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Strategy cards & sections [Dashboard editor] #76

@laupalombi

Description

@laupalombi

Problem statement

This was brought up by @piitaya . We believe there is a real opportunity (and something feasable) if anyone can create a card under a criteria, and then this card would self-populate with that criteria as a strategy.

There are 2 problems this will face:

  1. Right now there is no easy way to create a dynamic card, like for "things almost out of battery" or "Lights that are on". We have that in the default dashboards, but users cannot use it.
  2. It would make users wanting an easy dashboard to be even more easy to do - they can just say "I want all the lights in this area", and the section generates them automatically. No need to remember them and pick them one by one. A simple dashboard Home-style could be done in minutes.

Scope & Boundaries

In scope

  • Cards that are generated and updated under a strategy
  • Sections of cards that generate and update cards under a strategy

But sections take priority over cards, since they meet the company goal of Making HA more approachable. If we run out of time or capacity, we focus on sections.

Not in scope

  • Changes to cards themselves
  • Customization of sections or cards beyond what is expected of all cards (sizing, layout).

Foreseen solution

  • User can create a strategy card --- select a criteria --- the card is created and changes upon device changes.
  • User is in Dashboard editor -- says they want a section with all the lights in the living room - a section with all lights in the living room is created.

Community signals

Strategy cards are very popular in HACs and not availabe through core right now.

From the new user perspective, current interview process (40%) already saw a 100% of confusion when trying to create a card for a device they had in mind, some of them verbalized "why can't I just add all the lights to this room in one go". Just makes sense.

Risks & open questions

Main risk is visual - how would we handle the dashboard editor adapting if it doesn't know how many elelments would fit in? do we do a scroll or something else? Its an importan UX detail, not a blocker but will need thinking cc @mbb365

Appetite

Medium - this is useful in all angles, for me this deserves attention if it can be done in one cycle of 2 releases. If it becomes impossibly complex or requires major structure changes we might rethink it though.

Execution issues

No response

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