All,
I see how I can display an image on the dashboard with a tile. You just put the URL in the Imagine Link field. The question I have is, can the URL be password protected or does it accept a way to enter in credentials. I'd like to link to some images, but I also don't want those images just freely out on the Internet.
Thoughts?
AFAIK, no, images in dashboard tiles cannot be password protected. Dashboards themselves can be pin protected, though.
But, how would your dashboard (or the images) be freely out on the Internet to begin with?
The image I would link to would or has to be freely out on the Internet. Like if I wanted to have a picture of my house on the dashboard, I'd add a Image Link to a site that is hosting the image of my house. The picture of my house would be accessible to anyone who has the URL. That is what I would like to try to lock down.
You could always copy the image locally and host it on a small web server on your local network and thus not have it out on the Internet.
Further, are you giving everyone access to your dashboards? That would be the only way that someone would be able to get the source url for the image. At least the only way that I know of.
False... in general, you may specifically have that requirement, but your images COULD be stored inside your home. There's too many ways to detail, but Windows and Mac's both support native, local, websites. NAS, rPi are a bit more specialized, but also an option.
Thanks, @corerootedxb for saying it better, and typing faster 
@csteele I'm desk bound today... LOL
@sptrr99 I'd be more than happy to show you how to setup a small web server on any device you have available to you (Windows, Mac, Linux, RPi, NAS, etc). Just let me know.
I could host it locally, but I was thinking of using a photo sharing site, like Google Photos. It would be an easier way to host my pictures. My dashboard is Pin protected, but any images my dashboard links to are not protected by anything. That URL isn't published anywhere, but it is possible to stumble across it since it's not protected by some kind of authentication.
Also, I believe by default the cloud dashboards are accessible by anyone that has the URL. You can add a pin to them to prevent access.
You both are right, it can be hosted internally. It's just another step. If the image link could support a login, then I could use my Google Photos or other photo sharing site. Just checking to see what if any other options their might be.
Ahhh, gotcha. Personally, I don't want any of those options as it makes HE just that much more cloud based, if that makes sense?. The whole goal of HE is to be local. The more it integrates with cloud based services, the more people are going to continue using said services and ignoring what the HE team is really trying to accomplish here (IMHO).
With all that said (and completely my opinion), there might be something that they could do in the new Dashboard v2 they are coming out with. You could add this as a feedback request.
Image hosting and security is outside the bounds of Dashboard. Even if we added a pin, the URL is still transmitted (and pin) so it could be discovered anyway.
I suggest hosting the images locally or via something like google photos as a private link. As long as the browser is authorized to view the link / image, dashboard should be as well. No guarantees, but that might solve your issue.
Would having an option to upload pictures to the hub work? Idk how much storage there is on the hub, but you could store images there for custom icons, pictures of houses, or whatever. The the hub could reference that location instead of accessing an external source even if that source is on the internal network.
It's something we are considering. However, it still poses a challenge without mirroring them to the cloud for cloud dashboards. Appreciate the feature request.
Maybe something that the sd card slot could be used for 
Except that the C5 doesn't have a slot (that I have seen at least). 
Could you just store it locally on the device and for the image url you put something like this: " file:///sdcard/TabShared/TileBackgrounds/yourimage.jpg" ?
In this case, your tablet showing the dashboard could use yourimage.jpg file locally stored on the device.
If that works then you could potentially do something like Google Drive autosync in a local folder and all your devices with dashboard can have a local copy of the images you want displayed.
I don't know of a service that provides this out of box, but if you are comfortable with hosting images, you could put them behind a simple REST endpoint that accepts a secret token. If the token validates, it will return the requested image.
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