Need clarification about HaDashboard on debian 9 and appdaemon and custom widgets / apps

Configuration
1

Hello,

I recently completed a hot water (hw) solar system at our home. I wanted to monitor the hw solar so I got a NodeMCU and some DS18B20 one-wire sensors and programmed the NodeMCU to send the data to a MQTT Mosquitto server installed on my Debian 7 LAMP server.

I then built a Debian 9 Stretch server and installed HA and appdaemon 3. I set up a MySQL server on the box and had HA use it as the recorder data source.

Now I have these things working very well and stable. So far a total of 5 sensors, and they show up in HA and are updating the sensor temps properly and storing the history. We also have a PV solar system with a SMA inverter. I plan on adding the PV solar monitoring after I have completed the current hot water solar monitoring project and I have a better understanding of what I need to do…

Now I am stuck understanding the appdaemon HaDashboard. I have successfully run the “Hello” app at my server port 5050 so I know at least that part works.

I would like to add some nice dashboard gauges to HaDashboard so using the instructions at DASHBOARD_CREATION for appdaemon 3 I created a dashboard.

I set up the dashboard using the basegauge widget example that came with appdaemon. Everything loaded on startup of appdaemon with no errors. I opened it in HaDashboard and what shows up is overlapping ovals representing the gauges for the sensors. Light gray ovals on a dark gray background, nothing else. The mouse cursor changes when hovering on the ovals.

I looked at some of the add-ons available such as …
ReneTode/My-AppDaemon at github

I also looked at canvas-gauges…


and…

I was really interested in using those but did not install them…

Here’s where I am confused. I do not understand the relationship and dependencies on Debian between Home Assistant, Appdaemon, HASS.IO, canvas-gauges and other custom widgets / apps. And what apps / dashboards I can run with the standard HA on Debian with Appdaemon (using the examples provided with appdaemon, canvas-gauges- without having to install the HASS.IO VM?

One thing I do not want to do is install packages that I do not need or that will not work on my system, so that is why I am here asking for help.

It would be great to have an answer that ties all of this together- Just want to get some custom gauges working for the Dash.

Thanks, jb

2

Here is my Dashboard:

title: Test Panel
widget_dimensions: [120, 120]
widget_margins: [5, 5]
columns: 7

Storage_Tank:
widget_type: baseradial
entity: sensor.NodeMCU_1_temperature_1
settings:
title: Storage Tank Temperature
minValue: 0
maxValue: 260
units: “°F”
majorTicks: [0,20,40,60,80,100,120,140,160,180,200,220,240,260]
highlights: [{‘from’: 0, ‘to’: 140, ‘color’: ‘rgba(0,0, 255, .3)’},{‘from’: 145, ‘to’: 260, ‘color’: ‘rgba(255, 0, 0, .3)’}]

HW_Circ:
widget_type: baseradial
entity: sensor.NodeMCU1_temp_2
settings:
title: Hot Water Out
minValue: 0
maxValue: 200
use_hass_icon: 1
units: “°F”
majorTicks: [0,20,40,60,80,100,120,140,160,180,200]
highlights: [{‘from’: 0, ‘to’: 32, ‘color’: ‘rgba(0,0, 255, .3)’},{‘from’: 35, ‘to’: 200, ‘color’: ‘rgba(255, 0, 0, .3)’}]

HW_HE:
widget_type: baseradial
entity: sensor.NodeMCU1_temp_3
settings:
title: Hot Water Heat Exchanger
minValue: 0
maxValue: 240
units: “°F”
majorTicks: [0,20,40,60,80,100,120,140,160,180,200,220,240]
highlights: [{‘from’: 0, ‘to’: 32, ‘color’: ‘rgba(0,0, 255, .3)’},{‘from’: 35, ‘to’: 240, ‘color’: ‘rgba(255, 0, 0, .3)’}]

Boiler_Return:
widget_type: baseradial
entity: sensor.NodeMCU1_temp_4
settings:
title: Boiler Out
minValue: 0
maxValue: 200
units: “°F”
majorTicks: [0,20,40,60,80,100,120,140,160,180,200]
highlights: [{‘from’: 0, ‘to’: 32, ‘color’: ‘rgba(0,0, 255, .3)’},{‘from’: 35, ‘to’: 200, ‘color’: ‘rgba(255, 0, 0, .3)’}]

Boiler_HE:
widget_type: baseradial
entity: sensor.NodeMCU1_temp_5
settings:
title: Boiler Heat Exchanger
minValue: 0
maxValue: 200
units: “°F”
majorTicks: [0,20,40,60,80,100,120,140,160,180,200]
highlights: [{‘from’: 0, ‘to’: 32, ‘color’: ‘rgba(0,0, 255, .3)’},{‘from’: 35, ‘to’: 200, ‘color’: ‘rgba(255, 0, 0, .3)’}]

Collector:
widget_type: baseradial
entity: sensor.NodeMCU1_temp_6
settings:
title: Solar Collector
minValue: 0
maxValue: 200
units: “°F”
majorTicks: [0,20,40,60,80,100,120,140,160,180,200]
highlights: [{‘from’: 0, ‘to’: 32, ‘color’: ‘rgba(0,0, 255, .3)’},{‘from’: 35, ‘to’: 200, ‘color’: ‘rgba(255, 0, 0, .3)’}]

layout:
- Storage_Tank, HW_Circ, Boiler_Return
- Collector, HW_HE, Boiler_HE