Future prototype of Home Assistant

[kongo09]

This looks nice for a fresh default dashboard used by beginners who don’t want to customize things.

It wouldn’t help me at all, as it is far from the usability I currently expect and implemented for my family. Room as an ordering element to me only make sense for few entities. The device centric approach breaks with logical switches that separate the controlling device from what is controlled (I have a dozen Shellys in my breaker box). Some things are just not room centered like my vacuum or the mobile devices of the family. Some stuff is outside like the next bus going from the bus stop.

The tab bar and header waste a lot of screen real estate. And voice in the mobile app to me does not make any sense. The whole point of voice is to not touch a device.

If the goal is to get more mainstream users into HA, there are bigger levers. It starts with a proper consumer device, eliminating all yaml needs, making scripting and automations much easier to setup and organise, getting much more stuff from HACS into the project, etc…

Speaking of a proper consumer device: why not put the server on an old mobile handset? That’s something everyone has at home. And if there is no yaml need anymore, that should be fine?

[Radu (Radu Ursache)]

the new UI looks awesome, can’t wait to use it. the current one is ugly, old and very annoying to use.

i think this is the most important thing to do right now, before voice assistants and other optional stuff

[florian.ec (Florian)]

to be honest, im happy with that trend. I would describe me as a technical experienced user but i didn’t study any programming language. So a visual editor is, in most cases, faster for me.

But i also love to write some yaml, templates or tweak the css and see that card come to life as i wish,
even that is not to complicated.

This is, for me, the advantage of Home Assistant and why i prefer it over other solutions.

[antonio1475 (Antonio)]

I think it’s great. Looks exactly like Homekit app on iOS 16, and Google Home is following suit… and that’s okay. There is a reason they made it like that, and that doesn’t mean that everyone will love it.

But it allows anyone, especially new users, to see everything on their home in a nice way.

Does it have a lot of scrolling for me? Yes, I have non-scrollable screens with Minimalist UI and Room Cards to see everything in one glance, it’s crucial for me. But I spent a lot of time deciding what made it in there, and where. Not everyone wants that.

I agree with the fact that there needs to be some kind of filtering out to hide devices/entities that aren’t wanted in the home screen. Just like iOS 16 Home app.

Will it be awesome for many and cut the barrier of entry to lovelace? I believe so. Advanced users, I assume, will keep the ability to modify / create own own dashboards as we do today. I see that in the Figma (Custom Dashboard) and I don’t really understand the comments that are afraid of losing that?

One thing I noticed: some security devices (locks, doors) are toggled directly by tapping the icon. Careful with that: security devices should take more than a potential accidental tap to open (i.e. for those device_type, any tap should open the popup that requires a swipe to toggle/open, so that accidental openings are mitigated).

[KennethLavrsen]

Spot on.
I cannot stand the Apple Home Kit or the Google Home design. Everything looks the same. Nothing stands out. It works for the beginner with 4 hue light bulbs. Once you are past that point and have many things added you have to design things to the purpose and make dash boards like your excellent and beautiful example. The other way becomes a Tile Soup

[nickrout]

@KennethLavrsen

It works for the beginner with 4 hue light bulbs.

I started with that, I got better

[CChris (Christoph)]

with this preview - HomeAssistant will become REALLY replacable.
Just think what happens when MATTER will be widley adapted:

• New users can integrate their devices to their EXISTING platforms like Google, Alexa, HomeKit - or they can setup HomeAssistant, spent a lot of time - and, have just the same UI layout with the same information level and so on.

You should keep an eye on the topics the community want.
You should keep an eye on the benefits new Users would have WHEN they switch to HomeAssistant.

Don’t get me wrong:
Sure - a nice and clean UI Layout will help new users, and yes. At the moment you really need to spend a lot of time to create Eye-Appealing, Dashboards, that don’t look “overloaded”…

But the Main Focus should be the CORE functionallity.
Why not use available technologies like the ability to use custom themes and provide a clear, full documented API that the community can create to provide custom Dashboards.

Then, everyone can use the UI Layout they want… we do already have a plenty of really good UI’s available.

At least - I really hope that non of the informative functions will be sacrified to get the new ‘fancy’ UI…
State Icon Coloring - OK, that’s something that does make sense even with the current options.

Tile Cards, OK - I can live with them, even I don’t have ANY use for them yet (neither with Mushroom Cards)…

What I really use: Entities Card. Buttons, and some others.
That are the major Cards I need - and they could get a little “love” and rework here and there.

IF HA will remove stuff that’s important to me, I’ll probably swith to something else, or will create a Fork of HA that does freeze the current state.

[matthiasdebaat]

This prototype got a new default dashboard concept, the one is called overview right now. It should help you with a good out-of-the-box experience. And it should allow you to see everything in your home in a nice way. It doesn’t want to replace your own custom dashboard, a one size fits all solution can’t help everybody. This concept got a Custom dashboard menu item because of that. And a fun part of Home Assistant is that you can tweak it to your likings, I don’t want it to remove that. Are you using the current default dashboard?

[matthiasdebaat]

You made some big assumptions, that I won’t address all. What I read between the lines is that you hope Home Assistant keeps to be the same cool product as we have right now. I want that too!

Home Assistant is great because of our privacy, choice and durability focus. Big tech don’t have this. It’s a hobby for lot of us to make the best personal setup. That doesn’t mean we should stop innovating by adding smart defaults and a great out-of-the-box experience. What the main focus should be of an open source project, is up to the contributors. Feel free to share your concepts or PR’s.

[tom_l]

No I’m using one I designed.

[Mariusthvdb (Marius)]

@matthiasdebaat

And a fun part of Home Assistant is that you can tweak it to your likings, I don’t want it to remove that

This is good news. Especially since the many references to we only officially support the primary-color and accent-color properties and your own text about that in Entity state color changes

How will you merge those 2 conflicting stances?

HA Frontend team might not ‘want to remove that’ but you are making it terribly difficult for even the most savvy tweakers amongst us. Let alone the beginners with their out of the box experience.

Time and time again you state there is no need for documenting changes, or even the used variables, because they are not supported in the first place.
Same goes for breaking changes on these variables and their use: No need to inform the users, because its not supported.

(you= not personal, but ‘the HA dev team’)

[CChris (Christoph)]

What I really like about HomeAssistant - compared to other products on the “market” is its flexibility.

I’ve played around with several other software - and, they are:

1. Hard to setup
2. Have a very old / limited UI compared to what HA does provide

While they also have components for at least most of the stuff I do use - the choice was HomeAssistant, because it does provide a great flexibility for the UI - and yes, a good UI is a major topic when it comes to controll your devices, and also monitoring their status.

And I fully agree:
HA should not stop with innovative technologies - and either HA should not stop with adding cool and smart stuff.
But the major focus should be its functionallity - there are a lot of Ideas and Feature Requests, where I think: “Yes, that would really fit my needs”… And I also understand that there are a lot of people who are using third party stuff like “mushroom cards”, and those would benefit from a “UI redesign” - if HA will be able to provide the same “feeling” out of the box.

BUT - maybe I need to change the wording here a bit:
Nabu Casa should not become a company, that looses its focus.

To be honest: Without custom components and alternative integrations compared to the core integrations, HA would nearly be useless for me.
Why?
Because I do integrate as much as possible.
HA is more than a “smarthome” management.
It does manage my Energy Consumption, it does provide me Information from my Solar Production, It does provide me information from my Car… It is more a “management System” - which I cannot rebuild in products like Apple HomeKit, GoogleHome - or others.

HA does also provide a “Gateway” for Smart Home Controll - like automations, integration to Alexa for Voice controll … but that can all be done without any UI… that’s the technical aspect.

So… What I wanted to say:
The only usecase for me - for having a UI with HomeAssistant: is getting Information.
Which means - a lot of Entities that just provide information.

Examples?

EV-Charging information:

Changing the Charging type, Starting or stopping charging is something, I can manage completely without a UI… but getting all the information - does not work with a UI…

Solar Production:

My Solar Installation does not really require ANY HomeAutomation (might be different if you only have a small installation and want to switch on some power plugs when your production reaches a specific value)…

EV Car Information:

Again - most value is information, even if the Cloud does not provide all information atm (known issue, unfortunately)…

Room based:
Kitchen:

Oil Consumtion:

So, sure - my dashboards could see a bit more love … but at the moment, my focus is more on “function before design” - and I don’t even see how I could get the same informative value with the new UI approaches.

My major concern at this point:
That NabuCasa / HomeAssistant will loose Monitoring Options in the long term.
Paulus already pointed out, that - with the new design approach, Cards like the entity card or entities list won’t work - because they don’t meet the design guidelines etc.

THAT’s MY MAJOR CONCERN - for me personally.
In addition to that:
Right now, HA does provide great features compared to other competitors.
But if the focus will be the UI - it will become replaceable.
New users will probably stick to the Software they already have on their Smartphones, because with Matter, there is no need to use something like HomeAssistant anymore.
HomeAssitant was the choice when it came to “linking different plattforms together”… despite of the other benefits of being: “local first”…
That’s something, younger generations haven’t in focus as much as we might do - and it can be observed everywhere.

The last one to this sentence:
“Feel free to share your concepts or PR’s.”

While I am working in IT - HomeAssistant is still a “hobby”.
I already spend hours and probably to much time on the Forum, in submitting tickets (which then sometimes aging without any further comment) - and I always try to contribute with improvements to custom components and other stuff - where I can.
BUT: While I am not a developer, I cannot just “create PRs”… (I will - if it’s something I can provide)… Nor am I a Designer.
And I have plenty other things - as well as a regular job - where I need to spend my time on…rather than providing design concepts.

“It’s open source - wait and see what happens, or provide a PR” is something, that can be heard nearly in EVERY open Source project.
On the other hand - Open Source projects want to address newcommers… that doesn’t fit together.

I’ve provided my concerns about the design aproach - that’s already a contribution

[justone]

a future HA? hopefully it’s simply so called “headless” with the ability to use addons for visualisation.

Personally my vision of a Home Assistant would be that once set up and validated it becomes as much invisible as possible. So that others do believe in pure magic. No fancy touchdisplays, no pestering with information on my mobile and such like. Simplicity/Purity … nothing geeky/wiggeling/animated.

It should do what it’s name suggests … assist me. What lots others ask for seems to be something I’d name a Home Visualizer.

[HeyImAlex (Alex)]

But you can do that with HA right now. Nothing forces you to use a UI, outside of configuration and debugging. Once everything is set up, you don’t have to use to UI anymore if you don’t want to.

As far as I see it, there are two different (and sometimes competing) ways to approach a smart home. For some it is the way you described. Fully automated, as few user interactions as possible, no UI is fine, the house does all kind of stuff by itself like magic. For others, like me, it’s less about automation and more about monitoring and keeping situational awareness of what my home does, what happens on my property and alerting me about anomalies or anything that needs human attention. For this scenario a user interface is vital, from smart light switches to tablets and anything inbetween.

Oh and then there is the third group who likes to talk to their house like Tony Stark… But let’s not talk about those, they’re just weird

[tom_l]

Now that I have discovered how to change the tile colour depending on numeric state with card mod (see the climate card below) this is really starting to grow on me.

I still need to investigate conditional cards (or custom state switch) for some dynamically visible info and to set up the other sensor cards with state driven colour but I can see this being put into production - for my mobile dashboard at least.

Are features being considered for media players and the alarm tile?

Also select/input_select features?

[rumbu13 (Rumburak)]

Please don’t destroy HA with concepts and designs stolen from Homekit/Home apps. If you are going this way, please state an original design identity for HA.

Who wants automatic dashboards has already Dwains for that.

Who wants Homekit, has already tons of custom cards and layouts.

Who wants Google Home, has already UI minimalist and Mushroom.

What lovelace is missing is an officially supported versatile card like button-card, with templating and javascript customization. And a better layout engine than masonry which looks nice on mobile only.

Rooms are nice, but - as previous commenters said - Ilike to organize my dashboards by functionality. An overview of the heating system is better than wasting screen space with room names.

[justone]

I started like this even before I switched to HA. Influx DB, Grafana, as much information visualised until I asked myself about the difference with brokers at the stock exchange sitting in front of 6-8 displays trying to follower next to anything changing right now.

I then dropped that and now doing it the other way round. Everything which does work could do this without ever asking for my attention, since as long as it works.fine. My car doesn’t inform me each 5mins about the tire pressuredrop, and I don’t want get informed while it’s ok. In case of leakage it should signal it, since then it needs my attention.

But yes, granted 10 users, 10 differnt use cases, for sure.

As long as HA doesn’t end up similar to a previously well known software title from Redmond, which nowadays if ever gets a differnt look and user interface once each 6 months … everything fine.

And for the third group you mentioned … I recently also heard about humans mad enough talking to/with machines. Some are not above anything …

[HeyImAlex (Alex)]

It’s not about watching things 24/7 yourself, that’s what HA is for

It’s about notifying us if something is ‘wrong’ (ie. outside of a certain range or a set of parameters) so we can take action before things get worse. The freezer temperature is above a critical point, yet there is no power outage ? Notification that someone probably didn’t close the lid tight. Someone triggered the motion detection in our yard while we’re not home ? Notification with camera footage. Solar production for the panel on one of our outbuildings dropped while the illuminance sensor says it’s a sunny day ? Notification that leaves probably fell on the solar panel again and someone needs to get on the roof with a broom before the battery goes dead. One of the solar well pumps out on one of horse pastures is getting power but the flow rate is zero ? Notification that the filter is probably clogged and… you guessed it… someone needs to get out and clean it. Basically HA orders us around to do chores we’d rather forget about

Add to that things like remotely checking on things when we’re out, on vacation, at work, etc. That’s the way a smart home should be in my opinion. Alerting you of things that are out of the ordinary and giving you peace of mind when you’re not home. Not some fancy motion light thing or your TV turning on some RGB strips while you watch Netflix. But yeah, to each their own

[CaptTom (Tom)]

@justone and @HeyImAlex, I’ve got nothing to add. You both said it better than I could.

I’ll never say anything bad about someone who wants to “play” with HA in all kinds of interesting ways. But for me, the real justification is monitoring and alerting on critical systems. The rest is just for fun, or at best, a convenience.

[petro]

yeah, but that fancy motion light thing makes it so I don’t have to use my arms when traversing my house. ultimate laziness.