Hey everyone,
I’ve been using Home Assistant for a while, and one small friction kept bothering me: some actions are simple enough that opening a dashboard, switching windows, finding the right card, and tapping a button feels like too much.
Things like:
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Turning a desk light on/off
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Triggering a “focus” or “movie” scene
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Running a script
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Toggling a fan or switch
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Firing an automation while I’m already working at my computer
So I built AtenKey, a small desktop app that lets you trigger Home Assistant actions with global keyboard shortcuts.
For example:
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Ctrl + Alt + L → toggle a light
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Ctrl + Alt + M → start movie mode
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Ctrl + Alt + F → turn on a fan
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Any shortcut → call a Home Assistant service, script, scene, or automation
The idea is not to replace dashboards. I still use dashboards for monitoring and more complex controls. This is more for the actions I run all the time and want to trigger instantly without breaking flow.
A few things I cared about while building it:
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Works from anywhere on the desktop via global hotkeys
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Supports lights, switches, scenes, scripts, automations, and other HA services
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Home Assistant tokens are stored in the OS keychain
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Shortcut definitions and HA tokens are not sent to my backend
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Windows and macOS builds are available
I’d love feedback from other Home Assistant users, especially around:
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What shortcuts you would actually use day to day
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Which Home Assistant actions should be easier to configure
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Whether this makes sense as a desktop companion tool
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Any weird edge cases with your setup
Project/download link:
Happy to answer questions, and I’d really appreciate any feedback from people with more complex HA setups.
