Configuration Options
There are a number of configuration options available in View Assist Companion App. It should work well with the default settings, but below is what each one does.
Note
Due to the variation in device specifications and HA setups, not all setups will support all configuration options. See our section on known device limitations
Select the sound for the alarm function. Only Default exists out of the box but see Custom files for info how to add you own alarm sounds to the list
Allows you to select a specific Voice Assistant from your setup in HA for this device. Or leave on preferred to use your default.
Turns on/off the auto brightness (sometimes called adaptive brightness) setting on your device.
Set how sensitive the bump to wake screen function is. Only exists if the device has an accelerometer sensor.
When enabled, continue conversation will always restart listening after every interaction and timeout after 5s if no further command. With it turned off, if the response is a question, VACA will continue to listen for a response, but if the response is not a question, the interaction will end.
Sets your HA theme to dark mode (check your theme supports this)
Set the volume level the device will reduce any playing music to during a voice conversation/interaction/notification etc
Once the wake word has been detected the device will send your spoken commands to your chosen conversation engine (as configured in your Voice Assistants settings in HA). This determines the setting it will use to decide when you have finihsed speaking the command.
This will increase or reduce the microphone auto gain level. In most cases, leaving this set to 0 should be fine but you can adjust it if your conversation engine does not accurately understand what you are saying.
This selects the motion detection mode - Off, Motion or Face. Motion detection will set motion detected for 10s on each motion event. If motion continues during the timeout period, the motion detected sensor will continue to show detected. Face detection will stay on detected as long as the camera detects a face in its camera view. v0.8.0 to v0.11.3 has a switch and only supports motion detection (v0.12.0 also has a much improved motion detection function with low light support)
Adjusts the amount of motion needed to trigger a detection in motion detection mode. This has no effect in face detection mode.
Sets the media volume on the device (the stream the media player uses when playing music. Media player announcements use the voice volume)
Attempts to remove noise in the received audio (after wake word has been detected) to improve understanding. In most cases leave this off but you can adjust to try and improve understanding of your issued command.
Enable the quick actions function. The quick actions are displayed on a bottom sheet popup by swiping up from the bottom of the screen with 2 fingers. See Quick Actions in this wiki. Note, this also replaces swipe to refesh function in versions prior to v0.12.0
Prevent the screen from going to sleep when the app is in the foreground. Switching it off will allow the device to sleep according to its display sleep settings.
Adjusts the brightness level of your screen. There is a lot of variation in how this is implemented across different devices. On some devices, setting to 0 will turn the screen off and on others it will only redcue the brightness to a lower level. Also, some devices will not adjust the brightness level when Auto brightness is set, whereas others will.
Due to many devices turning off the touch screen when in sleep mode, this attempts to make a wake on touch sensor. It uses the devices accelerometer to detect the motion from a 'bump' on the device. This may not work well with wall mounted or other fixed devices as they may not move enough to register a bump.
If motion is detected and the screen is off, it will wake up. Requires that motion detection also be enabled.
Many Android devices have proximity sensors. They are the sensors that turn your screen off when you put your phone to your ear during a call. Similar to the wake on bump function, we utilise this sensor to create a wake up action if your hand goes near the device due to the inability to wake by touch screen.
If your screen is off, when the wake word is detected, the screen will be turned on. How long it stays on for is controlled by Keep screen on setting, the display timeout setting on your device or use of the Sleep screen button.
Sets the screen orientation or leaves on auto to let Android control it. Designed for some devices that do not handle this correctly on their own.
How long to wait before automatically turning the screen off. For this to work, Screen always on must be turned off.
This enables a swipe down on the device screen to reload the browser page.
Allows changing of the text size to help your custom dashboards fit on the screen better. Setting to 0 will use default setting for webview.
This sets the notification volume of your device (the stream that all voice responses/announcements use).
Sets which wake word you want your device to response to. Custom wake words will also appear in this list when added to the device. See Custom files in this wiki
There are 2 main wake word engine solutions (OpenWakeWord by dscripka and MicroWakeWord by the Open Home Foundation and adapted for Android by brownard). They both have pros and cons but fundamentally, if you have a lower power device, MicroWakeWord uses about 25% of the cpu of OpenWakeWord. Give both a try and see which is best for you, balancing detection and false detections. It is expected that OpenWakeWord using Onnx will be removed in a future version but OpenWakeWord using TFlite will continue to be supported. This is due to the size and memory use issues of onnx engine on lower spec devices.
Sets the sound your device will make when the wake word is detected. This supports custom files. See Custom files in this wiki
Sets the accuracy level required by the wake word detection algorithm before deciding the wake word was spoken. Make this higher if you get too many false detections and lower if you struggle to wake the device. See the On screen diagnostics section for info on help to set this.
This will allow changing the default zoom level of views. Only really has an effect on views that are not part of VA and on the menu/tab bar. Set to 0 to use the HA viewport settings (default zoom level).