Best current UI platform for a small tablet?

I quite like Tileboard myself, it’s has a lot of options, but you may find it tricky to set up if you’re not a dev.

One example is that some (most?) of the widgets are display-only; they don’t execute actions when you tap them, which, given the limited screen space, I’d like to do. I can lock my car remotely, for example, and it would be nice to do that if by tapping if the lock widget shows it as unlocked. I can create my own widgets if needed, I guess.

I’d also quite like a camera widget that cycles through a sequence of cameras…

I can lock my car remotely, for example,

Tileboard is able to trigger scripts and automations.

I’d also quite like a camera widget that cycles through a sequence of cameras…

So would I, Tileboard only allows for a single camera per tile, but with some changes this may be possible, I’m currently trying to make it cycle thru grafana graphs by changing the URL on the Image when the tile is pressed.

Are you able to display an Alarm Keypad in full screen on HA dashboard? Like the keypad, and only the keypad? I have a 7" tablet I want to use for this purpose.

Have you checked out Home Habit? Very very active developer. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.homehabit.view

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There’s Home Assistant Command Center (HACC). It’s a relative newcomer and I don’t know how it compares to the existing tablet-oriented UI’s.

Take a look at appdaemon/hadashboard version 4. Some of those features are added (lock and alarm for example).

Ah - thanks - I went burrowing into git and found that branch… I will investigate. It’s good to hear that there is ongoing development on HADashboard…

And thanks to others for their suggestions too. We’re not short of choices, at least!

Quentin, what did you end up doing? :slight_smile:

At present, I’m still on the original HADashboard, and still hoping for an update to the official version. Investigating other options is on my to-do list, though!

This is currently my favourite option. The author is responsive to suggestions and the interface is easy to configure.

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The github page for Tileboard would suggest that all the layout and options etc need to be coded, rather than click, configure and position etc. Is this the case?

The github page for Tileboard would suggest that all the layout and options etc need to be coded, rather than click, configure and position etc. Is this the case?

That is correct.

I really liked TileBoard for my wall-mounted tablets. Lots of options you can customize on everything, but requires a decent understanding of Javascript to configure.

However, I’m trying to redo everything in Lovelace now so I can take advantage of some of the custom cards that are available.

I just got a tablet set up this week, and decided to go with MQTT Alarm Panel, which has a “secondary page” that can display a webpage, so I set up a single lovelace page for the alarm panel. Basic overview of stats I need at that entry way. I will look at some other options for a couple more tablets around the house.

@HypnoToad
Did you have any luck with importing and changing grafana graphs on tiles?

Thanks,

-Joni-

Massive second for HomeHabit. Having only just started with Home Assistant, I was absolutely staggered that there was no suitable out of the box dashboard UI app. (FYI I came from Domoticz with a completely custom Dashing UI). I have wall mounted dashboards on tablets and want specific but varied layouts, with attractive simple widgets from a consistent pallet. I want total and custom control on where these are laid out, how they are sized on each dashboard, etc. I want to create and fiddle wit the layout on the device itself. These displays mainly show cameras, multiple temperature sensor gauges, switches (used to boost heating and also display if its on), clock, weather and commute times. One dashboard takes advantage of the ability to launch out to other apps.
Lovelace is such hard work, and makes layout so hard. Several other options are quite garish and quite a lot of work. Home Habit takes seconds to set up a new tablet and play around with the layout, gauge threshold colours, icons etc. I’m kinda shocked that Home Habit seems to be so far ahead for my use case, yet seems to have relatively little use.
Is my use case for multiple permanently on, simple but attractive wall mounted easily customisable displays so unique that no-one else feels like this?

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Possibly because it’s a closed-source, paid app ($20 per device) that is independent of the Home Assistant project. Whereas Lovelace is free, open-source, and part of the Home Assistant project.

In addition, it only came out of beta less than a month ago.

I believe it started as “Project Rotini” (circa 2015) for openHAB and was initially met with great interest, enthusiasm, and involvement by the openHAB community. Some of that excitement waned when the author changed it from a free to a paid app (it’s his right, of course). Many beta-testers were rankled by the change. The app’s scope was broadened to include other home automation systems and the original “Rotini” was deprecated (that rubbed a few users the wrong way) in favor of a new design (and name, in 2018). Fast forward to the present and it’s now known as HomeHabit.


EDIT
Here’s the original thread on the openHAB forum but the author modified its title from “Project Rotini” to “HomeHabit Dashboard”.

Yes, @thisisdavidbell - I’d be interested to hear your experiences; I was going to look into this in a bit more depth and I don’t object to the licence fee, but I was put off a bit by the multiple reports of unreliabiity.

The fact is that HA probably has too many dashboard options rather than too few, so no single one gets the attention that it needs, and Lovelace, which does get all the love, isn’t really intended for this; it might be OK if you’re hanging a 12-inch tablet on the wall, but not really for the 7 or 8-inch one that I use.

In my case, though, HADashboard, for all its many limitations, has been super-reliable, and creates convenient buttons of just the right size for my pudgy fingers on a small display! I just use the FullyKiosk browser to point at its URL and the combination mostly does what I need.

Even my wife uses it! (She would never do anything scary like look at the Lovelace page or the phone app :slight_smile: But she also wouldn’t use something more than a couple if times if it did prove unreliable.)

Lovelace is now starting to support multiple dashboards. If we get to the point where they can be individually themed, scaled etc, to be more suitable for fingers on small displays, then I can imagine switching to that, just for the greater variety of widgets, but at the moment HADashboard is fine for me.

Hey @quentinsf. So far I have 2 wall mounted dashboards on 24/7 (10 inch ancient table which cant run anything due to lack of disk space (8gb, with only 100meg free) and a Fire HD 8.) I have a further 2 devices (a tablet and a phone which are used a few times a day). They have all been rock solid so far (which is admittedly less than a week).

I love:

  • sitting with the device itself and playing around with the widgets and layout until I get it just right.
  • the simple, consistent look. It just looks way more professional than anything else I have found.

Things I hoped are improved in the future (admittedly these are very focused on my needs, so may not all be high priority for everyone, or for the HomeHabit team.):

  • lack of scheduled screen off and on - 1 tablet has this baked in so its fine. The Fire HD doesn’t which Im not happy about, but I’m hoping this will be added to HomeHabit in the not too distant future as its one of the highest voted requests.
  • thermostat widget doesn’t support boost capability (I have Hive Heating), or nicely allow the mode to be returned to auto, or turning off the touch actions. I therefore instead use a standard temperature gauge for current thermostat temp, and a separate switch to perform boost and simultaneously show if the heating is currently on.

I too have no issue with the cost. People spend hundreds or more on the tablets, and smart tech for their home. For me, the whole of my Home Assistant use case just wouldn’t work nicely for me without HomeHabit. I don’t need any of the Premium features, but have bought a license just to make an initial contribution. Im so impressed with Home Assistant generally, its far superior to Domoticz that I came from and made getting everything integrated so easy. However, the community approach just hasn’t made a UI suitable for my use case - but HomeHabit has so they must be doing something right.

Happy to answer anything specific.

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