EvoControl - custom Alexa skill for Evohome

[philchillbill]

Hi, EvoControl is no longer able to talk to my Domoticz. If I Verify on your website I get a 'Oops! Something went wrong — please retry later'
If I however use the same https URL in a web browser it works fine.

Is there a port or something I might now by mistake be blocking?

If you try while viewing the browser's console log (developer tools, e.g. F12 in Chrome or Edge) then are there any clues in the console?


EDIT: I bet it will work for you now. I also got an error when I retried my own config. Turns out I had forgotten to place an AWS php library in the root directory of the evocontrol.eu domain (I recently moved it all away from smartskills.tech as part of the new branding)

[Stevedh]

Sadly still not working..
the log from verify on smartskills HGI-80 shows this, although the last entry takes a while to appear.


EN false
accounto.js:1 https://smartskills.tech
accounto.js:1 5 '/ec/register/configure-hgi.php'
accounto.js:1 stevedh42
accounto.js:1 [Verify]
accounto.js:1 [Ajax]
accounto.js:1 hgi_handler.php
accounto.js:1 result: ERR 2 | res [ERR]
4configure-hgi.php?t=1:1 Uncaught (in promise) Error: A listener indicated an asynchronous response by returning true, but the message channel closed before a response was received

[philchillbill]

The 'ERR 2' is a meaningless error deliberately chosen to keep hackers in the dark but it really means that the cURL towards your Domoticz instance failed. How is Domoticz exposed to https (via Apache, nginx, otherwise)?

I do use

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, true);

on the cURL so your SSL certificate needs to be valid and not self-signed or this will indeed fail.

[Stevedh]

thanks for the help.
If I copy and past the url I have given smartskills into chrome, it tells me the connection is secure and the certificate is valid.
I am using letsencript on a static ip
and the connection via https

Issued On Wednesday, 5 November 2025 at 16:27:55
Expires On Tuesday, 3 February 2026 at 16:27:54

[Stevedh]

ok looks like something weird has happened to my port forwarding, I think when I was testing it was using an internal route.. when I remembered to disable wifi on my phone it failed.. so will investigate.
thanks

[haggis888]

I have just created full-system Schedules A, B, and C in the EvoControl web app but am struggling to find a page that lets you switch all zones to one of those options in a single click. What am I missing?

Some other observations about this web app (which I much prefer to the original Alexa-only interface):

1. While working my way through Phil's Vimeo video to get an understanding of EvoControl I heard something that didn't sound right. The 'Copy Schedules Between Zones' section claims that "Something you cannot do natively with Evohome that you can do with EvoControl is copy schedules between zones". While you cannot do that using Resideo's Total Connect Comfort smartphone app it is very easily done with the wall-mounted Evohome controller. That looks like a "native" solution to me.
2. There are seven icons at the bottom of the EvoControl home page, but only the gear icon (for the app settings) has a predictable purpose. The other icons make sense once you know what they do but my aging brain rapidly forgets their purposes. Life would be a lot easier with some text under each icon, as already exists on every other page I have seen.
3. The 'Multiple Schedules' section of the video initially gave me the impression that EvoControl offered four full-system schedules versus only one in a standard Evohome system. However, I later realised that you really only have three schedule choices (A-B-C) to copy into the Live schedule. It would be good to make that clearer in the video.

[philchillbill]

What you’re missing is the button next to the settings button. It has an icon with a calendar and an up-arrow. It launches the screen described under Schedule Management on the website at evocontrol.eu. Don't just rely on the video for info. For example, the 3 + 1 schedules is clearly mentioned on the website.

The main dashboard becomes simply too busy with captions under the buttons (I tried it). Remember, in the skill we have the revolving hints at the bottom of the screen and it's too close to the buttons not to clash with the captions. In the web app there are not hints revolving away but on the other hand you can easily pinch to zoom in and take a good look at what the icons symbolize.

[philchillbill]

New feature on the LaunchPad screen. Delayed Start and Duration buttons are now present. To use them, first tap on the button and then tap on the icon of the scene you wish to use it with. The single or dual-slider popup will then deploy.

Thanks to jweaver for suggesting this feature.

[haggis888]

What you’re missing is the button next to the settings button. It has an icon with a calendar and an up-arrow. It launches the screen described under Schedule Management on the website at evocontrol.eu. Don't just rely on the video for info. For example, the 3 + 1 schedules is clearly mentioned on the website.

Thanks for the clarification. I had seen that schedule management page but obviously didn't read it carefully enough!

The main dashboard becomes simply too busy with captions under the buttons (I tried it). Remember, in the skill we have the revolving hints at the bottom of the screen and it's too close to the buttons not to clash with the captions. In the web app there are not hints revolving away but on the other hand you can easily pinch to zoom in and take a good look at what the icons symbolize.

Zooming in is not possible as I'm not using a touch screen, but I can still read your dashboard icons without any difficulty. My problem is that their meaning is far from obvious without any text hint. I don't understand your reference to "revolving hints" in the Alexa skill. My Echo 8 display for Smart Heat is static and has no hints.

EDIT: I turned up the brightness on my Echo 8 and can now see what you mean by revolving hints about Alexa commands, though they are still far too dim for me to read easily. There seems to be enough room to move the icons up to allow icon hints that don't clash with the revolving hints.

My dashboard contains the maximum number of zones and still has plenty of room to spare.

EDIT2: I'm running EvoControl on a Windows workstation without the Larger Tiles option. I've just installed it on my Android phone and can see you have less space to play with in that situation. Does the web app really need to allow space for revolving Alexa hints that will never appear?

[haggis888]

I am having some difficulty with the text in the top right corner of the histograms page when viewed on a smartphone.

The font size for both the day of the week and the schedule name is too small for easy reading for those not blessed with 20/20 vision. There is space available to make it a bit bigger. In addition, the day of the week has a colour that makes it almost illegible due to a lack of contrast with the background (it's not even easy to read on my much larger computer screen). I suggest you follow the example of the column names at the foot of each histogram and make the day white. The big chevrons would also be more obvious with a slightly lighter colour.

The chevron that precedes the schedule name is just a small blob on a phone and seems rather redundant given that it sits below a much larger chevron. Removing it would make the schedule name stand out more clearly on a small screen.

[philchillbill]

I’m not quite sure why you’re posting about the web app in the thread for the Alexa skill. Anyway, some things in the app only work well on a larger screen. I could try and detect screen size and disable such features on phones. But then some people might not be tempted to try the feature on a tablet or laptop instead if their only exposure was via smartphone. So all the features are there. If you really want to get the most out of the app, an 8” or larger screen is highly advised. Its primary target is certainly not smartphones.

[haggis888]

When you suggested earlier that I zoom in by pinching the screen, you were obviously assuming that I was using a touch screen. It was that that made me suspect that smartphones might be one of your targets for the web app and prompted me to install it on my phone, which has a 6.7 inch screen. Surprisingly, I'm finding it quite useable - with the exception of the comments I made about the histograms page (which are not deal-breakers).

It's not urgent, but I would be grateful if you would give serious consideration to my suggestions, as making the day and schedule name more readable would be of benefit on any platform (I can barely read the histogram day on my iPad at a normal viewing distance) and are unlikely to require much effort.

You have yet to respond to another of my questions: Does the web app really need to allow space for revolving Alexa hints that will never appear? If not, then there should be room to add icon hints to the dashboard.

I became aware that I had accidentally posted in the wrong thread just after my last post. I'll try to use the correct threads in future!

[philchillbill]

I'll take a look at the sizes from a legibility perspective tomorrow. Thanks for suggesting. Regarding there being enough room for captions in the web app due to lack of hints-footer, there's also the matter of consistency between the PWA and the Skill to consider.

By the way, have you tried the Larger Tiles slider on the Settings page? It makes all the dashboard tiles larger by only showing a max of 8 and requiring scroll to see the off-screen tiles. It's a per-device setting so it can be useful to have it on for on a phone screen but off for a laptop.

[haggis888]

I'll take a look at the sizes from a legibility perspective tomorrow. Thanks for suggesting. Regarding there being enough room for captions in the web app due to lack of hints-footer, there's also the matter of consistency between the PWA and the Skill to consider.

Have you ever considered moving the revolving Alexa hints to the empty area to the right of the lower icons? There's plenty of space there, even with the Larger Tiles setting, for those hints to occupy several lines. That would then create unoccupied space for icon hints. If that was impossible for some reason, then my view would be that adding icon hints to the web app but not to the Alexa Skill would not really be a significant diversion from interface consistency, as the Skill users would not be losing anything.

By the way, have you tried the Larger Tiles slider on the Settings page? It makes all the dashboard tiles larger by only showing a max of 8 and requiring scroll to see the off-screen tiles. It's a per-device setting so it can be useful to have it on for on a phone screen but off for a laptop.

Yes, that's exactly what I've done. The Larger Tiles setting is only on for my phone.

[philchillbill]

Per the Dashboard section on the website there can be up to 5 icons on the right hand side so it's not always an "empty area". Also, I have to accommodate all kinds of Echo/Fire-Tablet screen sizes and in the skill (unlike the Web App) portrait mode is also supported so then there is even less width to play with.