#home-automation

A gallery post presents a densely designed Home Assistant dashboard. In replies, the builder says it is written entirely in custom JavaScript rather than standard cards, that the network map reads data from TP-Link Deco routers, that a Flightradar integration shows planes passing near the house, and that most of the configuration was done with an open-source AI tool connected to Home Assistant. The builder adds that it is too custom to reuse and is meant as inspiration.

About 700 upvotes in a 386,000-member community. The top reply calls it the most beautiful dashboard the commenter has seen; others say the layout is too crowded for daily use, with each card a different design to learn, and one argues that a good smart home should need so little intervention that it barely needs a dashboard at all.

A London commuter shares a framed e-ink display that, at 5:20 every morning, shows whether their train is on time, the Jubilee line's service status and the day's weather, styled to look like a vintage newspaper or flyer. They write that they built it on Home Assistant with a Seeed E1004 frame and used Claude to get a working prototype, then made themes based on a Victorian newspaper, a 1950s magazine cover and Star Wars; AI tools refused to help with the Star Wars theme over copyrighted material, so they designed that one by hand. In replies, the builder says the frame wakes once a day, downloads one image and goes back to deep sleep, so a charge should last six months or more, and that a script converts each image to the screen's six ink colours.

About 1,300 upvotes in a 386,000-member community. Many replies ask for the code (the builder says they will try to post it); some call the look generic AI style, which the builder rejects at length, and several say the frame's price put them off.

The post is an image, titled "Who's excited?", about the size of the upcoming Home Assistant 2026.11 release. German Home Assistant blog simon42 reports the 2026.11 beta is out with the final release planned for November 4, and that it reads like three releases at once, with HACS (the community add-on store) becoming a built-in marketplace and support for Matter cameras.

The top reply, from user frenck_nl, who says the screenshotted post is his, explains that the release is big because of a large number of contributions, that bringing HACS in was only a few pull requests, and that AI shows up in many submissions. He writes that the team has added static checks and tuned automated Copilot reviews, that his analysis of 10,000 reviews found about 40% of review comments were repeats worth automating, and that human judgment still decides. Other commenters say they'll wait for a later point release, or doubt that a large count of merged changes is good news in the AI era. About 2,600 upvotes in a 386,000-member community.

A photo gallery post shows a smart-home control panel assembled from vintage hardware. The builder writes that everything in it works and runs on Home Assistant, including a voice assistant, but that they wanted to draw attention to the physical side: every part they could buy is an original from the 1960s and 70s, some of it iconic to people who remember communist-era Poland, and whatever they couldn't find they built themselves. They describe the panel as one piece of a bigger retro project.

It was the top thread of our sweep relative to community size: about 5,000 upvotes in a 386,000-member community. The replies are almost entirely admiration ("completely over the top," one top comment says, approvingly); one praises it as a break from AI-generated projects, and many ask for a detailed video, which the builder says they will make.

A video post shows a robot vacuum parked inside a kitchen island behind a flap door. The builder writes that the door opens according to the cleaning schedule and closes when cleaning is done, using a 12V linear actuator, an LED strip that shows the actuator and robot status, and an ESP32-C3 microcontroller managed in Home Assistant.

The most-upvoted reply jokes about meeting the door with an ankle at 3 a.m.; others warn that it closes fast enough to worry about children, toes and pets. The builder replies that an infrared sensor reopens the door if anything is in its path, that it sends a notification if the flap stays open too long, and that an emergency stop can cut power to the actuator. Others asked for a write-up. About 2,500 upvotes in a 386,000-member community.

A new Home Assistant user posted 14 screenshots of a phone dashboard made in their first week, with an illustrated house, a floor plan that lights up occupied rooms, and panels for devices including a car and an oven. In replies, the poster says Claude designed the dashboard through the regular browser chat (no direct connection to their system), that they wired up the devices themselves, kept passwords and other secrets out of the chat, and stayed within a $20-a-month plan.

The thread splits. Some argue it shows why AI is here to stay, letting a beginner reach in a week what took others years; one of the top replies is surprised there isn't more anti-AI pushback. Others say the design looks good but makes odd choices on closer inspection, and prefer building it themselves with AI only as a helper. About 1,800 upvotes and 500 comments in a 386,000-member community.

A user published part two of the documentation for "Origami," a phone-first Home Assistant dashboard built mostly by hand over years from two community cards, Bubble Card and paper-buttons-row, and designed so others in the household can use it. Commenters praised it as a "real" dashboard instead of AI-generated web pages.

A user ran BirdNET-Go, a port of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's bird-call model, as a Home Assistant app on a Raspberry Pi 4, feeding it the audio from existing security cameras' RTSP streams so no audio leaves the house, then displayed each day's birds on e-ink frames styled as specimen sheets. The top reply pointed to an earlier open-source project the poster should credit; others shared their own versions.