Add Mobile Apps to onboarding

[SeanPM5]

Now that both platforms have an official mobile app, would be handy to get users situated with them during the onboarding process imo. This would be an optional / skippable step.

balloob had a genius idea a few days ago in the ios Discord room about scanning a QR code to get the mobile apps setup. I think that would be awesome. But until that gets implemented, I think it could at least link to the mobile apps.

Here is a quick and ugly mockup.

[frenck]

oh, I like that one!

[iantrich]

http://qrappdownload.appspot.com/

That service looks to be outdated, unfortunately and doesn't work for Android as there is no Android "market" anymore

[springstan]

http://onelink.to/

This service seems to provide the same functionality. However, so far I could only test the generated qr code with an android device.

E.g.

[robbiet480]

As a stop gap, we can prompt the user using OS functionalities to install the native app.

FYI we do have Smart App Banners enabled for iOS (#3100).

On Android, it's not as straightforward. It's a two step process:

1. I just modified the manifest.json (the Chrome kind, not the HA kind) at Add Home Assistant Companion to manifest.json so we can suggest the app to the user core#31808
2. I/someone needs to implement stuff in Polymer to prompt the user. More info here.

[robbiet480]

Oh yeah, on the Android side for whatever reason the prompt only works if contents are served over HTTPS. Lame

[balloob]

btw I don't think that we should add mobile apps to our onboarding. The user does not know what Home Assistant is about so will not be interested in installing apps. Instead, we should promote the mobile apps when they add a person or maybe on the config dashboard if there are no mobile_app config entries (dismissable ofc)

[iantrich]

The user does not know what Home Assistant is about so will not be interested in installing apps

I don't think this is likely the case. It does and will, for the foreseeable future, take research/effort to setup a new installation of Home Assistant. In doing so they will inevitably have a reason for doing so and know enough. Further, the smart home of current is app-driven, if anything it is expected to be presented with an app to use IMO, especially for a casual user.

[SeanPM5]

Instead, we should promote the mobile apps when they add a person or maybe on the config dashboard if there are no mobile_app config entries (dismissable ofc)

I get the logic behind this, but with onboarding 100% of users will see it. Even if they don't want to commit to installing an app at that time, they're at least made aware of the existence of apps. Some users might never add a person, and even the config dash link might be overlooked. These are good ideas though, I just think they should be done in addition to rather than in place of this idea.

IMO the sooner that users get the apps, the better. They'd get a device tracker right away which opens up all the presence detection automations. And it also leads to them signing up for Cloud so they could get remote access, etc etc. One thing leads to another in a really organic way.

Users doing this just on a desktop web browser wouldn't really have that same sense of direction. They'd be wondering where to start, perhaps getting frustrated and giving up sooner.