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c/homeassistant · by jamhmgenau@feddit.org · 149d

Dashboard - What functions/information turned out to be helpful?

So I’ve seen all kinds of dashboards depicting all sorts of informations and functions to control ones home and I was wondering, what things you have depicted on yours which turned out to be really useful esp. for other family members. I would like to keep mine as small and simple as possible. So far I have planned to show the following:

Helpful esp. before leaving the house:

  • turn off all lights
  • activate alarm within n minutes
  • current and upcoming rain and outside temperature conditions
  • List of open windows and doors

Helpful during the day

  • Current and set temperature inside
  • Autonomy of car
  • Remaining time of washing machine
  • State of dishwasher (ready, running, done)
  • State of mailbox (empty, full)

What’s on yours you and others in your household interact often with? Which have you removed?

16 points · 8 comments · view on lemmy.world

8 Comments

BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 149d (2 replies)

Our dashboard is primarily informational in nature, located in the kitchen, and meant to help the kids figure out what is going on. It's just a standard 32" TV, with no touch input or anything.

  • For each child, we have upcoming calendar items (sports, special school days, appointments, etc.)
  • We have chore assignments listed for the day.
  • The Clock is used in the morning to let them know when they need to be ready for school (it doesn't just show the current time, it also has a countdown, and colour coding based on remaining time)
  • Weather forecast, although minor, is also there. My kids don't seem to do anything differently regardless of the weather.
  • We also display which computers are active in the house, so that they are aware we know when they sneak onto Media when it's not media time. I wish I could figure out how to include Nintendo Switch devices in this, but I don't think it's going to be possible.

Inputs in the future: Technically you can use the remote control to interact with the dashboard, but we don't really want the kids doing that because it could also be used to switch away from the dashboard. I'm still considering alternative inputs (Voice, Touchpad, etc.) but we really need a way to differentiate between the children if we're going to do this and I haven't found a good option for that yet.

buedi@feddit.org · 3 pts · 149d (1 reply)

Just a thought about the Switch. Maybe you could plug it into a Powersocket that is monitored in HA, like a NOUS A1-T? If power draw goes up, the Switch is on. This could easily be "hacked" by the kids by plugging the switch into another Powersocket. But if the Switch has a reliable Standby power draw, that could be monitored too. If that is zero, the someone is cheating :-)

Monitoring the Switch when not docked, could maybe done via WiFi? Check if the MAC (or the IP if fixed via DHCP) is online or not. Of course this also helps if the Switch is always Online when used. I do not have one, so I do not know.

BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 148d

That's actually not a bad idea with the charging. I don't currently have a smart socket like that but it's definitely something I could pick up and test. They should be returning it to charge after use anyways, so we can set that as a rule so that it's always properly charged.

I wonder if I could tell the difference in power use between plugged in to charge, plugged in and playing, and plugged in charging AND playing. Maybe just the first two. Needs testing.

I did a quick search to see if there are any smart USB chargers that also report the Device Information rather than just on/off status, and couldn't find anything. That would be useful since it is part of the USB standard to be able to collect that information when a device is plugged in.

Chaser@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 149d

Tbh I don't have that many fancy stuff on my dashboards. Most things are fancy automations 😜 But I have an old Tablet in the kitchen with these things on it:

  • The usual stuff like lights, etc.
  • Some countdowns only visible if a timer is active. My old Google Home speakers have a undocumented api, that I use to get the timers.
  • A grocery list, linked to bring. So I don't have to get my phone to add something. Handier as expected.
  • A trash calendar
limelight79@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 148d (1 reply)

For the Echo Show 8 converted to Android and running HA that sits on the counter,

  • Controls for scenes and lights. In general the only one we regularly use is "bedtime" because that varies each day. The other scenes are automatic, but I still have the scene controls because sometimes things get changed.
  • Upcoming games and scores for our sports teams. Games appear up to 48 hours in advance and remain no more than 15 hours after game start (it's supposed to be 12 hours after the end, but the end is harder to calculate from the data, so I do this instead).
  • Weather radar.
  • Badges with info like outside temperature, average temperature of each floor, and garage temperature.
  • The planned meal for today and tomorrow - tomorrow is in case I need to get something out of the freezer. Today's dinner disappears after 8pm.

If you scroll down you can see a weather forecast, but we rarely use that. The radar is nice even though it takes a good bit of space on screen. I might shrink it to see how that works.

There are also two other menus available. One lets me reset various counters (for example after I've cleaned the pet fountain every 30 days), and the other gives access to thermostats. Both of those are rarely used.

jamhmgenau@feddit.org · 1 pts · 148d

Thanks for your respond. I like the idea of food planning :)

AA5B@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 101d

Great question, and there’s sone good ideas here …

I don’t yet do a dashboard but have one of the Trmnl e-ink screens on order:

  • I have turn off all lights as a voice command
  • my thermostat displays today’s weather
  • I’m hoping to display a family calendar- we use an iCloud family calendar in all of our phones and this device has at least one plugin that can do this. My biggest question is whether it can do multiple calendars
  • or I might do an HA Dashboard - perhaps air quality trends, or temperature/humidity trends

I’d also like to have one or two doorbell displays, but obvious not an e-ink screen

Dave@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 148d

Honestly? It's mostly fun stuff (for people that like data).

But it's also mostly links. A link to the shopping list (a to do list in HA). I link to the climate control dashboard. A link to the solar info, a link to the security camera dashboard.

The key actions I have on the dashboard are to lock/unlock the door, and to mute/unmute the HA Voice Preview (when the kids are messing around but they are supposed to be doing something).

I also have a bunch that are hidden by default but have visibility conditions. When the garage door is open, it shows on the dashboard, but if it's shut it doesn't show at all. For devices that provide their own battery level, I have them show when they are nearly flat but otherwise they don't show at all.

Otherwise it's just info, the current and daily total solar generation, the temperature and humidity outside, the temp of the hot water heater. Buttons to dashboards that show other things.