Getting the family to look at them was my main goal after getting everything setup. My 2 teenagers will blast spotify while were away from the house, but having family grocery list and calendar streaming by now, and the kids will remind us that they put something on list so my wife will at least look as of recently.
exactly my vision for my home, its all about awareness nowadays!
https://youtu.be/bCOtF_0QxAQ?si=te3rYdOD1TwGAs4Z Thats a link to a video of what im now using, you can keep all your existing dashboard views and you just add links in the dropdown drawer. its basically 3 separate configurable areas that allow your sensor scroll by or popup in the main view. check it out and you can install via hacs too! GitHub - biggiebytes/home-status: A notification and awareness platform for Home Assistant. · GitHub
There is no right or wrong way.
It all depends on what you want and like.
There is a part of users who like to create dashboards and the aesthetics play a big role so looking at them makes them happy or being able to show to others what they have done.
Others are not into automating that much and want to control their house from a touch screen or have a lot of feedback.
And then there is another part who automate stuff so that there is not much user interaction needed.
I’m one of the latter but still there are things for which you need user interaction.
TBH, I have repurposed an outdated tablet for a kitchen dashboard and voice control is used to show what is already on the shopping list and add items by speech and it’s also used as a voice controlled timer.
My dashboards are quite basic and I don’t spend much time on the aesthetics.
In my office I have RPi3 with the official 7" display as a dashboard and this is was the first touch device dedicated for HA.
I use it to control the volume of the media player, see the temperature in- and outside as well weather forecast.
Since there is music on almost all day when at home, sometimes streaming radio but mostly from a reasonable local collection, it shows track info.
Aside from using TTS for calendar appointments, those are also displayed on the dashboards.
So those touch screens are somehow a gimmick as well but doing without them would be possible and none of them are bought with this in mind but having them already, I turned them into HA dashboards to see if it would add anything.
I agree. I was really interested in how people were using there dashboards, I’m not big on totally automated homes, as the control factor can be too much for the average person, some times i want lights off and just sit in the dark because its just peaceful, thinking and relaxing, not alexa shouting something at me that the dryer is done. I’m not structured like some people who, wash clothes only on Saturday at 5pm, wake up at 6am etc… thats robotic too me, and fully automated can make it feel un natural
I’m satisfied with either Wallpanel or VACA, both works fairly well on my ThinksmartView running LOS.
tablet/camera position and room lighting contribute to a good detection, both app struggle on low light situation (eg. night with only the TV on) but thats acceptable for me.
Freekiosk works for me does camera detection wakeup fine.
I will look into my issue more, when I get a chance too, thanks for the insight
For people in the house who aren’t into this stuff showing the house itself works better than a list of buttons, they see which rooms have the lights on and get it straight away.