Beacon is a free, open-source family command center for wall-mounted displays. It runs as a Home Assistant add-on or standalone — turn any tablet or spare screen into a beautiful family dashboard with no subscription fees and no cloud dependency.
- Weekly Calendar -- Beautiful week view with color-coded family members; supports HA calendar entities and a built-in local calendar
- Grocery & Shopping Lists -- AnyList, Home Assistant Shopping List, and local list support
- Task / Todo Lists -- Home Assistant todo entities and local task lists with dashboard integration
- Chore Tracking -- Assign chores, track streaks, and celebrate completions with a family leaderboard
- Music Controls -- Control Music Assistant, Home Assistant media players, and browse playlists from the display
- Photo Slideshow -- Display family photos between interactions
- Timer / Countdown -- On-screen timer for cooking, homework, and more
- Screen Saver -- Automatic screen saver with clock overlay
- Weather -- Real-time weather from your Home Assistant weather entity
- 8+ Themes -- Skylight, Midnight, Midnight Light, Nord, Dracula, Monokai, Rose, Forest, and dark mode (automatic or manual)
- Family Management -- Per-member colors, calendar filtering, and PIN-based profiles
- Meal Planning -- Meal plan bar with weekly dinner overview
- Standalone Mode -- Works without Home Assistant using local calendars, lists, and tasks
The fastest way to get started is the one-click button:
Or install manually:
- In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Add-ons > Add-on Store
- Click the overflow menu (...) and select Repositories
- Add:
https://github.com/asachs01/beacon - Find Beacon in the store and click Install
- Start the add-on and click Open Web UI
Tip: For the best experience on a wall-mounted tablet, enable Show in sidebar in the add-on's Info tab so Beacon is one tap away.
git clone https://github.com/asachs01/beacon.git
cd beacon
npm install
npm run devOpen http://localhost:3000 in your browser. Beacon works fully without Home Assistant — calendars, lists, and tasks are stored locally in the browser.
Beacon is configured through the Home Assistant add-on options panel:
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
weather_entity |
weather.home |
Home Assistant weather entity ID |
Additional settings (themes, family members, chores, calendar sources, list providers) are configured through the Beacon UI itself.
- Free & open source — no subscriptions, no cloud accounts, no vendor lock-in
- Private by design — all data stays on your network; nothing phones home
- Home Assistant native — deep integration with calendars, media players, lists, weather, and more
- Works standalone — built-in local calendar, task lists, and shopping lists work without HA
- Fully themeable — 8+ themes with automatic dark mode
- Voice & LLM ready — MCP server, voice API, and HA custom sentences for hands-free control
- React 19 -- UI framework
- TypeScript -- Type safety
- Vite -- Build tool
- Home Assistant -- Smart home platform
- Capacitor -- Native iOS/Android builds
- Lucide -- Icons
- date-fns -- Date utilities
- Getting Started Guide -- full walkthrough with screenshots
- AI and Voice Control -- voice API, MCP server for LLM agents, HA Assist custom sentences
- Contributing Guide
- Changelog
- Security Policy
- Code of Conduct
- License
Contributions are welcome! Please read the Contributing Guide before submitting a pull request.
Beacon is free and always will be. If it's useful to your family, consider supporting development:
Beacon is MIT licensed. Copyright 2026 Aaron Sachs.