this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2026
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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 0 points 1 month 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 0 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] limelight79@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

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.