weather
Music
Security


My real wish.... is to have a touchscreen that has the look and feel of my iPhone. The existing front ends (AFAIK) all are very limited to button pushing (fine for basic HA but lousy for browsing media collections).

 

[DavidL]

Weather
Music
Security


My real wish.... is to have a touchscreen that has the look and feel of my iPhone. The existing front ends (AFAIK) all are very limited to button pushing (fine for basic HA but lousy for browsing media collections).

I have an iPhone...the slide is nothing more than clicking a button....no difference AFAIAC between hitting a button and sliding across the face of the touchscreen (which I also have). No diff for music at all.

Actually, the larger touchscreen is much easier. More coverart per page and easier to hit the on screen keyboard for searches (larger).

 

[IVB]

nothing new for me to share, rather reaffirmation of what others have said. You didn't specify in-home versus out-of-home, the list obviously is different for each:

On the in-house touchscreen
1) 4 day weather lookahead (same day isn't needed, we have TTS for that)
2) whole-house-audio control (cd or sirius)
3) CCTV
4) turn lights off in those areas of the house that we rarely go to (ie, basement), or after hours (turn off den light if we're in bed & forgot it on)

The ironic thing is that although i've got ~35 different screens in my setup, I only really use the "house overview" screen which shows 2 & 4, #3 is an auto-popup on doorbell ring, so I only really use the weather, CD, & Sirius screens. Thank god I spent a bazillion hours on all the others.

On the phone when not in home:
- Caller ID history (who called when we were out)
- Elk status (wife not answering home or cell; is she home?)
- SageTV & Lighting status (wife & I are out to dinner, kids home with inlaws. Should we call, is the TV on with one of their shows or are the inlaws watching one of their shows? Is the light in their room on? Is the kids bathroom light on? Are they asleep or brushing teeth, getting ready for bed? All to see if we should we call home or is it too late.)
- HVAC - turn heat on/up/down as we're en-route home.
- Same Day Weather forecast (quicker than pulling up weather.com on the tiny ass PDA screen)
- CCTV (Via Avermedia app, though, not CQC)

 

[Mike C]

Weather
Music
Security


My real wish.... is to have a touchscreen that has the look and feel of my iPhone. The existing front ends (AFAIK) all are very limited to button pushing (fine for basic HA but lousy for browsing media collections).

David, AFIAK none of the interfaces allow you scroll through a media collection AKA the iPhone/iTouch. People have become so use to these devices, that when they walk up to a touch screen they want to be able to "flick" the screen and browse. Next/Prev buttons showing pages is old school

 

[damage]

medianet has a iphone like interface.

http://www.myhap.org.uk

look at iJukebox under medianet