I’m giving a technology talk on the smart home in June at the Ausy HQ in Leuven, Belgium. As an avid HA user obviously I will center the story around it. To be honest, my dashboard kind of looks ugly and I’d love to share some of the beautiful dashboards I’ve seen posted on the forum over the years so people don’t need to associate HA with a very bland/basic looking interface.
Do you have a dashboard you are proud of or know a screencap of a beautiful one? It’d be awesome if you could share it in this thread.
I know there are a lot of beautiful, functional dashboards but I don’t have one. Instead, my home automation is based on as little interaction as possible; therefore, minimal dashboard info. I just want things to work without having to interact with HA. My family and guests feel the same way
Dashboards are nice but not necessary for a “smart home.” I am guessing that your talk will include other smart home topics too like basic automations (timed lights, presence detection, etc.), advanced automations (e.g., Bayesian), notifications (to mobile devices), reporting, trending, etc. Examples of these might be appreciated by your audience. Some of mine include:
using presence detection for arming / disarming the security system
timed lights, triggered lights, motion detection lights, etc.
event notifications - someone rings the doorbell, low batteries, unavailable entities, alarm conditions, etc.
remote monitoring and control using the companion app (remotely disable the security system for temporary access by tradesmen, etc.)
Good luck with your talk and please share it and any feedback you get.
I have the same idea as Mark: I try not to use my dashboards but rely on automations & scripts.
It’s OK to have extensive dashboards and having to keep a device close by to control your stuff which in the beginning can be nice/fun to have and show off.
In my opinion that’s not automating your home and making it smart.
You started this topic with “smart home” in the title: creating/showing off dashboards is definitely not that.
Literally not a single YouTuber I follow has done a video on using presence for any security system functionality. That would be super interesting. Surely these sensors are superior for that use case than PIR sensors, or am I missing something.
This is very common (search these forums) but usually not the same use case as PIR detection. I use presence detection (using if/when a specific mobile device is connected to my network) to detect who exactly is home. I use PIR to detect anyone.
So, I have the following for presence detection and security:
if someone is home and the alarm system is armed and it is between 7:00 and 20:00 and a door sensor is triggered, disarm the alarm.
If presence detection changes to no one home and the alarm system is not armed, send an actionable notification asking if the alarm system should be armed. Note: there is a separate check to see that the system is ready to be armed.
In the end I made it a bit more high level going with why how and what as leading questions to explain a smart home. Showed some features of HA but kept it very simple.
