Interested in a native iOS app for DOCSight?

[neofabrics]

Hello @itsDNNS, hello everyone,

at first I'd like to thank you @itsDNNS for this great tool. Currently I'm not in the need to use it for filing issues at my ISP (Vodafone) as there are no (just marginal) issues. But in my previous appartments I learned how it is to have issues, but no clue what it is causing it and therefore to believe Vodafone (or formerly Unitymedia) that there is nothing to resolve on their end. Having an very easy way of monitoring all DOCSIS metrics and many more should help a lot of people to point their ISP to the right direction in actually helping their customers instead of simply saying "auf unserer Seite sieht alles gut aus" and closing the ticket.

The web interface of DOCSight is already very usable on mobile devices (still requires horizontal scroll here and there). But I thought it would be also great to be able to see the most interesting (all? 😄) metrics on a mobile friendly native iOS app including a way to add journal logs "on the go" without the need to access a computer.

I've already invested a few hours in developing an iOS app in SwiftUI which (I think) looks already not that bad. The app is already very feature complete and is built entirely on the REST APIs of DOCSight without HTML parsing or anything else (where I found that a few additional endpoints would be useful, as some data is currently only rendered directly into the HTML). The app should not replace the DOCSight web UI, but could be an easy way to take a quick look into the metrics in situations where you can't quickly access your PC.

Before taking the full path of registering and buying an paid Apple Developer account, testing the App via TestFlight and eventually uploading the App to App Store Connect (if that's still the correct term 😆 Long time since I developed an iOS app),

I just wanted to ask the maintainer and the current user base: Are you interested in a mobile (iOS) app?

Currently I've fully implemented the following features:

• Dashboard
  • Signal health
  • Gaming Score
    • Calculation is the same as in DOCSight, but as there is no endpoint for this data, I needed to replicate it. That would be the first interesting additional REST endpoint
  • Overview of all channels with the ability to go deeper into channel details
• Speedtest
• BQM
• Events
• Smokeping
• Trends
• Detailed Gaming Score (as in DOCSight)
• Journal
  • Add
  • Edit
  • Delete

My working title of the app currently is DOCSIOS, as I didn't want to interfere with the original title, but this can easily be changed.

Here I did want to stop any further development as it already fits my needs, but there could be a lot more:

• iPadOS app
• watchOS app
• Complications and / or widgets for iOS and watchOS
• Native iOS notifications(?)

Additionally I am attaching a few screenshots of my live metrics:

Here and there are still a few UI bugs which need to be addressed. Now I'm interested in your feedback 🙂

[itsDNNS]

Hey @neofabrics, thank you so much for the kind words and for sharing this! Honestly, this is one of the most pleasant surprises this project has received so far.

The screenshots look really polished and I love that you built this entirely on the REST API instead of scraping the HTML. That is exactly the right way to do it.

I did check your GitHub profile but it looks like it was created pretty recently and there are no public repos yet, so I could not look at any prior work. Not a dealbreaker at all since the screenshots speak for themselves, but if you have other projects somewhere else I would be curious to take a look.

A native app has been on our radar for a while, but neither of us has any experience in app development, so it would have realistically been months away at best. Seeing you show up with something already this feature-complete is genuinely exciting.

If you want to publish this as a companion app, go for it! Just make sure it is clearly labeled as a community project so users know it is not an official DOCSight release or maintained by us.

One thing I will definitely take care of on our end: the Gaming Score endpoint. You are right that the data is currently only rendered into the HTML, which is not ideal. I already opened #88 to track a proper REST endpoint so you do not have to replicate the calculation yourself.

The only downside on my end is that I cannot really help with testing. I no longer have an iPhone and my iPad is probably not sticking around much longer either. Primarily on Android over here, so TestFlight is unfortunately out of reach for me. Hopefully some other community members can step in there.

Would you consider open-sourcing the app? It would make it a lot easier for people to contribute and report issues, and I think it also builds trust with users who want to know what exactly is talking to their DOCSight instance.

Really looking forward to seeing where this goes!

[neofabrics]

Hi @itsDNNS,

both endpoints are now being used in the app. The Gaming Score View has no visual changes, but the logic is much simpler now. And the connection details are now visible too in the dashboard. Thank you 👍

I'm going to continue polishing the app. Also added a disclaimer that the app is a community project and is not developed by the DOCSight maintainers.

I think on the app's side there is not much missing for a first TestFlight beta. I'll be evaluating it over the next few days 🙂

[itsDNNS]

That was fast! The connection info in the dashboard looks clean and the login screen is a nice touch. Good to see it coming together.

Once the app goes public, feel free to open a new discussion here so we can pin it and the community can easily find it.

[neofabrics]

Hi @itsDNNS,

just a quick update regarding the iOS app:

• I decided to go the mentioned path with an Apple Developer account and already submitted the very first beta version for TestFlight at App Store Connect and am waiting for Apple to review the build. The public TestFlight release should follow shortly after
• As you mentioned that you still own an iPad: Thanks to SwiftUI the app is already very usable on the iPad, although there is a lot of whitespace which could be used for showing information in a better way, but for the beginning it doesn't look that bad. Hope you still have it to check it out once the beta is live on TestFlight (iOS 26 will be the required iOS version, but going to figure out if I can lower that requirement) 😉
• I'd like to create a public issue-tracking repository on GitHub in the next days, for the beginning without open-sourcing the code. I'd like to focus on the app and issues/bugs for now. For the current user base to find it, I'd like to open a new discussion with the public TestFlight link including the reference to the bug tracking repository (still have to figure out how to set the repository up).
• I already added two widgets in different sizes to the app which fetch the DOCSight data in regular intervals (configurable by the user - but still limited to provided budgets by iOS)
• The Demo-Mode of DOCSight is perfect for Apple to review the beta, just spun DOCSight up with DEMO_MODE enabled on a small VPS, now I'm not required in making my local DOCSight instance publicly available or mocking any data inside the app 👍

Lastly I wanted to share the current implementation of the widgets:

[itsDNNS]

Hey @neofabrics,

Smart move using Demo Mode for the Apple review. Credit for that idea actually goes to @andreasbrett who originally requested it, and it has been incredibly useful for us too when testing new features. Nice to see it serve yet another purpose here.

About the iPad: I should be honest, it is on its way out and I cannot promise it will still be around when the beta goes live. But I will definitely try if the timing works out.

A public issue tracking repo sounds like a solid first step. No need to rush open sourcing the code itself, having a place for bug reports and feature requests is already valuable. Whenever the TestFlight link is ready, go ahead and open that new discussion and I will pin it.

One thing that might be relevant for the app: we just landed API token authentication (8d553c2). Users with an admin password set can now create long lived Bearer tokens in Settings > General. The idea is that external clients like your app or Home Assistant do not have to store or send the admin password directly. Instead they use a dsk_... token in the Authorization: Bearer header that can be individually revoked without changing the password. Might be worth looking into so users do not have to enter their actual password in the app.

[neofabrics]

Hi @itsDNNS,

Apple approved the TestFlight build 🎉
Great timing on the API token auth, I've already switched the app over to use it.
The beta is now available via TestFlight, details in discussion #100.

I also spotted a few more data points that are currently only rendered in the HTML – I'll open dedicated issues for the missing endpoints over the next few days.