Flick

Flick the switch on wifi controllers

This app allows the user to control Wifi enabled controllers, e.g. smart plugs, smart switches, smart power strips, and sauna heaters. (Currenty the app only controls TpLink devices, Shelly devices, and Humm sauna heaters. Wemo support is discontinued (before it was truly started) since Belkin, in their infinte wisdom, has decided to drop all cloud support for Wemo devices - this means I will never be buying a Belkin product in the future and I encourage anyone reading this guide to do the same.)

When the app is invoked for the first time it shows a screen with the message Tap to scan. Tapping this screen starts an enumeration process to identify all devices that are available. This enumeration takes a few seconds before the app then identifies the current on/off state of all those devices. The app flashes the device name as its state is determined to let you know that progress is being made. When the enumeration is done then a menu is displayed showing the state of every device found.

Subsequent invocations of the app bypasses this enumeration process and immediately shows a device menu with the devices from the last enumeration and the last known state of each device. The icons for each device will have a grey background to indicate that the on/off status of the device is out of date. (Although out of date the status will probably be correct, only a timer or a manual operation could have changed the device.)

After all of the devices have been found the app will then show a device menu list of all those devices. Each row of the device menu list shows a device name and an icon to indicate the state (on, off, offline) of the device. The states are:

On Off Offline
Outlet

Switch

Strip

Sauna

Tapping on a device (or using the select button on watches without a touch screen) causes the app to explicitly get the current, correct on/off state of the device and brings up one of these two displays:

showing the state (one of the 9 icons above) of that device, the left image shows an on device while the right image shows an off device. Tapping on that screen will change the state of the device, from off to on, or from on to off.

The name of the device is shown above the icon while the type of device is shown below the icons, e.g TpLink, Shelly, or Huum.

Tapping the Back button will return back to the device menu list display.

Tapping the Back button on the device menu list display will return the app to the start where it will show the message Tap to find devices. If you tap the screen (or hit the select button) at this time the app will find devices again and bring up a device menu list of those devices. If you hit the back button from this screen the app will terminate.

Sauna Heaters

Sauna heaters are a little different from outlet switches but the main concept is the same, you can get the state of the heater (is it on or off) and you can turn the heater on or off.

The problem for sauna heaters is the temperature setting. We need to know the current temperature of the sauna and, to turn the heater on, what temperature to set it to. There are a couple of subtle changes to a sauna heater device that deal with this issue:

The settings have been enhanced with 2 new options:
- Temperature units. This can be set to either Fahrenheit or Celsius.
- Huum Target Temperature. This is the target temperature for the heater when it is on. Note that this number is in Fahrenheit or Celsius based upon the value of Temperature Units.
The on/off displays for the sauna heater have been enhanced to also show the current temperature and, when the heater is on, the target temperature.
The off dispay:

will show the current temperature in the sauna as a number following the top line Sauna label. The example above shows that the current temperature in the sauna is 55 degrees.
The on display:

will still show the current temperature on the top line but will also show the target temperature as a number following the bottom line Huum label. There is also a progress ring around the edge of the display that shows a green arc indicating how close the current temperature is to the target temperature (the green arc will be a complete circle when the sauna reaches the target temperature). The example above shows the current temperature in the sauna is 55 degrees and the target temperature is 165 degrees.

Source

Flick is licensed under the GPL V3.0. The latest source tree is available for browsing here and tarballs for the latest and older versions are located at the following links:

Latest version
Version 2.96 - Current release
Version 1.37 - First release

Configuration

The app is configured from the phone. The important configurable items are:

Show offline devices. By default any device that is offline is not displayed (you can't control it anyway so why bother and it clutters up the device menu list). Checking this box will cause the app to display all devices, offline or not.
TpLink Server URL. The URL for the TpLink server. The default value of wap.tplinkcloud.com should just work but, if not, the user has the option of changing it.
TpLink User name. User name for the TpLink user. This field must be set or the app will not work.
TpLink Password. Password for the TpLink user. This field must also be set.
Shelly Server URL. The URL for the Shelly cloud server. No default for this value, the user must load the Shelly app on their phone, go to Settings -> Authorization cloud key, tap the Get key button. That will show a field that displays the Server url, copy/paste that url into this setting.
Shelly Key. The authorization key required for all accesses to the Shelley cloud. To get this key the user must load the Shelly app on their phone, go to Settings -> Authorization cloud key, tap the Get key button. That will show a string below the Server URL that is the key, copy/paste that string into this setting.
AtHome settings. If you have a Linux server running 24/7 in your house I can provide you with an CGI program that will allow you to control Wemo and X10 devices. Contact the developer of Flick if you're interested.