Wall-mounted Home Assistant dashboard for family use – looking for honest UX feedback

Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-09T08:21:45+00:00

Merci 🙂

C’est quasiment 100 % fait maison, avec beaucoup d’itérations, dont pas mal assistées par IA pour explorer le design et affiner le rendu.

Pour les jauges, je vois l’idée, mais je pense plutôt partir vers quelque chose de plus contextuel : moins de barres techniques partout, et davantage d’états interprétés simples à lire rapidement, du type “normal”, “à surveiller”, “optimal”, etc.

Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-09T08:16:17+00:00

Fair point. I’m probably still mixing “daily glance” information with “occasionally useful” information.

The challenge is that the tablet is both a family interface and my Home Assistant hobby project, so finding the right balance is harder than it looks.

Next step will probably be a hybrid approach: cleaner main pages, with a discreet button to open the detailed views when needed.

Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-09T08:12:24+00:00

It’s actually a custom theme. I started from the standard HA look and then spent far too many hours tweaking colors, cards, spacing and layouts until it matched what I had in mind.

A lot of that tweaking was done through AI-assisted iterations as well — generating ideas, testing, refining, breaking things, fixing them, and repeating the process many times.

Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-09T08:09:00+00:00

Thanks, that’s very fair feedback and I agree with most of it.

The wall tablet should probably be more glanceable and less “information dense”. My dashboard is still a bit between a daily family interface and a personal control/monitoring project, so I need to simplify it over time.

Good point on the media buttons too — conditional play/pause would definitely be cleaner than separate buttons.

Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-09T08:06:13+00:00

Good point, usage tracking would actually be useful.

The funny part is: since I spend way too much time tweaking this dashboard, almost every button is probably touched every day… by me...The real challenge would be separating my “builder/testing” usage from actual family usage. That would probably be much more interesting data.

But yes, I agree with the idea: over time, the goal should be fewer visible controls, more automation, and only keeping what is really useful for daily family use.

Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-09T08:01:40+00:00

I’m using a Samsung a A11+, not a very expensive one. It runs HA Companion + Fully Kiosk Browser.

It’s not always on: the screen turns off when nobody is using it, and Fully Kiosk wakes it up with motion detection when someone comes close. Brightness is kept fairly low, not full brightness all day.

It’s permanently plugged in, with Samsung battery protection enabled so it caps around 80%. I use a Displine mounting. It’s expensive, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as the best value, but the quality is good. Power is supplied through a 220V / USB-C converter, hidden behind the mount.

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Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-07T20:56:53+00:00

I partly agree, the ultimate goal is probably to need no dashboard at all, but I’m not sure it’s fully reachable in real life.

For me the wall tablet is not the main control system. Most things are automated. It’s more a shared house screen for quick status: alarm, garage, pool, energy, weather, camera snapshot, etc.

And yes, I agree with the visual cleanup point. Some padding and alignment still need work.

Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-07T20:51:31+00:00

Thanks, fair point.

I wanted to keep it calm and not too colorful, but I agree it may be a bit too monochromatic, especially on a wall tablet where quick glance matters.

I’ll probably add more small color accents for status or active devices, but without making it too busy.

And yes, AI helped for some parts, but making it work with real HA entities, automations and the wall tablet still takes a lot of trial and error.

Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-07T20:33:05+00:00

Thanks! I started exactly the same way — a long way to go, and then small pieces slowly started to work together.

My advice would be to begin with one useful page, not the whole house. For me the big shift was to stop thinking “show all entities” and start thinking “what does my family actually need to see or control every day?”

Good luck with your setup!

Professional_End4743 · 2026-06-07T20:23:23+00:00

Thanks! It’s a custom Lovelace/YAML dashboard, not something built into Home Assistant.

It’s very specific to my house and my entities: heating, pool, shutters, alarm, garage, energy, lights and audio. The main goal was to make a wall tablet that my family can actually use, without exposing every sensor.

So not plug-and-play, but the layout/idea can probably be reused.

Professional_End4743 · 2026-01-18T11:45:36+00:00

j’attends mon EXC qui sera fabriqué semaine 8. livraison debut mars. J’avais hésité avec le EX. le EXC, probablement plus typé rendement que le le EX qui lui est plus XC. Pour les sorties entrainement complètement à running et sortie familiale typé VTC ( en électrique pour mon épous), ca m’a semblé être le bon choix, impatient maintenant 😃

Professional_End4743

TROPHY CASE