UX for setup with screen on device

Feature Requests
1

Hi all,

First thanks for this great software and OS.
I am new to this community, sorry if I do something wrong.

I would like to share my experience as a new user (day 2) and would like to suggest to really improves the user experience (UX) for setups when a screen is available (either by choice - RPI + LCD - or by constraint - laptop).

TLDR;

  • add an option (on the Web UI) to completely disable (turn off) the screen (of the HAOS device) to save power (the screen is already useless in its current form)
  • add a little bit of useful logging here, like: starting the OS, Web UI ready, Web UI URI (IP+port), is ssh accepting connections (on which port), etc …
  • add an option to automatically run a command (that will not be « termin-able » by CTRL+C or else) like top or something useful like the status of all services and docker containers
  • add an option to have a console (or a loop to access a few commands) on the TTY (with a password for root please)

I know HAOS has been designed with headless mode of operation in mind, but I think it can be adapted a little for setups where it is not headless (not as a main option, but to accommodate people having a screen).

I think the current lack of console is on purpose but I am not sure.

I ran HAOS on a laptop, and I have at least one use case were a console can save me: my wifi only enable when I unplug the ethernet cable from it, which prevents me to access the Web UI to configure the wifi. I know I might be able to do it by writing a NetworkManager config file to a USB stick but it is not as easy as the user experience of logging into a console, running nmcli to select the wifi and enter the password.

Also on my first boot, I didn’t plug the ethernet cable correctly, so I couldn’t reach the WEB UI, and I had no message on the screen telling me that the network is down.

Finally, for user with a screen it could be easier to access the Web UI if the URI would be displayed instead of having to scan the network to get the IP address of the device and see if the port is open (it takes a few minutes on my device).

Thanks again for the time you will take to discuss this topic.

Best regards

2

Hello hamb,
Welcome to the HA forum!

Perhaps read this over to help you with the forum’s concept of the Feature Request category. If may help get a better response.

Your feedback is important, so I encourage you to either change the catagory or to focus on 1 suggestion per feature request post.

Feature Request Guidelines 📔.

3

Hello Sir,

I have read the guidelines before posting.

You are right though, I should have split my requests into separate posts.

When I was doing that (creating new/separate topic), the suggestions poped’up and showed me threads I had not found by searching, like those ones that covers my needs (not perfectly, but enough):

I wonder why my searches didn’t came up with the same top result as the popup did when I was creating the new topic…

Anyway, thanks for your feedback.
This topic is resolved.

Cheers.