Home Assistant

Home Assistant

Kinboard talks to Home Assistant via its REST + WebSocket API to display entities, run room-based dashboards, and power the energy widget.

What it does

• Browse all your HA entities, group them into Kinboard "Rooms" + "Dashboards"
• Real-time entity state (lights, switches, sensors, climate, covers, locks, alarms, media players, scenes, vacuums, weather, person trackers)
• Cards per entity domain with appropriate controls (slider for lights, set-point for climate, etc.)
• Dedicated energy dashboard wiring solar / battery / grid / home-consumption sensors → live power flow, charts, daily/weekly/monthly aggregates

What it does not

• Doesn't replace the HA UI — it surfaces a curated, family-friendly subset
• Doesn't store entity history — that lives in HA itself, queried via REST when needed
• No automations / scripts / blueprints UI

Setup

1. Generate a long-lived access token in HA

In Home Assistant: your profile (bottom-left avatar) → Long-Lived Access Tokens → Create Token. Name it kinboard and copy the token — you only see it once.

2. Connect from Kinboard

1. Open Settings → Home Assistant
2. Home Assistant URL — the URL your browser uses to reach HA. If both Kinboard and HA are on the same LAN: http://<ha-ip>:8123. If HA is behind your reverse proxy: https://homeassistant.example.com.
3. Long-Lived Access Token — paste the value
4. Click Connect. The app verifies the URL + token, then saves.

TODO: screenshot of /settings/homeassistant connect dialog

3. Configure dashboards

A dashboard is a curated grid of entity cards. Kinboard auto-creates a default one on first connect. To customize:

• Settings → Home Assistant → Add (next to the dashboard selector)
• Browse / search HA entities; tap to add. Each card uses the appropriate domain control.
• Reorder by dragging the grip handle.

TODO: screenshot of dashboard cards

4. Configure rooms

Rooms group entities for the touch-friendly room view at /home-automation:

• Settings → Home Assistant → Manage (next to Rooms)
• Create a room (name + icon + optional color)
• Tap Add entities on each room card and pick the relevant lights / switches / sensors

TODO: screenshot of /settings/homeassistant/rooms

5. Optional: configure the energy dashboard

If you have solar / battery / grid sensors in HA, Kinboard can render a live energy-flow diagram + 24h / 7d / 30d / 1y charts:

• Settings → Home Assistant → Configure (next to Energy)
• Map your power-W and energy-kWh sensors to the slots: Solar, Battery (charge/discharge), Grid (import/export), Home consumption
• Set tariffs per kWh for cost calculations
• Toggle Show on screensaver if you want the screensaver to surface live solar production

The energy backend uses HA's /api/history/period and /api/statistics endpoints; all aggregation happens in Kinboard, not in HA.

Entity domain support

Domain	Card
light	Brightness slider, color picker, on/off
switch, input_boolean	Toggle
sensor, binary_sensor	Read-only with device-class icon
climate	Set-point, mode, current temp
cover	Open/close/stop, position slider
fan	Speed slider, on/off
media_player	Play/pause/volume, source title, artwork
lock	Lock/unlock
alarm_control_panel	Arm/disarm with PIN keypad
scene, script	Activate button
vacuum	Start/stop/dock
weather	Current + forecast (used by widget)
person, device_tracker	Avatar + location label
camera	MJPEG stream (also see Cameras for non-HA cameras)

Unsupported domains render a generic card with the raw state.

Disconnecting

Settings → Home Assistant → Disconnect. All configured dashboards, rooms, and the energy config stay in the database (so you can reconnect later without redoing the work).

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause
"Connection failed"	URL or token wrong, or HA's CORS settings reject the origin. HA defaults are open enough for Kinboard but if you've tightened them, allow the Kinboard origin.
State updates lag by 30s	Kinboard uses 15 s polling for entities not on its WebSocket subscription list. If you need real-time on a specific sensor, add it to a dashboard card (those subscribe).
Energy chart is blank	Sensors not yet configured — visit /settings/homeassistant/energy and wire them up. Chart needs at least 24h of history.
Token works in HA UI but fails here	Long-lived tokens have a 10-year expiry; not the issue. More likely: URL must match exactly (https:// vs http://, trailing slash, port).

Related

• Cameras — cameras direct to go2rtc, bypassing HA
• Themes-and-Locales — entity-state strings localize via homeAutomation.entityState.*