Is there a way to add/remove widget on Blynk App from hardware

Solved
1

Hi All,
I am trying to find a way to add/remove a widget (Styled button) from hardware but it seems blynk does not support this feature.
I checked the code from Blynk server, there are way to allow the app to ask server to add/remove a Blynk widget on mobile app, but I dont know yet how to mimic this feature in hardware. The protocol is complicated for hardware to connect to the server and post API request.
Reason: I have a MCU that interacts with slave over I2C bus. Sometimes users may add/remove a slave. MCU can scan to detect the device changes and inform the Blynk App to create/delete a styled button for controlling the device automatically.
Please advice me how to deal with this matter with thanks.
Yours very faithfully,
Dang Dinh Ngoc.

2

Is this a commercial/business project?

Pete.

3

No Mr. Peter,
This is a community project in mountainous area of Vietnam, I am supporting farmers to develop small project to testify controlling of their pump in their farm using botth ESP and RF module.
Anyway, I am thinking of departing from Blynk to a different approach since I discover today that Blynk will no longer be opened source.
Many thanks for your response!
Ngoc

4

new or old blynk?
i may suggest u a way

5

Blynk 2.0 allows to disable the widget.

6

may I know how

7

Blynk.setProperty(V0, “isDisabled”, “true”);

Works both for the web and mobile.

8

Very interesting, I just found “isDisabled” in this example

 https://blynk.cloud/external/api/update/property?token=ffujYGgbf805tgsf&pin=v1&isDisabled=true

but not at Widget Properties :thinking:

9

Thanks Dmitriy, I am trying to find a way to send http request from hardware to mimic app connection! This should be a most possible way to handle the removal/ hide a button from hardware. Since the possible user for the community project is ethnic minority without much knowledge on mobile app, they will use what was installed for them to control their farm.
Please advice me on formulating http or mqtt request properly so the button will be automatically appear when user add/remove new device.
Also, I am developing water valve with GSM and RF, creation of new tab (on the project and adding/removing of new buttons should be most appropriate).
I hope blynk will further consider this in their next version. If this is posible, this will make blynk to be very versatile comparing to others!.

10

@hanoi.home.iot in your initial post you said:

As the code for the Blynk 2.0 code isn’t publicly available, I assumed that you were using Blynk Legacy (Blynk 0.1). Is this the case?

If so, will you be running this project with your own Blynk local server, or using the Blynk cloud servers?

Pete.

11

Dear Mr. Peter,
I installed the local server version at the project site (commune government office - 90% up time during project life from 2021-2025).
Thank you very much for your attention.
bBest regards,
Ngoc
From Vietnam

12

Anyway, please don’t be bothered responding to my question. I am moving on to MIT app inventor for now.
I am trying to find a way to develop an UDP station scanner on MIT- App. If this can be successfully done, I can make my owned community be liberated with self made app,
Thanks for all your attention.
Ngoc

13

Okay, a few bits of information that you may need to consider…

  1. Blynk local server is the old (Legacy) version of Blynk and It is no longer developed and is no longer supported.

  2. The Legacy app is no longer being developed/supported and will probably disappear from the App/Play stores in the near future. If your clients are Android users then you may be able to work around this by keeping a copy of the latest .apk file, but installation won’t simply be achieved via the Play store.

  3. I believe that the comments made by @Dmitriy relate to Blynk IoT (Blynk 2.0) and not Blynk Legacy.

So, as you can see, the software you are using is already discontinued and unsupported, even from the beginning of your project lifecycle.

Going back to your original question, the Blynk legacy server holds the app layout information in the xxx.Blynk.user file, which is in JSON format.

If you’re very clever (and brave) you could edit this file to add/remove whatever widgets you want, but as you’ll see when you view the file this is not a simple task. I’m almost certain that you won’t get any assistance from the forum for this, as the only time I’ve seen it mentioned at all is in this topic…

The other option may be for you to create the individual apps for the individual users, then share the via the app sharing functionality. This will have the potential advantage of preventing the individual users from editing the app layout.

Pete.

Pete.

14

Great thanks to Mr. Peter for taking you time. I have actually decided to move on with MIT app-inventor and UDP broadcast as the app development is quite simple ant it will fit totally with my simple need!

15

i think node red dashboard will be better