Using the ALiAs Android app is simple and intuitive. But, please be aware that by itself, this app won't do anything! For this app to be useful, you need to follow these steps:
- Build a home automation server
- Install the configuration utility
- Install one or more X10 devices in your house
- Configure your home automation server
After installing the ALiAs app and running it for the first time, this is the first thing you will see. It simply means that, for the app to work, you must first enter the URL of your home automation server. For more information, please reference the build instructions here. Tapping on the "Ok" button will automatically open the preferences menu.
You'll need to enter a couple pieces of information to get started:
- Server URL: This is the URL of your home automation server. Instrucitons on how to build your own server and assign a URL to it can be found here.
- Password: You want to keep access to your lights and other X10 devices secure, so a password is required. This password must match the one you entered when installing the configuration utility.
The advanced server settings are provided for those of you who are adventurous. If you wish to modify the code on your home automation server, you can change a couple of setting within the app. Most of you can simply leave this section alone!
After you enter the server URL and the password, you can press your back button to go back to the main ALiAs screen, which will be blank at this point. Now, tap your menu button to bring up the options menu. Tap the "Reload" option and you should see the following screen...
This screen is letting you know that the app is loading the configuration that you created using the configuration utility. It should only appear for a couple of seconds...
After the configuration is loaded, your screen should appear something like this. The zones which you created are shown at the top. You can tap on the zone names to switch between zones. You can also swipe left and right on your screen to switch between zones.
Beneath the zones is a list of the devices in that zone. Each device will have an ON and an OFF button. Clicking on these buttons will force the app to send a command to your home automation server to perform the appropriate action. Once the action has been completed, you should see a notification message pop up briefly letting you know if the command was successful or not.
The devices that are surrounded by < > are those which you declared as dimmable. If you long press on these devices, you will get a context menu allowing you to dim/brighten the selected device.