How to Set Up a Wall Tablet Dashboard (A Cheap Tablet in Kiosk Mode Showing Home Assistant, Cameras and the Calendar)
Everything the server does is behind a browser tab somewhere. A tablet on the kitchen wall puts the useful parts where the household lives: lights and heating controls, who's booked what on the calendar (150), the front-door camera (91), bins and weather, the music playing (154), the printer's progress (195) — and when nobody's touching it, a slideshow from Immich (46). An old iPad, a £50 Fire tablet or a cheap Android, a USB cable to a wall charger, and Fully Kiosk Browser.
Quick reference
| Piece | What |
|---|---|
| Tablet | Amazon Fire 10 (cheapest), any Android 9+, an old iPad (Safari "guided access" or Kiosk Pro) |
| Browser | Fully Kiosk Browser (Android) — locks to one URL, motion wake, screensaver, REST API |
| Dashboard | a dedicated HA dashboard in Panel/Sections view, sized for the tablet, no sidebar |
| Login | a dedicated HA user "wall-tablet", non-admin, trusted-network or long-lived token |
| Idle | Fully's screensaver → an Immich/Nextcloud slideshow URL, or HA's own photo card |
| Mount | a flush mount or a cheap 3D-printed bracket (195), hidden cable |
1. The tablet
Fire tablets are the value pick (sideload Fully from its APK; disable Amazon's lock screen ads with the setting or a one-off fee). Any Android with a decent screen works. Set Developer options → Stay awake while charging, brightness auto, and turn off the lock screen. Reserve its IP (8) and put it on the IoT VLAN (143) — it only needs to reach the server.
2. A dashboard built for the wall
In Home Assistant: Settings → Dashboards → Add dashboard → New from scratch, name "Wall", hide from sidebar for other users if you like. Edit it; set the view type to Sections (or Panel for one big card) and keep it to what's used standing up:
- Top row: time and date, weather (the Met Office or Open-Meteo integration), today's calendar events (the Radicale calendar, 150, via HA's CalDAV integration), bin day (a calendar sensor).
- Controls: tile cards for the main lights per room, the heating setpoint, "Leaving" and "Night" scripts, the music (Snapcast media player, 154) with volume.
- Cameras: a picture-glance card for the front door from Frigate (91); tap to fullscreen.
- Status: printer progress (195), who's home, the server's health from Uptime Kuma (35) via its API sensor, laundry done (a plug's power sensor).
Big tap targets, dark theme, no admin stuff. Test on the tablet in a normal browser first.
3. A user for the tablet
Settings → People → Users → Add: wall-tablet, not admin, can only log in from the LAN (Local access only). Log in on the tablet once with it. For no login prompt at all, the trusted_networks auth provider in configuration.yaml with the tablet's IP mapped to that user:
homeassistant:
auth_providers:
- type: trusted_networks
trusted_networks: [192.168.20.40/32]
trusted_users:
192.168.20.40: USER_ID_OF_wall-tablet
allow_bypass_login: true
- type: homeassistant
4. Fully Kiosk Browser
Install Fully (the one-off licence is worth it for the extras). Settings:
- Start URL: http://192.168.1.50:8123/wall/home?kiosk — the dashboard's URL. The Kiosk Mode HACS integration hides HA's header and sidebar via ?kiosk.
- Kiosk mode: on, with a PIN; Lock to app; disable the status bar and home button.
- Device management: Keep screen on, Screen brightness schedule (dim at night), Motion detection (uses the front camera) → Turn screen on on motion, off after 2 minutes idle.
- Screensaver: after 5 minutes → Screensaver URL = a slideshow (next section); tap to return.
- Remote admin: on, with the REST API — HA's Fully Kiosk integration then controls the tablet: brightness, screen on/off from automations ("screen off when everyone's out"), the battery sensor, and the tablet's own motion sensor as a presence sensor for the hallway.
5. The photo frame when idle
Three options for the screensaver URL:
- Immich (46): a shared album's public link opens as a slideshow; or the immich-frame / ImmichFrame project, a small container that shows random photos from selected albums with weather and clock overlays — made for this.
- Nextcloud (32): a shared folder's gallery in slideshow mode.
- HA itself: a second dashboard with a picture card fed by a camera-style entity that rotates images from a folder.
Fully switches to it on idle and back to the dashboard on touch or motion. The frame is the thing guests comment on.
6. Mount it
A flush wall mount with the charger behind the plasterboard (a 5 V USB wall-plate from a spark, or a recessed socket), or a magnetic bracket by the kitchen door with the cable run down the trunking. Height: eye level standing. Fire tablets' batteries don't love 100 % forever — Fully can stop charging at 80 % via an automation and a smart plug (123) if you care.
Troubleshooting
HA shows "Unable to connect" on the tablet. The tablet's VLAN can't reach 8123 (143 rules), or you used localhost.
Login keeps appearing. trusted_networks IP doesn't match (reserve it), or the user ID is wrong.
Screen never sleeps / never wakes. Fully's motion detection needs the front camera permission; "Keep screen on" versus the screensaver timeout settings conflict.
Dashboard looks wrong. Set the view for the tablet's resolution; Sections view adapts; test in Chrome's device mode at the tablet's size.
Wrapping up
A cheap tablet, Fully Kiosk locked to a touch-sized Home Assistant dashboard, a non-admin user that logs in by network, motion wake, and Immich as the screensaver. The server's best features end up on the kitchen wall where the household actually uses them — and it doubles as the photo frame you'd otherwise have bought.
