Display dashboards

Display dashboards are per-profile browser displays for wall tablets, room screens, and quick at-a-glance views. They are managed inside OpenEnsemble but open at their own stable addresses, such as /dashboards/kitchen.

They are separate from Workspace. Workspace is the document and widget grid inside the main OE app; Display dashboards are the dedicated, full-browser views described here.

Open the dashboard studio

Open Dashboard from either the main Chat/Dashboard/Workspace switcher or the left menu, then choose Display dashboards. Both Dashboard entries open the same drawer and studio.

The library shows every dashboard owned by the signed-in profile. From each entry you can:

  • Configure it in OE.
  • Open display in a new browser tab.
  • Copy address for a tablet or bookmark.
  • Duplicate it as the starting point for another display.
  • Delete it, except for the required Home dashboard.

A profile can have up to 32 dashboards. Home is created automatically and always remains the default dashboard.

Create a dashboard

Choose New dashboard, then set:

  • Name and optional Description.
  • Stable address: a lowercase slug made from letters, numbers, and hyphens. The slug is fixed after creation, so renaming the dashboard does not break its address.
  • Base theme: Midnight or Warm daylight.
  • Starting layout:
    • Blank creates one empty section.
    • Starter home builds a balanced layout from Home Assistant entities the profile can read. If those entities are unavailable, choose Blank.
    • Copy existing copies another dashboard’s complete layout. The new copy is independent after creation.

Configure the layout

Choose Configure in the library. The editor opens inside OE at a useful working size; this is the supported editing surface. Adding ?oe_editor=1 to a dashboard opened directly does not turn that top-level display into an editor.

Each dashboard has separate saved portrait and landscape layouts. Choose Portrait or Landscape above the editor to arrange that orientation’s cards, sections, focus views, page elements, and colors independently. Existing dashboards start both orientations from their original layout. Changing one orientation leaves the other intact. Names, descriptions, and base themes are shared by the dashboard; duplicating a dashboard copies both layouts.

Portrait previews an 800 × 1280 tablet and Landscape previews 1280 × 800. Fit scales the preview to the available space. Choose 100% for full-size controls and scroll around the preview when needed. Finish or close an open settings panel before switching layouts. Pending canvas edits are saved before switching; a failed or conflicting save keeps you in the current layout.

The standalone display automatically loads the matching layout when rotated. OE’s installed web app allows both orientations; enable auto-rotate on the device. Choosing an orientation in the editor does not lock the actual display.

Use Customize to edit the canvas. You can:

  • Add, rename, reorder, restyle, collapse, or remove sections.
  • Add Home Assistant entities as separate cards or combine two or more in a group card.
  • Rename, resize, recolor, move, change the presentation of, or remove cards.
  • Organize the Rooms and Devices focus views and choose Overview, Rooms, or Devices as the dashboard’s default focus.
  • Remove every section for a completely blank canvas. Configure mode keeps a New section action available.

Layout changes such as cards, sections, and room/device organization autosave. Changes in Dashboard settings—including the name, theme, default focus, page elements, colors, and tagline—are applied with Save dashboard. If a second editor has changed the same layout, OE stops instead of overwriting it and asks you to reload the current version.

Undo and recovery

In Customize, use Undo and Redo for layout edits, including cards, sections, organization, colors, page elements, and tagline changes. Keyboard shortcuts are Ctrl/Cmd+Z and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Z when you are outside a text field. Each editor keeps up to 50 layout states during the session.

Saved versions keeps up to 50 previous layouts on the server. Restoring one makes a new save and preserves the layout it replaces. Dashboard names, descriptions, and base themes are separate settings and are not part of layout history.

Undo, Redo, and recovery drafts belong to the orientation being edited. Saved versions show that orientation from the dashboard’s retained saves; restoring one leaves the other orientation unchanged.

If a layout save fails or conflicts with another screen, its unfinished edits remain in this tab’s recovery draft. Reload the latest dashboard, enter Customize, and choose Recover draft to review and restore those edits. Recovery is tied to your profile, dashboard, and browser tab; closing the tab or clearing browser storage can remove it. A conflicting save never overwrites the other screen’s layout automatically.

Add cards and widgets

Choose Add card, then select Devices or Widgets.

Source What it shows What it needs
Home Assistant Live entities, cameras, weather, grouped devices, and supported controls Home Assistant configured in OE and Home Assistant access enabled for the profile
Calendar A read-only agenda beginning today The gcal skill enabled and Google Calendar connected; choose Today or the next 3, 7, or 14 days
Email A read-only recent-inbox view The email skill and Inbox feature enabled, plus a connected Gmail, Microsoft, or IMAP account; choose the account, item count, and whether to show snippets
Nodes Read-only availability and health for remote machines paired to this profile The nodes skill enabled for a non-child profile; only that profile’s paired nodes are shown
Custom skill A summary, metrics, or list rendered by OE An enabled, user-scoped custom skill with a valid dashboardWidgets declaration

Each widget refreshes independently. If one source is unavailable, its card shows the problem without blanking the rest of the dashboard. If a refresh fails after a successful result, the card may continue showing that last result as stale until it can refresh.

The Nodes card is status-only. It cannot run commands, install updates, restart, or shut down a node. Hostnames and health details are visible to anyone who can see the display.

Custom-skill widgets are deliberately declarative: the skill returns bounded text, metrics, and list data, while OE owns the markup. A widget must bind to an exact same-skill tool marked readOnly:true and non-destructive. Its unattended refresh runs with the skill/user filesystem read-only and native network access disabled, so a common pattern is for an ordinary approved tool or watcher to update local state and for the widget to read that snapshot. A skill cannot inject dashboard HTML or JavaScript, read plaintext credentials from the widget request, or turn the widget into an arbitrary network client.

To add a widget to a new or existing custom skill, ask an agent with Skill Builder to create or update that skill’s dashboard widget. See Building custom skills in the Guide for the authoring details.

Choose exactly what the page shows

Open Customize → Dashboard settings. Every dashboard can independently show or hide:

  • the sidebar and top toolbar;
  • OpenEnsemble branding;
  • Overview/Rooms/Devices focus navigation and section shortcuts;
  • sidebar connection status and the live source status above the greeting;
  • an automatic greeting, exact custom greeting, or no greeting;
  • the tagline, clock and date, Home Assistant summary, and section headings.

Configure mode keeps its management controls visible even when the standalone display hides those page elements.

The same settings panel has exact six-digit hex colors for the background, surfaces, cards, primary text, muted text, accent, greeting, and tagline. Leave a color blank to inherit it from the base theme, or use Reset all to return the whole palette to the theme. OE warns about likely low contrast but lets you make the final choice. The embedded editor stays on a readable base theme and shows custom colors in its preview; the standalone display applies the saved palette to the page.

Move between multiple dashboards

When the signed-in profile has more than one dashboard, the standalone display can move through them without a hardcoded new address:

  • Swipe left for the next dashboard.
  • Swipe right for the previous dashboard.
  • Navigation follows the dashboard library’s saved order and wraps at both ends.
  • The top toolbar also shows Previous and Next buttons with the current name and position. These buttons are hidden with the toolbar, but touch swiping still works.

Swiping is disabled while configuring a dashboard and is ignored when a gesture starts on a control, slider, menu, dialog, or horizontally scrollable content. Moving to another dashboard clears the old section/room/device focus so the destination opens at its configured default focus. An explicit ?fullscreen=1 query remains active.

Cycling does not replace individual addresses. /dashboards/kitchen still opens Kitchen directly, while /dashboards/home still opens Home directly.

Put a display on a tablet

Open or copy the dashboard’s address from its library entry, then sign in as the OE profile that owns it. Use the toolbar’s Fullscreen button or press F; appending ?fullscreen=1 requests the same display mode explicitly. Standalone displays cannot edit layouts, although Home Assistant cards can use the supported controls when that profile has access.

A dashboard address is not an anonymous link, public share, or restricted kiosk credential. It contains no session token, and all layout and live-data APIs require normal OE authentication. The same slug can exist in multiple profiles; the active signed-in profile determines which dashboard and data the browser receives.

The tablet holds a full browser session for that OE profile. Someone with an unlocked tablet can navigate away from the display to other OE pages available to the account. For a shared or unattended screen, use a dedicated least-privilege OE profile, restrict its feature and provider access, honor an appropriate access schedule, use private HTTPS, and apply the tablet/browser’s own screen or kiosk lock.

Browser sessions have a fixed seven-day maximum, so an unattended tablet will eventually need to sign in again. An owner can also configure a shorter idle timeout in hours. Sessions are listed and revocable under Settings → Profile → Active Sessions.

Permissions and privacy

Dashboard storage and addresses are profile-scoped. Calendar, Email, Nodes, custom widgets, and Home Assistant data are checked against the signed-in profile’s relevant permissions and access schedule whenever OE refreshes them.

Owners and admins have Home Assistant runtime access automatically. A regular profile needs the role_home_assistant skill enabled. That access covers the normalized entity state, permitted camera views, and OE’s fixed allowlist of dashboard controls; the configured Home Assistant token can impose additional upstream limits. Hiding an entity or removing a card changes presentation—it does not revoke Home Assistant permission. There is currently no separate per-dashboard or per-entity view-only access list.

If Calendar, Email, Nodes, or custom-widget permission is revoked while a display is already open, its rendered data is cleared on the next refresh. A transient source or connection failure can retain the previous result marked stale. Reload or close the display—or revoke that browser session—when data must disappear immediately instead of waiting for that refresh.

Delete or start over

Use Delete on a non-Home dashboard in the library or Configure header. OE asks for confirmation, then permanently removes its saved layout. Duplicate it first if you may want a copy.

Home cannot be deleted. To rebuild it, open Configure → Customize → Dashboard settings → Reset everything. Reset room & device organization is the narrower option when the cards are right but their focus organization is not.

If something is missing

  • No Home Assistant cards: confirm Home Assistant is configured and the profile has runtime access, then refresh the dashboard.
  • Calendar or Email is unavailable: enable the matching skill and feature, connect an account, and reopen Add card → Widgets.
  • Nodes is unavailable: use a non-child profile, enable the nodes skill, pair a remote machine, and reopen Add card → Widgets.
  • A custom widget is unavailable: confirm the custom skill is still enabled, its bound tool is read-only and non-destructive, and the local read-only sandbox is available.
  • A tablet returns to sign-in: browser sessions have reached the seven-day hard limit or the configured idle timeout; sign in again.
  • A save conflict appears: reload the dashboard before making more changes so another editor’s version is not overwritten.
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