Build Your First Home Assistant Dashboard (That You'll Actually Use)
You know that moment when your flat finally looks how you imagined? A good Home Assistant dashboard is the digital version of that. Before you had it, smart home meant hunting through a dozen apps. After, it’s one screen: everything you actually use, right where you expect it, tappable in half a second. Building that screen is what this guide is for.
Fair warning: most beginners open the HA dashboard editor for the first time and add everything. Every light, every sensor reading, every automation toggle — all at once. The result looks impressive for about three days, then nobody opens it. The dashboard that sticks is the one you built small and pruned to fit real habits. That’s what we’re building here.
If you haven’t set up Home Assistant yet, start with the Home Assistant setup guide first — this guide picks up from a working HA instance with at least a few devices already integrated.
Honest note: I put together this guide from the official HA docs, community experience, and my own renter setup. I haven’t personally tested every card type on every device, and Home Assistant updates regularly — always cross-check against the official dashboard docs for anything that looks different in your version.
Plan before you build
Five minutes of thinking here saves an hour of rearranging cards later. Two questions to answer before you open the editor:
1. What do you check every day? Write a shortlist. For most renters it’s: are the lights off in the room I just left, is the front door locked, what’s the indoor temperature, is anything on standby that shouldn’t be. These go on your main overview screen.
2. How do you want to navigate — by room or by function? By room (Living Room, Bedroom, Kitchen) works well if you move between spaces and want to control one area at a time. By function (Lights, Climate, Security) works if you have a small flat and prefer a single screen per device type. Most renters find room-based easier to grow with — you add a new device to the right room view and it just makes sense.
For this guide we’ll use room-based views with one master “Home” overview.
The card types worth knowing
Home Assistant 2026 uses the Sections view as its default layout — cards sit in a responsive grid you can drag and resize without touching YAML. The four view types are Sections (default), Masonry, Panel, and Sidebar. Start with Sections; it’s the most renter-friendly because it works well on both phone and tablet without extra configuration.
These are the cards you’ll actually reach for:
| Card | What it shows | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Tile | One entity: state + icon, big tap target | Lights, plugs, locks — anything you toggle frequently |
| Light | Brightness slider + colour wheel | Rooms with dimmable bulbs |
| Entities | A list of several entities in one card | Grouping sensors (temp, humidity, door state) by room |
| Thermostat | Current temp + setpoint + mode selector | A smart thermostat or climate device |
| Button | A single large action button | Scene triggers (“Good night”, “Leaving home”) |
| Heading | Section label with optional icon | Visually dividing a view into named groups |
| Camera | Live or still feed | A video doorbell or indoor camera |
| History Graph | A sparkline of a sensor over time | Seeing temperature or energy trends at a glance |
These are the built-in cards — no extra plugins needed. HACS (the community add-on store) has hundreds more, but the built-in set is enough for a first dashboard that actually gets used.
Step-by-step: build your first dashboard
1. Create a new dashboard
Go to Settings → Dashboards → Add Dashboard. Give it a name (“Home” or “Flat” works fine). Leave “Show in sidebar” checked. Under view type, pick Sections.
Don’t edit the default Lovelace dashboard — a fresh one is easier to keep clean.
2. Add your areas
Before adding any cards, make sure your devices are assigned to areas in Settings → Areas & Zones. Name your areas after real rooms (“Living Room”, “Bedroom”, “Kitchen”). HA uses these to auto-suggest cards and to power the mobile Home overview. This one setup step makes everything downstream tidier.
3. Build the Home overview view
Your first view is the one you’ll land on every time. Keep it short: aim for everything visible without scrolling on a phone screen.
Add a Heading card at the top (“Good morning” or just your flat’s name). Then add:
- A Tile card for each light or plug you toggle most often
- An Entities card listing front door state, any motion sensors, and indoor temperature — the things you glance at rather than tap
- One or two Button cards for your most-used scenes (“Leaving home”, “Good night”)
That’s genuinely enough for a first overview. Resist the urge to add more.
4. Add a view per room
Click the + tab at the top of the dashboard to add a new view. Name it after the room. In that view, add:
- A Light card for each dimmable bulb (or a Tile if they’re just on/off)
- A Tile for each smart plug in the room
- An Entities card with any sensors in that room (temperature, motion, door/window — see stick-on sensors)
Repeat for each room. Three views (Living Room, Bedroom, Kitchen) plus the Home overview is a complete dashboard for most renters.
5. A simple YAML card — copy and adapt
The visual editor handles most cards, but knowing basic YAML unlocks quick edits. Here’s a minimal Tile card you can paste into the YAML editor (three dots → Edit in YAML) and adjust:
type: tile
entity: light.living_room_ceiling
name: Ceiling Light
icon: mdi:ceiling-light
tap_action:
action: toggle
Change light.living_room_ceiling to your own entity ID (find it in Settings → Devices & Services → Entities). For more complex automations without writing YAML from scratch, the YAML Generator builds card and automation configs from a simple form — worth bookmarking for when you’re ready to go further.
6. Make it mobile-first
Install the Home Assistant Companion app (iOS or Android) and log in to your instance. The app gives you:
- One-tap access to the dashboard
- Presence detection (your phone being home or away can trigger automations)
- Push notifications from HA automations
- A quick-access widget for your most-used scenes
In the Companion app, go to App Configuration → Dashboard and set your new dashboard as the default. The Sections view layout adapts automatically to phone screen width — cards stack into a single column, which is exactly what you want for thumbs. Keep each view to one screen of scrolling on mobile; if you have to scroll more than once, that’s a sign to split into two views or prune some cards.
No-drill wall tablet: a renter’s command panel
A tablet on the wall by the front door is the finishing touch that makes a smart home feel genuinely finished. The obstacle for renters is obvious: no holes. Here’s how to do it without a drill.
The tablet itself: Any cheap Android tablet (a recycled old iPad also works) running the HA Companion app. An 8-inch tablet is a comfortable wall size; 10-inch if you want it more prominent. You don’t need a fast tablet — the dashboard is mostly static tiles.
Mounting without drilling:
- Command strips (large, heavy-duty): 3M Command strips rated to 3–5 kg hold a tablet frame solidly on painted drywall. Remove cleanly when you move. Pair with a slim tablet case that has a flat back.
- Adhesive shelf bracket: A small adhesive bracket (same 3M-style adhesive, wider footprint) can hold a tablet stand rather than a bare case. More stable than strips alone, still zero holes.
- Freestanding stands: A weighted countertop stand near the door achieves the same effect without touching the wall at all. Less dramatic, but zero risk.
Keeping the screen always on: Go to the tablet’s developer settings and enable “Stay awake while charging”. Run a USB cable (tucked behind furniture or under a cable clip) to a nearby socket. In the HA Companion app, enable Kiosk mode (or install the free “Fully Kiosk Browser” app) to keep the dashboard full-screen and prevent accidental home-button exits.
Set the dashboard to your Home overview view and the tablet becomes a quiet, always-visible control panel that came with you when you moved in — and will leave with you when you move out.
Tidy-up tips: the week-one edit
Live with the dashboard for five to seven days before making permanent decisions. Then:
- Remove anything you never tapped. If you scrolled past a card all week without interacting with it, it earns no space.
- Promote anything you reached for the phone app to do instead. If you opened the app for a specific light twice this week, that light belongs on the main overview.
- Merge thin cards. Three separate Tile cards for bedroom sensors can become one compact Entities card.
- Add your first automation card. After a week you’ll know which scene you trigger most. Put a Button card for it in the most prominent position.
The first 5 automations worth setting up pairs well with this step — once your dashboard is tidy, automations mean you stop needing to tap it as often.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know YAML to build a dashboard? Not to start. The visual editor (Edit Dashboard → pencil icon on any card) handles card creation and editing entirely through forms. YAML becomes useful when you want to copy a config between dashboards, use a card type the visual editor doesn’t fully expose, or paste a snippet from the community. The YAML Generator shortens that learning curve considerably.
Can I have more than one dashboard? Yes — Settings → Dashboards lets you create as many as you want. A common pattern is a “mobile” dashboard with large tap targets and a “tablet” dashboard with more information density. You can set different dashboards as the default per device in the Companion app.
My devices don’t appear in the card editor. Why? The most common cause is that the device isn’t integrated yet, or it’s integrated but not assigned to an area. Check Settings → Devices & Services to confirm the integration is running and the entity shows a state. If you’re just getting started with integrations, the hub and protocol selector helps you pick the right path. The configurator can also help you plan which devices work together before you buy.
Will the dashboard work if my internet is down? Yes — this is one of the underrated advantages of Home Assistant over cloud-based platforms. As long as HA is running on your local network (a Raspberry Pi, mini-PC, or NAS), the dashboard works without internet. Devices on local protocols (Zigbee, Thread, Z-Wave, local-API Wi-Fi) keep responding too. Only devices that require cloud connectivity will be unavailable.
Bottom line
A Home Assistant dashboard that you actually use is built in two moves: start small (a Home overview plus one card set per room), then prune after a week of real life. Sections view, Tile and Entities cards, and the Companion app give you a clean, tappable interface that works identically on your phone and on a no-drill wall tablet. The dashboard is the friendly face on everything you’ve set up — and once it’s dialled in, it’s the thing that makes the smart home feel worth it.
For the full device setup behind this dashboard, the Home Assistant setup guide covers integrations and hardware from scratch. For a complete no-drill device plan to populate those cards, the renter smart home starter kit is the natural next read.