Are we thinking about wall tablets the wrong way?

Hardware
1

I’ve been building a Home Assistant project called Home Status, and during development it made me question something we’ve all kind of accepted over the years.

Why do we still build dashboards like they’re the primary interface to our homes?

Back when tablets didn’t exist and smartphones weren’t everywhere, a central control panel made sense. You opened it because you needed information.

Today, our phones notify us when something needs attention. Our cars do it. Our computers do it. Most modern interfaces surface information instead of expecting us to constantly go looking for it.

So why are many Home Assistant wall tablets still giant dashboards full of buttons and gauges?

I’m not saying dashboards are bad. I still have dedicated pages for cameras, security, energy, music, climate, maps, and more.

What I’ve found is that my family rarely wants to browse those pages. They just want to know:

  • Is something wrong?
  • Is something coming up?
  • Did something finish?
  • Should I do anything?

That led me to build a notification layer first, and a dashboard second.

Instead of showing hundreds of entities, it continuously watches the home and only surfaces information that matters. Weather, packages, laundry, security events, maintenance, schedules, news, traffic, and more all become simple, readable updates. When something needs deeper interaction, that’s when you open the dedicated dashboard.

For my family, that changed how they interact with Home Assistant. They don’t have to learn where everything is anymore—they’re simply kept informed.

I’m curious how others feel about this.

Do you still see your wall tablet primarily as a dashboard?

Or do you think there’s room for a more modern “Notification Center” approach, where the home tells you what you need to know instead of expecting you to search for it?

I’m genuinely interested in hearing how other people use their tablets and whether you’ve found yourselves moving in a similar direction.

2

I like this idea. And I am only commenting to follow this.

This brings to mind smart mirrors. Smart Mirrors are displays in your bathroom, or bedroom, that tell you what is on your calendar, and the weather. You can have it display what you want.

There is a guy who built this massive home assistant that had some AI, and he had it track his kids chores while he was away. It had cameras all over the common areas of the house, and yard. He just built it over years. So if his kids lied, he could review the security footage.

These two things are amazing. And with voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, Google, etc.. and AI, think about your idea and what is possible.

In your software, you could have check boxes on what people what to be notified of, and build their own views. Admins or parents could over ride those notifications, and put people on certain ones even if they did not want to be on them. Like chore lists, car maintenance, Shopping lists, etc…

Now imagine a smart home, that tracks chores of kids and parents, and sends people notifications when they are done. Or as you walking through the house , an AI voice follows you displaying your calendar and chores for the day.

There are robots in Asia that have some of these features. but not all. I saw a video of a guy, who with the press of a button could open his garage door, and back his tesla out of the garage. I read a post on here somewhere or on reddit, where a guy wants his garage door open, when he gets close to his home zone, then auto close after he enters.

What I want, is when I get close to my home zone, from a long day of work, I can hit a button or use my voice, and hot bath will be waiting for me. I get up in the morning, and the shower is running and ready.

What is possible with all of these technologies combined? I LOVE your idea, as it gives you move control. In todays, world he have information overload. Your idea wouold strip out what some one does not want, and sees only what they want.

3

Someone finally gets it! i’ve been using HA for a few years now and found that my tablets are starting to get dust on them, then i was helping a buddy get into the HA community and saw how confused he was by the setup and the concept of dashboards, automations and entities. So I started building somthing that was beginner friendly and he loved it! It’s basically a notification center with scrolling tickers that allow his tablet to just display different things that the house is doing.

4

I don’t have any control surfaces in the house, and my spouse never uses the HA app. The house responds to things (climate, room presence, etc), and there are a few things like weather clocks (and non-weather clocks). I get notifications for things that need attention (mostly battery replacements). I really only have a dashboard because I enjoy the project.

Every time I think about putting a panel on the wall, I can’t figure out what it would be for. I am looking forward to voice integration (and maybe some AI) just to help correct when things get out of sync.

5

I never wall mounted my tablets either, I enjoy tinkering myself and had 2 tablets, but gave one to my buddy when joined the HA community, but I started building a dash for my buddy and the ideas he had were the basis of my project i started. It really just a notification display with scrolling tickers that display past, present, future events of the home. You can check out the project if you like, GitHub - biggiebytes/home-status: A notification and awareness platform for Home Assistant. · GitHub but it gave new life to my tablet as a info center that doesnt say anything like alexa but if im walking by i can see that some left the house 20min, dryer is almost finished types of stuff.

6

I have never seen the need for a wall tablet.

7

Wait! Are you saying that HA has a dashboard feature?!?!? :exploding_head:

IMHO, way too many people focus their efforts on fancy screens, and forget that the goal should be home AUTOMATION. If you need to touch a screen, you’re doing it all wrong. I never wasted my time setting up a dashboard, and only downloaded the HA smartphone app for a short time because it was needed to on-board a Thread/Matter device. All of my interactions with HA are either through automations or via Homekit/Siri on my Apple Watch…

8

I have a Samsung Galaxy A9+ tablet set up in the hallway. Is is primarily an information center with very few operator buttons.

It has the weather, both current and forecast, along with the weather radar for seeing what is going to happen in the near future.

If there is a thunderstorm nearby the lightning card pops up displays where the storm is and how many strikes there are.

It has the HVAC thermostat, even though the real thermostat is next to it on the wall. This is because this is the dashboard I also use on my phone.

It also has the house battery state-of-charge and charge/discharge rates as gauges with min/max ticks.

It has both our locations on a tile each, and a quich tap brings up a more detailed map.

A card pops up with the live doorbell camera feed if somebody walks up to our house.

Lastly there are many icons that are only displayed when relevant. Which bins are due to be put out, washer/dryer/dishwashers running or complete, mail or parcel in the letterbox, etc. A water leak will trigger a flashing icon that will then pull up a page of leak sensors.

There are no light controls. They are all automatic, or manual at the room. No presence sensor status. Just a clean board with mostly relevant information, designed for a quick glance, if needed, whilst walking down the hall.

9

My setup is basically the same, A9 tablet and all. Tablet is really for awareness and playing music, if i set down my phone and cant find it at the moment, more than touching buttons.

10

i had a bunch of alexa annouce stuff setup at one point but I dumped most of the automations so my house would stop yelling at everyone. Funny thing happened while out of town, i turned my echo’s volume to max by accident before leaving the house, and my neighbor said my house reminded him to put the recycling bins out for morning pickup, lol he was glad i had a reminder automation.

11

I am the only one using a ‘dashboard’ on my phone, but that is for admin/config stuff only.

For the rest i believe there should be no need for any dashboard, let the smart automation deal with it; home-assistant itself should be working transparent in the background.

12

I find a dashboard very useful, and my wife does too. There’s an (old) iPad mounted in the kitchen, and the main tab shows the energy gauges (solar energy, household consumption, and grid consumption/injection), with a number of useful buttons and information underneath for charging the cars (such as start/stop charging, car SoC, and the status of the charging session).

A second tab contains more settings for charging the cars. A third tab contains the camera feeds, which is handy when someone rings the doorbell.

There are also many other tabs, for example controls for air conditioning, ventilation, lights, electricity consumption, water, etc. My wife isn’t technically inclined, but she still finds it very useful. The important thing is that she doesn’t get overwhelmed with too much information on a single tab, it needs to stay simple and logical.

The tablet is also used to display information via notifications (calendar events and so on).

Instead of using 50 different apps, everything can be done via Home Assistant on one tablet, wife happy, me too!

13

I do have quite some tablets around the house. I consider myself “not stupid”, so i like to have control over my house, not AI. I want to know what’s happening at all times. Sure, automation, but only to the certain point. I like to turn on or off my climate when i want, i like to turn on or off my lights when i want, i like to quick look at outside temperature, pressure, lower my shades when i decide to, not AI, etc… i don’t have my phone in my hands 24/7, so many times tablet is quciker than finding my phone, opening HA and take action.
I’m the kind of person who takes AI with caution. It can be wrong at times…quite wrong…

14

Only 2 dashboard exposed to ‘public’. One in the kitchen (e-paper) showing weather forecast (and eventually weather alerts) and garbage collection schedule. The second is in leaving room that primarily acts as another weather station and, when any music is played in thi room, switches to media info display. All other things are ‘automatic’.
Does not mean I dont have plenty of different dashboards :wink: over time I build 30+ of them and these are still in use, but this is legacy from time when I was fascinated with ability to integrate so many devices into HA. There are few exceptions, where I can set some paramenetrs for my automation (like irrigation system, witer decorations, etc), but these are seasonal, doen very unfrequently. No real daily interactions with smart devices.
Over time I found that dashboards are more for information only, not for home controll, so from perspective of HA there is no real use for these, beside having just single app (HA) where I can check lots of things happenig inmy household, but not to interact with.

15

Very interesting points and perspectives. I’m barely started, just monitoring while learning so have the Overview and a Calibration dashboard set up which are very helpful, helping me understand what I’m interested in and what HA can do for me.

I haven’t set up any automatics or notifications, but like that I can tell if my wife is removing plaster with the big electric chisel or has stopped for a cup of tea. :rofl:

I have been a bit puzzled though about what I’d use a tablet for. I like the idea, but won’t do it unless it has genuine usefulness.

I can also relate to those saying they like to check and know what’s going on, or don’t want to trust automation with some things. I’ve yet to figure out what I’d like to automate and what not, and look forward to having fun playing with that (automatic blinds, light levels etc sound fun).

16

If I need a wall mounted device to do something like turn on the lights the I just could use the plain wall switch. At the moment I realised that I moved them out of sight and started to make my house more respondice to the people using it. Behavior, conditions and presence drive the logi behind the things that are happening.
For example, with in a time frame on a day music will play softly in the background and follow you around the house but it stops in the same room where also a TV get turned on. And reversed when the TV gets off.
Another example. a light above a table gets turned on only when someone take place at that table but only when needed because the room is to dark. When it is a stone countertop they sit on the the underneat heating will go on so the top isn’t to cold.

17

Automating things is definitely useful when you start changing your mindset from ‘this is how i always done it’ to can i simply my life little? I mainly started Automating lights in the beginning, porch light at night type of stuff to Automating ceiling fans and bathroom exhaust vents and ptz camera positioning, sprinkler system and so on

18

Yes, and instead of looking at a dashboard if the dryer is finished just let it annouce over the speakers when it is dry. Things like that gives less screen clutter around the house

19

I’d absolutely hate that :rofl:

20

I have a pi near a basement heating plant that does some temperature MQTT stuff into HA, and has a pi 7" screen to show my status of the machine in a browser.
I use it because I’m a nerd, no one (else) in the house looks at a screen on a wall.