Why the need for a dashboard?

[Hatallica]

@zapbust

Why do you need/use one?

Top-of-head analysis of our most common dashboard activities:

1. Looking at the weather forecast or news headlines
2. One-touch access to certain playlists for our Sonos speakers
3. Visual status check or troubleshooting rules
4. Easy access to controls that are infrequently used and thus not automated

Seems that I most frequently use it as a newspaper and radio. There is value in the rest, but certainly not essential.

[Pantheon]

@Hatallica

Looking at the weather forecast or news headlines

I see those items frequently mentioned as dashboard uses. Oddly enough, I don't use my pads for news, calendars or weather.

[WarlockWeary]

I use mine all the time for turning things on and off but mostly for checking status of garage doors front door locks etc makes it super simple to check if things are closed or locked

[Sebastien]

I use my dashboards primarily for debugging and handling exceptions. I have one wall-mounted dashboard by the garage door that I use to see the status of the vehicle charging and the garage vs outside temperature at times.

Typically, I will automate re-occurring exceptions, so I often will eliminate the need for a dashboard.

[jpage4500]

I'm not surprised at how many responses this has gotten

I'll just echo some of what's already been said.. what I use my 2 wall mounted dashboards (Fire 10" and 7" tablets.. $35 and $15 respectively)

I use them primarily:

• see at a glance if any of our doors are unlocked or left open when I go to bed at night
• any garage doors left open
• any lights left on
• weather (current temp, future temps for the week, radar)
• family calendar (I've got several calendars integrated into a single family calendar dashboard tile)
• bring up security cameras (I don't do this often but it's nice to have)

I don't use them to enable/disable security.. that's all automated when my phone leaves the house

I also don't use them (too often) to turn on/off lights.. I've got Google Home mini devices on every floor so that's easy enough to do by voice. Sometimes I'll use them to lock a door but that's about it when it comes to controlling devices.

So, high-level a dashboard for me is a quick status of all of the smart devices as well as weather and calendar stuff.

[a.mcdear]

I have one set up for troubleshooting my automations.

[iEnam]

I have a dashboard on my phone to get an overview/summary of all automations, including current energy consumption, which room/devices are active, and family whereabout all on one screen.

[Horseflesh]

I do not use any dashboards at all currently.

There are a few devices which are not on timers or switches, and to turn them on/off I go to the "Lights/Switches" page in the v1 mobile app. (I haven't even looked at the new app and won't until I am forced to switch.)

I should set up one dashboard for these buried devices, but I have tried out the old and new EZ dashboards and don't like either of them for different reasons. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[djh_wolf]

This is worth a look:

Review / perspective on C8 pro

Shock. I was under the impression that the general response from (much of) the community was that "you shouldn't need a dashboard, everything should be automated. It's a smarthome, you shouldn't need a remote control". I've never agreed. There is no way on earth I can set rules to deal with the majority of daily tasks. I need a visual. Shame sharptools can't be made local. Good news on the progress though

[Equis]

Echoing others... Everything is automated, so I mainly use my dashboard for a quick view of what's going on. It only shows a small selection of all my devices. Are doors locked? Garage open? What's the weather? When will the sprinklers run? What's my wife's commute like?

[sean1]

I'm another who basically just uses a dashboard as an at-a-glance status check. If I asked a voice assistant to read off everything, it'd take 15 minutes and if I just set alerts letting me know when something was amiss, I wouldn't necessarily know if something was reporting that there was no concerning information or just not reporting at all. I can look at this and get a good picture of my home's status in a couple seconds.

[garyjmilne]

For me it's all part of the fun and challenge of owning a Home Automation system. The three big ways to geek IMO out are automation, integration and visualization. All three are fun but I have a soft spot for the dashboard.

This is my ground floor. Visualization and control all in one place.

But other reasons are that they are accessible to people that don't know anything about Hubitat.
Clicking through devices and logs is a chore. Looking at tables of data easy.

[velvetfoot]

For me, strictly functional.
I have only one dashboard, with little tiles.