Keeping dashboards up-to-date (or live)

Configuration Frontend
1

I am using Lovelace dashboards on Fire tablets placed around the house. Each tablet is running Home Assistant app and customized to run a specific dashboard, sidebar and title hidden. “Disconnect from server after five minutes” turned OFF.

The only non-Home Assistant thing I am doing is using YAKK in order to turn on the screen with motion.

What I notice is that the dashboard will not update on occasion. For instance, motion will wake the tablet, but it will show an old time. All elements on the dashboard (light statuses, door statuses, etc.) will be frozen as of that time. If I try to turn on/off a light by pressing the button, I will get an error that the task failed, then the dashboard will refresh, then I can do tasks or see statuses.

Is there any way to ensure each tablet is always current? I thought by using the Home Assistant app directly that would be better than Fully Kiosk or Wall Panel, but now I am not sure. Is there some YAML or MQTT task I can do to ensure the dashboards stay live at all times?

2

not having such issues using fully kiosk. FK is managing the screen on camera movement and all my tablets are always in sync with HA.

3

I have a number of tablets (including a fire tablet) and an old phone simply running the HA app and don’t have this issue (outside of very rare/infrequent cases).

4

Did you ever find any solution to this?

I have a similar issue. Whether it is via web from my PC, via app on my phone, or via app on some Fire tablets that are on 24/7; if the dashboard stays on for a while, eventually the entities will stop updating and not show the correct current state.

5

What I have noticed is that YAKK seems to trigger an update when I walk up to the tablet. On rare occasions, it will simply turn the screen on without a refresh. I noticed if I press a button, the app will refresh.

I typically tell quickly if it has been refreshed by looking at the time on the tablet vs. the time on the dashboard - my dashboards are designed to have the time and date in the upper left corner. If they match, it is current and if they don’t, I will touch to refresh.

I wish there were a more fool–proof way to do this, but this is working at about 80% and that is decent for my use case. I think things have improved with newer versions of the YAKK app and Home Assistant apps.

This seems like such a common use case (tablets on walls) that I hope HA will build in functionality directly to their apps that controls all of these things, including keeping a live connection.