HowTo use NEEO Recipes

Have you recently joined our NEEO community and do you want to know how to set up your NEEO for the very first time? Then, please take a closer look here.

First of all, simply add all devices you want to control with NEEO via the NEEO app to the desired room. Now you're ready to get a better understanding of recipes.

This post is about principles and logic in NEEO Recipes, it will give you a basic understanding of when and how to use recipes.

What's the logic behind recipes?

After you have added your devices, NEEO will automatically create the needed recipes to control them. These "automatically created recipes" are always represented by a single device icon on the NEEO home screen.

In order to automatically add all required commands to these recipes, NEEO needs to know how your devices are wired. When you start a recipe by simply clicking on the icon for the first time in the NEEO App, NEEO will ask a few questions and create the recipes based on your choices. If the wiring has not yet been completed, it is indicated by a red exclamation mark shown on a recipe icon. If you see such a red exclamation mark, start the recipe in the NEEO App and follow the instructions on the screen.

If a recipe is started, the NEEO Brain will send all required commands to your devices in order to control them.

Be aware that some recipes are hidden, so you cannot see them on the home screen, although they are on the device list. If you can't find your device such as your AVR on the home screen even though you have added the device, then it's hidden by default, as we don't expect you to use this as a stand-alone device. Maybe you also wonder why your TV is not visible on the Home Screen. This is because you have chosen "No, I use a set-top box" when you added your TV and when NEEO asked you if you planned to use the tuner of the device to watch TV.

Just think of what you want to do and don't bother about the kind of device you want to control. Let's say you want to watch a movie with your Apple TV.  So, just click on Apple TV, this will then start the TV, the AVR, the AppleTV and even select all needed inputs automatically. If the wiring process is done correctly at the beginning, then everything else is done automatically.

If you ever want to see a device on the home screen which NEEO has hidden, for example, cause you also use your TV separately to watch Netflix, you can unhide it by enabling the according recipe in the NEEO Settings in "Recipes".

Are manual recipes necessary for special recipe steps?

No, in most cases, only automatically created recipes are needed and we don't recommend to create manual recipes if they are based on normal source (i.e. Set-Top-Box), hub (i.e. HDMI Switch) or target devices (i.e. TV). You can also add the same devices more than once if you need different recipes involving the same device. 
You can also adjust automatically created recipes,  by adding all necessary steps, by re-arranging them or hiding slides and you can even rename them.
 

Some commands are not represented within the recipe slides. Do I need to create a manual recipe?

Let's say you are missing the sound mode buttons for your AVR on your Apple TV slides.

No manual recipe is necessary to fix this. If just some commands are not present within the default widgets, simply add it to the shortcuts slide. You can also add complete widgets from other devices which you've added to your NEEO previously.

There are of course use cases, where we recommend creating a custom recipe. For example, if you want to turn on the light every Saturday at 8 AM. It also makes sense in case you use sensors and their statuses to trigger any action on NEEO.

We are adding more features with every release, make sure to check out our release notes to get informed about the latest feature updates. (E.g.: NEEO Cranium, Virtual Switch,...)

If you need any further help, don't hesitate to contact us or ask our amazing community for tips and tricks!