Home Assistant dashboard in a (wall mounted) iPad

I want to display a HA dashboard on a wall mounted iPad.
My requirements:

  1. Activate display / ipad via a motion sensor
  2. Have the display on as long the motion sensor reports a presence
  3. Show actual (not frozen) sensor values on the display, even after a longer sleep i.e. during night
  4. Preferred don’t display the (blue) HA menu and sidebar

  1. Activating the display is realised via a push notification
    but…

  2. Further push notifications do not reset the sleep timer, which let’s the iPad display go off latest after 15 mins (display never off is not an option for me).

  3. I’m not sure what is best: Use the companion app or display the dashboard as a browser page?
    I would prefer the browser with the kiosk option, but it looks like every now and than the dashboard does not actualise sensor values anymore.

  4. That seems to be an option of the kiosk mode addon.

Someone realised a wall mounted iPad based HA dashboard display solving my ideas?

Just because they are so locked down I’d stay away from considering iPads as wall panels.

I agree about the iPad. The companion app or the browser plus the kiosk gives options of removing sidebar and headers. I use this method with the iPhones for the family, so they don’t have any option other than the dashboard. I don’t think fully kisok works on iPad because it’s locked down so much, could be wrong, so motion etc is difficult. You can lock the app down with guided access which I use for our iPad sign in entry system at work. Not seen the static sensor readings you describe, but I could have missed this as my screen is rarely on for more than 30 seconds.
On an android I use fully kiosk and get everything you describe, I know this probably does not help if you have an old iPad and not an android.

Tried with a very old tab (running Android 6). but with that, I get custom element doesn't exist for most custom cards. Assuming, because it’s too old. But I want to see, that everything runs as I would like it to be, before buying another tablet…

I’m using an iPad Air 2 as a wall panel with the iPad companion app.
Works like a charm.

My setup for automatic sceeen saver and wake up is:

  1. Use guided access to automatic make the screen blank.
  2. A motion sensor in the same room push a notification to the device that makes it wake up when someone is in that room.

2 Likes

Might you explain a bit more, pls.

Yor iPad air’s display is on as long someone is in the room or does it blank after a (short) period of time?

Sure.
On my iPad I set the screen to go blank after 2minutes.

Then I enabled guided access on the iPad, this is a way to be able to hide the notifications to the iPad.

To wake that sceeen up I simply send a notification to the iPad via home assistant when the motion sensor in the same room detects motion.

After 2min the screen automatically go blank again.

The last 3years since the iPad was installed I had it with the screen always on, but at last I found out a solution to blank it.

Another good thing about this is that it doesn’t consume traffic on my WiFi (I have cameras displaying live views).

2 Likes

Thanks for insides.

What I was looking for is something in between.

I don’t want to have the dosplay always on but also not to blank after a short period if still someone is in the room which is detected by the motion sensor an pushed to the iPad.

1 Like

Did you ever figure out a solution here? I’m in the same boat!

Did anyone find a suitable solution ?