New App Release!!!

The time for our first ever mobile app release is nearly here! It's been a busy couple months juggling a number of different projects and things going on, but we're finally here! The last few touches have been made, and the app is now compiled and being submitted to be available on the Google Play Store very soon!

Now, we all have come to love and expect many of our daily commodities to be free. We made the decision not to bloat this app with a bunch of annoying ads just to be able to make it free on the Play Store. All that we ask if for a minor one-time purchase of $1.99 for the app..and nothing more. This is just to help cover a small fraction of the cost for the app's development and future improvements.

We want to say thanks to anyone purchasing the app, and welcome any feedback regarding more features you may like to see in future releases!

Also, as a sort of Quick Start guide, we wanted to include some brief instructions on using the app with an Initial State dashboard subscription, and whatever additional dashboard you may also wish to include:

The first screen that will open when launching the app with be the 'Overview' tab. This is where you can see a quick glance of your home sensor readings. **Note: these will be blank the first time you launch the app, because you will still need to enter your credentials on a separate tab**

As of the initial release, the 'Overview' tab only has two rooms available to display sensor data for. the names of the corresponding data feeds for your dashboard will also have to be adjusted to match what the app will try and retrieve values for. This will be changing in an upcoming release.

The feed names need to be titled as follows for the respective sensors:

[+] LivingRoom-Temperature

[+] LivingRoom-Humidity

[+] Bedroom-Temperature

[+] Bedroom-Humidity

Swiping from left to right, a small drawer menu will open with a couple navigation items. One of these will take you to the 'Credentials' screen, which is where you will enter the Access Key and Bucket Key information for the Initial State dashboard that you want to retrieve the data from.

The 'Webdash URL' input is for the shortened url that is generated when you choose to share your dashboard (see instructions on the Initial State page for more details). This URL will give you access to the full detailed Webview of your dashboard on it's own screen, should you enjoy a more detailed look at other dashboard metrics.

The 'Sideview' url input is for any additional webpage or online dashboard that you would like to be able to use at the same time.

Since we use a ton of various boards from Adafruit Industries in a number of our projects, it becomes extremely handy having access to our Adafruit IO dashboard right next to our Initial State one...no more switching back and forth between screens or apps!

We hope all of you give our app a try. Who knows, you may just love it and send us some suggestions and feedback! Just a small reminder: this is our first foray into the world of mobile app development. We feel pretty darn good about our initial release, and already have a growing list of additional elements and features that we plan on adding to future releases.

It became necessary for us to just go for it and get the app out there to see what kind of feedback and user base size an app like this will have, and we hope to continue building upon this initial release far into the future!!!