Change device characteristics on the fly with the Slider Widget
Have you always wanted to make your own dimmable light bulb? Or do you just want to change your device’s characteristics on the fly? Then the Slider Widget is perfect for you! With the Slider Widget, you can change the brightness intensity of your dimmable bulb or change the threshold of your system!
HOLD YOUR HORSES! To get started with your first awesome project with this widget, start off by reading the Introduction. You’ll understand what Meeo is all about. If you already read it, then let us proceed 🤘.
If you have chosen to add this awesome widget from the Widget Menu, you can give a specific name to your widget by typing on the “Name” field. You do not need to type anything on the “Channel” field for now because anything you type on the “Name” field is reflected on the “Channel” field (everything is in small caps and each word is separated with a dash sign “-”). If you really want to have a specific channel for your widget, then you can type the channel name you want. In case you are wondering what is the difference between the “Name” and “Channel” field, the first field lets you give a cool name to your widget. The second field is used as a channel for your devices to subscribe to or to publish data on. If you are happy with the name of your widget, you can now click/press the “Save” button.
Slider Widget Information
In order for your device to connect to your widget, you need to know the widget’s information. To access this, each widget has an “Option” icon on the top right corner. Click/press the icon and you will see the Widget Information Box as shown on the image below:
The Widget Information Box holds the most important information of a widget; the topic. If you would notice, the topic is separated by a “/”. The phrase on the left is called the namespace while the phrase on the right is called the channel (remember the “Channel” field?). You should take note of these because it is needed by the Meeo Arduino Library.
Slider Widget Data
The Slider Widget is pretty easy to use. Click/press and hold the “Thumb” icon and then release the thumb to the desired value. When you subscribe to the widget, you will be able to receive the value you just set. The possible output for the widget ranges from 0–100.
This is a good component to use when you are trying to set a threshold for your system. Let’s say you have a sensor data that can output a value ranging from 0–100. If the value of the sensor has reached 80 and above, then the system must notify you. With this use case, the Slider Widget is perfect for this. Just set the value of the widget to 80 and subscribe to the widget. If you need to change the threshold to another value, then change the Slider Widget value! Your system will just follow the new value. Voila, you can now change the characteristics of your system on the fly!
Hold and release!
Now that you know the intricacies of the Slider Widget, you will be able to dim lights or change the characteristics of your system with ease!
