Discover our new features — Widget, notifications and MicroBot Push’s new sensors!
Hi everyone!
August has now ended and we are pleased to introduce you the new features we have developed this past month!
Improved access to your Prota
Use widgets to access your favorite apps in a touch
We have developed a brand new feature for Prota Space app, available on both iOS and Android versions: Widget. We wanted to ease and speed up the access to your most-used/favorite Prota apps to better your user experience.
Indeed, a widget enables you to quickly access a Prota app. You do not need to open Prota Space app and chose the desired app anymore, simply touch the app’s widget and you can open this app directly!
How to set up widgets ?
Good news, it is very easy to set them up!
- Enable the use of widgets on your smartphone. You will find this information in your device’s settings.
- In the Widgets’ library, select Prota Space. And it’s done!
3. Now let’s set up the widgets you need:
To define your widgets, you need to favorite some apps in Prota Space’s sidebar. To learn how to use Sidebar and create bookmarks, check our quick guide here.
Will appear as widgets only the top 4 favorite apps. But you can have more than 4 favorite apps in Sidebar if you wish. To reorder your favorite apps, click on an app and drag it to another place in the order.
More stable interface
As we thrive to improve constantly our beloved users’ experience, we have been also working on the interface. Some of our users had experienced little inconvenience when navigating on Prota Space: they accidentally open/close or delete apps or MicroBot Push for example, as the screen was too sensitive. We have now made all the touch events more stable. You will need to firmly touch on the desired event (open app, close…) to make it happen.
Communicate better with your Prota
Push notification now available on Android devices
Last month, we introduce a new feature for Prota OS: Push notification. So far, this feature was available only on iOS devices. We have now made it available for Android users as well!
The aim of Push notification is to improve and ease the communication between you and your Prota: the events you wish to be informed on appear directly on the screen of your smartphone. For example, you need to check whether the storyline aimed at making your coffee is working well. You can set up a push notification that will inform you that your coffee is prepared each time this storyline is running. The Push notification will appear like below:
To learn more about Push notification feature on Prota OS and how to set it up, please have a look at our article ‘Push Notification — Our new feature to communicate better with your Prota’.
New features for your MicroBot Push
New sensor-events: ‘Long touch’ and ‘touch’
We have developed a new feature for MicroBot Push: it is now possible to trigger an action from physically touching the sensor button of MicroBot Push. There are two events or ways of pressing your MicroBot and trigger the desired action: touch and long touch.
To not mix each event (touch or long touch), we have defined a time duration for each:
- Touch: simply touch and release immediately
- Long touch: you need to touch and hold for 2 seconds
To use touch and long touch as sensors, you will need to create a dedicated storyline in Stories app, the tool to create automation rules based on natural language. After selecting ‘Microbot Push’ as your story’s sensor, will now appear among the possible events ‘is pushed from touch’ and ‘is pushed from long touch’ as seen in the screenshot below.
Let’s now discover how you could use these new sensors!
Use cases
Scheduling to turn off your air conditioner when it is manually activated
For example, you would like to turn off automatically your air conditioner two hours after you have manually turned it on.
- In Stories app, as the sensor-story, choose ‘Microbot Push’ as the sensor and select your Push placed on air conditioner. Then, ‘is pushed from long touch’ as the event.
- As the actor-story, select again ‘Microbot Push’ as the actor and the same Push. Then, select the action ‘press the button’.
- Select ‘Extra options’ and the ‘Delay feature’. Then, set the delayed time as 2 hours (or as you wish). Save and it’s done!
Call the elevator when you exit your house
For example, when you touch the MicroBot Push installed on your door, you would like to activate the MicroBot push installed on the call button of the elevator. Or it can be with the example of your garage door, and your house door as well.
- In Stories app, as the sensor-story, choose ‘Microbot Push’ as the sensor and select your Push placed on your door. Then, ‘is pushed from touch’ as the event.
- As the actor-story, select again ‘Microbot Push’ as the actor but choose your Push placed on the call button of the elevator. Then, select the action ‘press the button’. Save and it’s done!
Get informed when your MicroBot Push is manually activated
You would like to be informed by a Push notification on your smartphone when your Microbot Push is manually activated.
- In Stories app, as the sensor-story, choose ‘Microbot Push’ as the sensor and ‘push from (long) touch’ as the event.
- In the actor-story, select ‘Mobile’ and your device as the actor. Then set ‘receives a notification’ as the action. Save and it’s done!
To learn more about Prota OS’ Push notification feature, check this article.
Upgrading Microbot Push’s firmware
When paired with Prota, Microbot Push will be automatically upgraded when a new patch is available.
A Push notification will now appear on your device’s screen when the upgrade of your MicroBot Push’s firmware starts and when it is completed as seen in the screenshot below:
- This feature is not available for a Microbot Push paired with a smartphone only. In this case, to upgrade the firmware of your MicroBot Push, take a look at the instructions here.
To enjoy our new features, make sure your Prota OS and its apps are updated. We have made quick guides to show how to upgrade Prota OS and Prota OS’ apps, don’t hesitate to have a look!
Some words on stability
We are now in the midst of implementing our next version of Prota OS, aiming to release a beta version during Q4 of this year. This version is fundamentally more stable and faster, and all of our Prota S and Prota Pi users will be eligible for a free upgrade.
If you’re adventurous and want to try it out as early as possible, we recommend you join our beta program here. It’s a big change and a game changer. We will have more information in a couple of months. Stay tuned!
