Easy Ring Styler Card - tons of Ring Doorbell options, a snap to configure

Ltek · September 25, 2026, 8:18pm

Easy Ring Styler

A Home Assistant Dashboard custom card for Ring cameras and doorbells — recordings, live view, two-way audio, door release, and snapshots in one viewer — with a fully arrangeable control layout, two recording sources side by side, real-time frame capture, ding and motion alerts, and a complete visual editor.

Special Thanks to thomasgregg/ring-view for his project which inspired this one.

Key features at a glance

Arrangeable controls — put every control and readout on any of the four edges, in any order, with per-edge alignment. Hide any of them, or move a whole edge outside the image so the buttons sit in their own strip instead of over the video.
Two recording sources at once — configure the official Ring camera and a Ring-MQTT Event Select, each with its own button and icon. One plays at a time; tap the source you want.
Real-time snapshots — capture the frame your browser is actually decoding, not the cached still Ring hands back, and save it through Home Assistant’s media source.
Snapshot popover — the captured image appears over the card for a duration you set, so you can see what you saved.
Ding and motion alerts — a temporary alert with its own icon and wording for each, sharing one placement so they never fight for space.
Centre tap — a large invisible hit area in the middle of the image, clear of the edge controls, with a selectable action and an independent “also open the larger view”.
Two render methods — a light, periodically refreshing still image, or a real live stream embedded in the card.
Text sizing — independent sizes for the camera name and the last-activity line, which can be a combined block or two separately placed items.
Full visual editor — every option is point-and-click; no YAML required.

New Stuff

Latching Talk button — as well as hold-to-talk, the Talk button can latch: one tap starts talking, the next stops. Useful on a wallpanel where holding a button is awkward.
Recording controls stay available — a paused or finished recording keeps its scrubber, volume, and fullscreen controls instead of switching them off after 2.5 seconds. Ported from upstream v0.12.4.
Button layout — a per-edge editor: add a control to an edge, order it with arrows, hide it with the eye, or take it off entirely. Each edge has its own alignment (start / centre / end / spread out) and an Outside the Parameter toggle that reserves a strip beside the image instead of overlaying it. Overflow degrades gracefully: labels drop, controls shrink, then the edge wraps.
Second recording source — point one field at the official Ring camera and the other at a Ring-MQTT Event Select, each with a user-selectable MDI icon. The mode switch grows a third button; only one source plays at a time.
Live frame capture — a Capture method choice. Ask Home Assistant calls camera.snapshot as before; Grab the frame on screen reads the frame already decoded in the browser and uploads it via the media source, which is the only route to a genuinely current image from a Ring camera.
Snapshot source — capture from the device snapshot camera, the live view camera, or automatically. Choosing the live camera skips the Ring-MQTT refresh step, which avoids a refresh timeout on interval-mode snapshot cameras.
Snapshot popover — shows the captured bytes where possible, the saved file where it is servable, and the camera image otherwise, for a configurable 1–30 seconds.
Motion alerts — an optional motion entity raises the same temporary alert as a ding, with a walking-person icon and its own wording, in whichever position the alert is placed. A ding always takes precedence.
Card no longer resizes itself — with an automatic aspect ratio, Home Assistant’s five-minute camera token rotation used to look like a new image and reset the measured shape, dropping the card to a 16:9 fallback minutes after load. A token-only change now preserves the ratio, while genuine changes still re-measure.
Better snapshot diagnostics — the underlying Home Assistant error is logged rather than swallowed, and a folder outside allowlist_external_dirs now says so instead of failing generically.
Reorganised editor — settings grouped by what they affect (Card behavior, Recording playback, Live stream, Snapshots, Events, Door access, Card appearance), an accordion so only one section is open at a time, and a How snapshots work explainer inside the Snapshots panel.
Date-stamped builds — versions are YYYY.MM.DD.BUILD, shown in the console on load and at the top of the visual editor.

Requirements

Home Assistant 2026.7 or newer.
Ring media exposed to Home Assistant — the official Ring integration, the Ring-MQTT add-on, or both. Recording access needs a suitable Ring subscription. The card itself never talks to Ring; it only uses entities already in Home Assistant.
Two-way audio needs the official Ring live view camera, an HTTPS connection to Home Assistant, and microphone permission. Ring-MQTT’s live stream has no microphone return path.
Snapshots to /config/www/... need that folder in allowlist_external_dirs:
```
homeassistant:
  allowlist_external_dirs:
    - /config/www
```
/media folders work without this, because Home Assistant already allows its media directories.
Live frame capture needs Live playing in the card and a /media folder — it uploads through the media source, which cannot write to /config/www.

Concepts

Image render method — what the card is. Still image with periodic refresh is a plain image, refreshed every ten seconds, that starts no stream. Live stream in the card embeds the real viewer with playback. This is not a controls toggle; it selects two different cards.
Button layout — each control belongs to one edge, at one position in that edge’s order. Items on an edge form a single row (top/bottom) or column (left/right). Placement is shared by the card and the fullscreen viewer; Outside the Parameter applies to the card only.
Recording sources — up to two, each with its own button. An official Ring Last recording camera follows Ring’s history automatically; a Ring-MQTT Event Select divides recordings into Ding / Motion / Person / on-demand categories and can be automatic (newest) or manual (a chosen historical event).
Capture method — where a snapshot’s pixels come from. Ask Home Assistant asks the camera integration, which for Ring is often a cached still. Grab the frame on screen reads the decoded live frame in the browser.
Alerts — a ding or motion event raises one temporary alert for twelve seconds, in the position given to the Ding & Motion alert item. Tapping during an alert jumps straight to Live.
Centre tap — a large invisible button in the middle of the image, inset clear of the edge controls so it can never swallow a button press. Its action and whether it also opens the larger view are independent choices.

Options at a glance

Every option below is point-and-click in the visual editor.

Card behavior

Image render method — still image with periodic refresh, or live stream in the card.
Card’s initial image and its fallback (still-image mode) — last recording, live, default, snapshot, or newest.
Start (live-stream mode) — wait for a tap, last recording, or live.
Default mode and remember last mode.
Tap centre of image — do nothing, switch to Live, play last recording, or take a snapshot — plus an independent also opens the larger view.
Image shape — automatic, 16:9, 4:3, or 1:1 — and image fit, contain or cover.

Recording playback

Recording source and, for a Ring-MQTT Event Select, its event selection (newest or selected).
Second recording source with its own event selection — adds a second button to the mode switch.
Button icons for each source, MDI assumed.
Play recording automatically, and start recordings muted in fullscreen and on the card.

Live stream

Live view camera.
Start Live muted in fullscreen and on the card.
Two-way audio — adds the Talk button.
Talk button behaviour — hold to talk, or tap on / tap off (latching).

Snapshots

How snapshots work — a collapsible explainer covering both capture methods and their constraints.
Capture method — ask Home Assistant, or grab the frame on screen.
Take snapshot from — automatic, device snapshot camera, or live view camera.
Save folder — /media/ring-view, /media/snapshots, /config/www/snapshots, /config/www/ring-view, or any path you type.
Snapshot popover and its duration in seconds.

Events

Ding / button entity — a Ring event entity or a Ring-MQTT Ding binary sensor.
Motion entity — optional; raises the same alert with a walking-person icon.

Door access

Lock entity, optional contact sensor, unlock or open door, visibility (live only or all views), location (viewer only or dashboard and viewer), and hold to activate.

Card appearance

Camera name text, last activity entity, and whether activity sits under the camera name or is its own placeable item.
Text sizes for the camera name and the activity line.
Show Talk and door button text.

Button layout

One section per edge — Top, Right, Bottom, Left — each with its alignment and an Outside the Parameter toggle.
Per control: move to another edge, reorder, hide, or remove from every edge.
Placeable items: camera name, last activity (when separated), Recording / Live toggle, Ding & Motion alert, Snapshot, Expand / Close, Talk, and Door.

How snapshots differ between the two capture methods

	Ask Home Assistant	Grab the frame on screen
Where the pixels come from	the camera integration	the frame your browser already decoded
How current	often a cached still, sometimes hours old	the current moment
Needs Live playing	no	yes
Works without a dashboard open	yes	no — it runs in the browser
Can save to `/media`	yes	yes
Can save to `/config/www`	yes (with `allowlist_external_dirs`)	no — uploads go through the media source
Resolution	Ring’s stored image	whatever the stream is delivering

If a Ring-MQTT snapshot camera is in interval mode, its on-demand refresh may never land and Ask Home Assistant will time out after fifteen seconds. Either switch that camera’s snapshot mode to one including on-demand or Ding, set Take snapshot from to the live view camera, or use the on-screen capture.

How alerts are decided

A ding fires on a Ring event entity whose event_type is ring, or on a binary sensor turning on. Motion events on a doorbell event entity are ignored.
A motion event fires on a motion event entity or a binary sensor turning on.
Either raises one alert for twelve seconds: a coloured pill on the still card, a badge in the viewer, and the tap-opens-Live override.
A ding always wins. Motion never replaces an active ding alert, and a ding arriving during motion takes over immediately — a ding is nearly always preceded by motion.

Notes & limitations

camera.snapshot cannot produce a live Ring frame. It asks the integration, and both Ring paths return a stored still. On-screen capture is the only route to a current image — and it only works while you are watching Live.
On-screen capture saves to /media only. The media source upload endpoint cannot write to /config/www.
A still image cannot play Live on the card. Choosing Live or Recording for the centre tap in still-image mode opens the larger view, because there is no player on the card to run it in.
Placement is shared between the card and the fullscreen viewer. Only Outside the Parameter is card-specific.
Recording and Live stay one toggle. The mode switch is a single pill with grouped keyboard navigation; the two recordings are separate buttons within it.
Talk needs the official Ring live camera over HTTPS. This is a limitation of Ring-MQTT’s live stream, not a card setting.
Reserving an edge shifts the video. With contain the image gains margins; with cover it is cropped. On a fixed-height card in a Sections dashboard the video shrinks, so allow an extra row or use automatic height.
Some editor polish leans on Home Assistant frontend internals — the accordion, the panel spacing, and placing the help section inside the Snapshots panel. If a future release changes those elements, the settings all still work; only the arrangement degrades.
Fork, not affiliated. The original Ring View card was created by thomasgregg; Easy Ring Styler tracks its own changes from the 0.12.2 base. The card communicates through Home Assistant, never directly with Ring, and contains no telemetry.

Installation - HACS

Click the button above (or in HACS: ⋮ → Custom repositories, add https://github.com/Ltek/easy-ring-styler-card as category Dashboard).
Open the repository in HACS and click Download.
Hard-refresh the browser (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+R). HACS adds the Dashboard resource automatically.
Add the card to a dashboard: Add Card → Custom: Easy Ring Styler (or type: custom:easy-ring-styler-card).

Confirm the build you expect is running: the browser console logs Easy Ring Styler 2026.09.25.37 on load, and the same version appears at the top of the visual editor.

Minimum Starting YAML

type: custom:easy-ring-styler-card
recording_entity: camera.front_door_last_recording
live_entity: camera.front_door_live_view