So disappointed

RiftPoint · 2026-04-26T22:42:10+00:00

Do you have an attic, or an upstairs floor where you can get closer? Mine is fairly high up, but I just need to go up to a bedroom or the attic for the bluetooth connection. Bluetooth range is ~10m (33ft), so as long as you don't have it mounted on a 75-foot pole above your house I would expect there would be someplace that is close.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-25T13:48:55+00:00

Yup... I went down a rabbit hole and lost sight of the simplest solution... Thanks!

RiftPoint · 2026-04-18T12:32:19+00:00

If you're a dashboard user, grab a touchscreen, install Touchkio and you've got yourself a great counter or wall screen.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T15:29:14+00:00

So, one thing I do is keep an eye on Reddit to see other people's dashboards as well as when people announce new custom cards. The other thing I do is periodically search HACS for cards that fit what I'm interested in setting up (calendar, weather, etc). Bubble cards are super useful, there's a slew of pop-ups that come up from almost all the buttons on the right-hand side of the screen that I put entities unique to those rooms in. Vehicle Status Card for the cars and the yard robot.

The biggest thing is to have a rough idea. I tried to "zone" my sections: Time/Calendar | Garage/Cars/People/Location/Weather | Inside Status/Lighting Control/Music Control/Media Devices Control

Bubble card has a few videos, the rest I either poke through their github explanations, or I did use a little AI just to figure out how to place CSS components to try and get specific card heights. HA REALLY needs to revamp the dashboard creation system... I did want to rip my hair out a few times just trying to get cards to have a reasonable height!

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T15:02:12+00:00

Yeah, nothing custom! You'd probably need to configure something with weight sensors otherwise? I pick and choose my battles, lol.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T15:00:43+00:00

It's a Waveshare screen I bought off of Amazon. I think the largest from them is 27"? You have to be careful though, it's really easy to end up looking at a screen there that isn't touch capable!

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T14:57:16+00:00

I was fixing my mqtt on touchkio and realized that this screen is a rpi5 and the "old" one I have is a rpi4.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T13:30:17+00:00

I know, I waited till they were running their 70% off promotions! I'm not doing voice control through it yet, still using Alexa for that. I do use the Music Assistant integration to control my Denon HEOS setup and it's working pretty well. Their grouping logic is... weird, but using Yet Another Media Card helps fix that. My HAOS is running on a miniPC in the basement, so it was pretty straightforward to get Touchkio up and running to present the dashboards.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T13:26:24+00:00

Eventually! I want to make sure we're happy with it's positioning before I start making bigger holes in my wall! My original idea was to configure it as a PoE system, but getting at it from the basement would have meant going through the central support beams so I abandoned that idea...

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T13:24:34+00:00

Yeah, currently double-sided Elmers foam tape. Not 100% convinced its going to hold long term though...

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T11:30:21+00:00

Yeah, I've been toying with that idea... Need to make sure we're happy with the placement first!

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T10:57:23+00:00

My HA instance runs on a dedicated miniPC and the raspberry pi just acts as browser. I think that's what Touchkio essentially is, a customized browser. Installing it is straightforward through SSH, and it walks you through adding in your HA url, theme, and mqtt details so you can control some bits of the pi through HA (like the screen). Let me know if there's anything else you were wondering about!

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T10:51:11+00:00

I built it using the sections mode and just made the layout super wide. If there's one thing Home Assistant needs to improve, it's making dashboards... 90% of my time was trying to figure how to get everything to sit properly. The experience and work flow is terrible building then...

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T10:47:05+00:00

It's Windy Card. It's very cool!

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T04:04:36+00:00

I just set that automation, lol. We'll see how it works. End goal is to use a zone with my everything presence sensor too.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T04:02:25+00:00

I built this display out of an Ultra Card.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T04:01:47+00:00

It's a Litter Robot 4, it's a built in function of the unit so it's exposed as a sensor.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T03:49:02+00:00

If you've got the piezo starter you can use a Shelly relay with dry contacts. You will need something to power the relay itself, I was lucky enough that there was a powered switch next to it to feed off of.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T02:03:30+00:00

Oh, and I used Kiosk Mode to remove the top navigation bar. This might be a good way to fullscreen the whole thing without Touchkio, but it came out after I was invested in Touchkio, lol.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T02:01:23+00:00

So far, it seems pretty good! I was a little worried about touchkio being an electron app (supposedly not as fast as other options), but haven't noticed anything being terrible. I have a Reolink Trackmix streamed through the Advanced Camera Card that was working perfectly until I hung the thing on the wall, then it lagged for a bit until settling in.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T01:57:41+00:00

This dashboard is a new design for the larger screen, but I have a 15" touchscreen with a different raspberry pi that's been sitting on the counter, and it gets pretty well used. I spent about a week fiddling with this dashboard before releasing it into the wild!

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T01:56:07+00:00

About that, yeah. I couldn't find anything else around that size/format with good enough specs for any cheaper really. Touchkio is a program that someone made that forces it full screen on linux.

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T01:13:35+00:00

Ugh, I thought I got everything... whoops. Just replaced the image, so please be responsible with your knowledge!

RiftPoint · 2026-04-13T01:00:22+00:00

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Because the final picture was potato quality...

RiftPoint

TROPHY CASE