01
Wall tablet
Fast shared control for the room or floor
Use large targets, current status and the small set of actions people reach for while passing. Avoid deep navigation and controls that require administrator rights.
How Should a Home Assistant Dashboard
Be Organised?
A dashboard is not an inventory report. It should show the few things a person needs now, in the room or situation where they need them.
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Design for the person holding the screen
The short answer, before the detail
Create a simple home view for everyday status and common actions, then separate room controls, energy detail, security and maintenance into focused views. A wall tablet needs larger, faster controls than an administrator’s phone. Use clear household names, show exceptions that need attention and keep technical entities out of the daily route unless they help someone act.
- Give the first screen one clear purpose.
- Show rooms and outcomes, not raw entity IDs.
- Reserve detailed graphs and diagnostics for secondary views.
- Test the layout with a non-admin household user.
Start with the property, not the product
Four screens that need different priorities
The same Home Assistant installation can support several dashboards. Repeating one crowded administrator view everywhere is not a design system.
Swipe through the four questions
02
Phone
Useful status and action while moving
Prioritise favourites, alerts, rooms and remote tasks. Detailed tuning can sit behind a secondary view rather than dominating the first screen.
03
Guest or family
Familiar words without technical clutter
The view should make sense without explaining integration names, helper entities or device classes. Restrict access where a control could change important system behavior.
04
Administrator
Maintenance, batteries and diagnostic detail
Updates, unavailable devices, battery state and history belong in a deliberate maintenance view where they can be investigated without confusing everyday use.
A practical decision guide
Organise around action, room and exception
A useful hierarchy lets someone answer “what needs attention?” before presenting every control the system knows about.
Home view
Show whole-home state and common actions
Useful examples include lights left on, current climate, open doors, an alarm state and one clear whole-house off control.
Room view
Group the controls used together
Lighting, climate, blinds and media for one space can share a view when their names and actions match the room rather than the underlying device.
Exception view
Bring faults and maintenance forward
Unavailable devices, failed backups, low batteries or an active leak state matter more than fifty normal sensors reporting that nothing happened.
Detail view
Keep graphs and tuning available but secondary
Energy history, climate trends and automation diagnostics are valuable when investigating or improving the system, not on every daily screen.
What professional work looks like
Start with tasks, then choose the cards
Home Assistant supports different dashboards, views and cards. The useful work is deciding which combination serves each person and screen.
- 01
List the top daily actions
Ask what people check, change and forget most often before opening the dashboard editor.
- 02
Assign devices to clear rooms
Use human names and consistent areas so the system can group related controls sensibly.
- 03
Separate shared and administrator views
Keep powerful maintenance or configuration actions away from the everyday household route.
- 04
Choose cards for the action
Use buttons, tiles, climate cards, area summaries, history and conditional cards only where each one earns the space.
- 05
Test on the real screen
Check touch targets, text length, glare, orientation and the number of taps on the wall tablet and phone that will be used.
- 06
Review after normal use
Remove controls nobody uses, promote repeated actions and keep exceptional states visible.
Experience made visible
A dashboard built from a live multi-brand home
Rudi’s installation brings lighting, room climate, energy, cameras, doors and household scenes into focused wall-display and mobile views. The important work was deciding what not to put on the first screen.
- Shared screens use household language.
- Room controls are grouped by real use.
- Administrator detail stays available separately.
- Current status and exceptions remain easy to find.
Sources and scope
This guide explains the practical issues customers ask about. Regulations and official guidance can change, and the correct solution still depends on the property. The following primary sources were checked when this page was prepared:
Smart Home Installation Questions
Straight answers to the questions customers ask before arranging a survey or inspection.
Should I use one Home Assistant dashboard for everyone?
Not necessarily. A shared wall tablet, a family phone and an administrator can have different needs and permissions. Focused dashboards or views can make the same system easier and safer to use.
What should be on the Home Assistant home screen?
Show the status and actions used most often: important room states, current climate, open access points, meaningful alerts and one or two whole-home actions. Everything else can remain accessible in secondary views.
Should every device appear on the dashboard?
No. Many entities support automations, history or diagnostics and do not need a daily control. Displaying everything makes the important state harder to find.
Can different users see different dashboards?
Home Assistant supports multiple dashboards and view visibility choices. Permissions and administrator-only actions should still be planned carefully for the actual household accounts.
Is a wall tablet necessary?
No. A phone and ordinary physical controls may be enough. A wall display is useful where shared at-a-glance information or room control justifies a permanent screen.
How often should a dashboard be redesigned?
Review it after genuine use and when the household routine changes. Small removals and clearer grouping are usually more valuable than frequent visual rebuilds.