Smart Home control bubbles were introduced in January 2018, in Bubble Cloud version 8.40 and ever since then I have been improving their functionality based on feedback from many users.  The improvements were documented along the way, but a complete overview is long overdue:

Smart Home Control bubbles on phone and watch

Adding Smart Home bubbles

Phone

1. Create an App (or Contact) Bubble Cloud widget or folder
2. Add bubbles (or swipe to right)
3. Use floating action

   

   

Watch

1. Enter Wear Cloud Editor (from navigation drawer in main Bubble Cloud app)
2. Use floating action button

   

   

Smart Home Bubble Edit screen

Fields:

• Name is displayed when labels are enabled and when petal options are shown
• Method:
  • Most common GET method is used by default, just enter the address
  • Mark option to use PUT method
  • If at least one header is specified the POST method will be used (more info below)
• Open in browser: if checked the result is opened in the default webbrowser (only available for HTTP GET bubbles on the phone). Also practical for starting web-apps using toggle fields!
• Reuse/Replace button to clone and modify similar commands
• Has toggle fields: use one bubble for simmilar commands (e.g. [on|off])  – see details below
• Petal options: Toggle-field options can be shown around the Smart Home Control bubble in a “flower-petal” style.  You can control petal usage globally (and for each cloud), these options let you override global settings for individual Smart Home control bubbles
• Bubble image: use icon from any installed icon pack or crop part of an image from your Gallery
• Adjust bubble weight: controls size and position of the bubble in its cloud
• Close drawer on start: exit app drawer on watch after using the bubble (off by default)
• Move to other cloud: move bubble to a different widget or folder (only on phone)
• Test: fire the command and display the result (use BACK button to return from web browser if option “Open in browser” was set) It will cycle through toggle field combinations regardless of petal option settings

POST commands

• Multiple headers in new lines
• Add common headers with the “reuse” button (to the right of the header field)
• Data field opens for JSON parameters
• Use C-style escape characters for inner-stacked quotation marks (“requestData” field in the example above)
• There is no validity check, make sure to match opening and closing curly brackets

Toggle fields

Toggle fields offer a very powerful system to use a single bubble to issue related similar commands:

• on/off state of the same smart switch [on|off] or [0|1]
• color options for smart lights [red|green|blue]
• multiple switches in the same room [desk|shades|cabinet]…[on|off]

You can have multiple toggle fields in each of the fields (address, header, data).

Format

Toggle fields have the format: [option1=label1|option2=label2|…]

• options are separated by the vertical line (“pipe”) character e.g. [on|off]
• include as many options as you like e.g. [red|white|green]
• optional labels are shown in the petals around the bubble (see below)
  
• emoji characters are ideal for labels
• you cannot use toggle fields if the HTTP command itself uses square brackets. Make sure to turn off the option “Has toggle fields” in this case)

Entering toggle fields

• Highlight the part of the command that you want to turn into a toggle fields
• Turn on the option “Has toggle field”, the brackets and pipe will appear, with the cursor positioned ready for the next option to be entered:
  
• Long press the option “Has toggle field” to enter more pipe characters while inside the field
• If option is already enabled (i.e. creating multiple toggle fields) you can long press the option  to convert highlighed part into a toggle field
• If nothing is highlighted it will enter a blank toggle field (i.e. [|])

Using bubbles with toggle fields

When petal options are off the app will cycle through each toggle value in order using a global cycle variable. This means:

• we don’t keep track of what field value was sent for each bubble
• in case of multiple toggle fields, it will not cycle through all combinations
• globally increased cycle variable and MOD-ded with the number of options in each field:
  VAR % 2 → yields 0 or 1 for fields with 2 options
  VAR % 3 → yields 0, 1 or 2 for fields with 3 options
  etc.

Example 1: single command with two fields

• http://maker.ifttt.com/trigger/[a1|a2|a3]/option/[o1|o2]
• it will cycle through a1 → a2 → a3 → a1…  independently from o1 → o2 → o1…
• so in combination it will send: [a1 o1] → [a2 o2] → [a1 o3] → [a2 o1] → etc.

Example 2: two commands with one field in each

• Command A: http://maker.ifttt.com/trigger/[a1|a2|a3]
• Command B: http://maker.ifttt.com/trigger/[b1|b2]
• if you trigger them in this order: A B A A B
• you will get: a1 → b2 → a3 → a1 → b2

Petal options

Petal options allow you to pick which toggle options are used. Color bubbles appear around the bubbles both on the phone and and the watch:

• [on|off] and [0|1] automatically appear in red and green. This is also language dependent
• multiple toggle fields appear together in different colors. Command is carried out after you have chosen an option for each field (in any order).
• press the center bubble to exit the petal options
• press the yellow pencil bubble to edit the bubble  (on the watch the bubble edit screen does not allow you to adjust the command string)
• long options are truncated, use option labels instead (e.g. [0=on|1=off] more examples above)

Petal settings for widgets and folders (on phone)

Setting for individual bubbles override the local petal option in the Expert section of the Cloud Configuration Screen, which override the global setting in the main Bubble Cloud Settings app:

Smart Home Control settings on the watch

Long press bubbles on watch to change individual petal and “close drawer” options which override the Global settings:

These global settings can only be set on the watch itself, under “More options”: