Home Assistant is awesome and is something I've relied on for a while now, creating the ultimate smart home, after I always found that term to be nothing more than an umbrella for overpriced dumb hardware. These days, you can get really creative with automation and adding new smart devices to the network. I plan to have smart plugs and ESP32 thermostats controlling radiators, a fully kitted-out alarm system, and more. That's where displays can play a vital role in displaying all this information.

The platform is great at collecting data, but it can be a little convoluted to display it without relying on a PC, mobile device, or an old tablet. That's why you should create your own!

You're in control of the UI

Make it look how you want

While Home Assistant’s default dashboards are highly customizable, they’re designed for general use and may not align with your specific needs. For instance, if you want a minimalist display that shows only the temperature of your home’s radiators or the status of your security system, a custom UI allows you to strip away unnecessary elements and focus on what matters. You can use tools like Home Assistant’s built-in dashboard builder or even code your own interface to create a sleek, purpose-built display.

Imagine a single-screen dashboard that shows your HVAC status, energy usage, and security alerts at a glance, all without the clutter of a generic tablet interface. This level of personalization ensures your smart display becomes a seamless extension of your workflow, rather than a generic tool.

Easier integration with Home Assistant

The center of all centers

If Home Assistant is the backbone for your smart home, your custom smart display will work well with the platform. This powerful tool can be integrated with just about anything within your home, so long as it has a connection point and an available API or already available integration. Using Home Assistant as the base ensures you have a solid foundation for managing your entire smart home. With easy access to all self-hosted content, it's easy to create a display for checking live camera feeds, controlling smart lighting, or even connecting with Matter-compatible devices.

Depending on what you use as the display, you could even have it update more regularly to alert for motion detection. The smart display isn’t just a passive screen that could be viewed as an afterthought.. It’s an active participant in your smart home’s automation.

Customize hardware to your needs

Make your smart display your own

The best part is that you can choose hardware that matches your needs. Be it an Android tablet or a more basic ePaper display, anything can and will work with a little willpower and spare time. It's also a great way to reuse older hardware and devices you may otherwise throw away. Instead of ditching that old tablet, why not repurpose it as a means to not only show information, but also offer new ways to interact with connected smart devices? There are a few ways to connect everything too, including Zigbee, Matter, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, ESPHome, and MQTT.

As time passes by, proprietary hardware can fall out of fashion and run outdated firmware. That all changes with your own displays since you control what they run and can conveniently update them all should you wish to make some fundamental changes.

It's more private (and secure)

Keep it locked down

Goodbye cloud connectivity. There's no reason for a simple smart display like this to connect to the outside world. The only data stream it should require is that from Home Assistant. By creating your own device, you know the ins and outs of how it all comes together. You'll monitor attack surfaces, run updates, and ensure the OS and/or firmware are fully patched and working as intended. This also allows you to fully sandbox the device for testing, etc.

On the same note, building your own smart display keeps everything offline, so you know full well what this device needs to connect to. No pesky calling home to some random server on another continent. It's your hardware, running software you know about, and everything can be contained within the LAN. This also means you can continue using the display even if the internet drops for whatever reason. Want to create a dashboard for your alarm system? This is the way to go about it and keep it secure.

You'll feel accomplished

Like anything in the smart home, making your own Home Assistant-compatible smart display is a brilliant way to learn new things, take your DIY skills to the next level, and save some money in the process. You'll have a cool-looking device that can output various data and status reports from your Home Assistant installation and wider smart home. It's cool to quickly glance at stats and show off to visitors who may not have seen something quite like it before. Plus, it's likely to be a fully unique display, which you cannot find elsewhere.