The short version
- Design for the least interested person in the house, not for yourself.
- One screen per context: a phone view, a wall view, and an admin view nobody else sees.
- Show state, not just controls. Knowing the door is locked is worth more than being able to lock it.
- A floorplan view is the one interface that needs no explanation.
Who is it for?
Most dashboards are built by the person who installed the system, for the person who installed the system. Then a partner or a parent opens it, sees ninety entities in a wall of toggles, and never opens it again.
Build three dashboards instead of one.
Big, obvious, five or six things. Lights for the room you are in, aircon, curtains, the scenes, and the state of the doors. Nothing that needs explaining.
A tablet in the hallway or the kitchen, always on. Glanceable from across the room, no scrolling, no login.
Everything, including diagnostics, battery levels and the entities nobody else should touch. This is yours.
The phone view
A phone is used one-handed, in a hurry, usually to do one thing. Design accordingly.
- The most-used controls at the bottom, where a thumb reaches.
- Room by room, in the order of a walk through the house, not alphabetically.
- Scenes above individual devices. People pick "evening", not "living room downlights at 38 percent".
- State at the top: is anyone home, are the doors locked, is anything still on.
- Nothing that requires two taps to reach if it is used daily.
The wall tablet
A wall tablet is a different product. It is read from two metres away, by anyone, often in passing.
- Large type, high contrast, no dense text.
- A single screen. If it scrolls, it is too busy.
- Time, weather, the house state and the four or five actions people actually take.
- It should dim at night and wake on approach - a motion sensor or the tablet's own presence detection, so it is not a glowing rectangle at 2am.
- Kiosk mode with no browser chrome, and a power supply that lets it stay plugged in permanently without cooking the battery.
The floorplan view
The dashboard that needs no instructions. A plan of the home with the rooms lit as they actually are, the doors shown as open or closed, and the devices where they physically are. Tap a room, control the room.
It works because it maps to the thing people already have in their heads. Children use it immediately. Visitors use it without asking. It is more work to build than a list of toggles and it is consistently the view that gets used.
Showing state, not just controls
A control-only dashboard makes you walk to the room to find out what is happening. A dashboard that shows state answers questions from the sofa.
- Is anyone home, and who.
- Is anything still on that should not be.
- Are the doors locked and the windows closed.
- What is the house using right now, and what has it used today.
- Which batteries are getting low, and which device stopped reporting.
That last one matters more than it looks. A sensor that quietly died six weeks ago is how automations start behaving strangely, and a dashboard that surfaces it is how you catch that.
Practical rules that keep it usable
"Kitchen ceiling", not "light.kitchen_dl_grp_01".
A helper's dashboard should not include the master bedroom or the cameras. Not hidden behind a toggle - not present at all.
Signal strength and update entities belong in admin.
Anything that unlocks a door or disarms security should confirm.
What people actually tap is never quite what you predicted. Move those things up and delete the rest.
And still keep the switch
The best dashboard in the world does not replace a wall switch, and it should not try to. The dashboard is for the things a switch cannot express - scenes, state, remote access, schedules. The switch is for turning the light on. A home where both work is a home everyone can use.