this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2026
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Dashboard - What functions/information turned out to be helpful? (feddit.org)
submitted 2 weeks ago by jamhmgenau@feddit.org to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
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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?

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[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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 points 1 week ago

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.