PiDash

Pi Dash(board) for HomeAssistant

A mini dashboard attempt displaying sensor data on a Waveshare 1.44-inch LCD HAT (model 13891).

Tip

Project is also described on my blog: https://zedt.eu/tech/hardware/pidash-a-gadgety-homeassistant-mini-dashboard-attempt/

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File Structure

File	Purpose
dashboard.py	Main wrapper: Polls Home Assistant, handles buttons, renders to LCD
dash_config.py	HA API credentials (uses HA_URL/HA_TOKEN env vars)
dash_setup.py	Hardware setup: Sensors, GPIO pins, LCD/backlight setup, colors
dash_functions.py	Core logic: HA API client, rendering, button events, menu state
dash_helpers.py	Utilities: Color helpers, text formatting, icon drawing
dash_screens.py	Screen layouts: Solar, Temps, Params, EV, Energy
dash_translation.py	Translatable strings: All front-facing texts displayed on-screen

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Key Features

5 Data Screens

• Solar: Power flow (solar -> grid/house/battery)
• Temps: Temperature/humidity sensors (10+ locations)
• Params: Inverter/battery parameters (temps, limits, power)
• EV: EV charging data (battery %, power, time remaining)
• Energy: Daily cumulative energy (solar/grid/house/battery)

Navigation

• Joystick: Up/Down/Left/Right cycles through all 5 screens while on them; Middle Joystick opens the configuration menu (up/down cycles through the items while right joystick enters/toggles)
• Shortcut buttons: Key1-Top (Temps), Key2-Middle (Params), Key3-bottom (EV)
• Menu combo: Hold Key1 + Key3 to (also) open menu
• Idle timeout: Returns to screen 1 after 60s inactivity

Hardware

• Workhorse: Raspberry Pi - a Zero Wireless will do fine
• Display: Waveshare 1.44" LCD (ST7735, 128x128)
• Backlight: PWM-controlled (day/night brightness)
• Buttons: 8 inputs (4 axis joystick with middle button + 3 separate keys)
• Dependencies: luma.lcd, RPi.GPIO, pigpio, Pillow

Home Assistant Integration

• Reads 40+ sensors in a single API call (/api/states)
• Background threading for non-blocking updates
• Handles network errors (shows broken Wi-Fi icon and semi-diagnostic error messages)

Advanced Features

• Options to adjust brightness, data refresh interval, screen rotation
• Ability to self-restart the script, restart networking (in case if crashes), restart and shutdown the host Pi
• Test mode with random data for features display testing (toggle-able via hidden menu)
• Dual-language support (Romanian and English)

Visual Feedback

• Color-coded values (red/green/blue for configurable thresholds)
• Icons for solar, grid, house, battery, fans, thermometer
• Over-temperature, over-voltage alert indicators
• Inverter addon fan status indicator
• Inverter off-grid alert (red background)
• Network information display on restart
• Loading spinner during actions (restart, shutdown)

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How to Use

Warning

Note: This code is seriously hardcoded for my specific setup, sensors configuration and IDs, devices and requirements. Will require extensive configuration, adjusting and testing to fit your usage case. This script should only be taken as an example on how things can be done and a starting point, not a ready-to-use piece of software.

Hardware Setup

1. Enable SPI and I2C on Raspberry Pi:

   sudo raspi-config

2. Install dependencies:

   sudo apt install python3-pip python3-pigpio fonts-dejavu-core fonts-dejavu-extra fonts-symbola
   pip3 install luma.lcd RPi.GPIO pillow requests

3. Start pigpiod for PWM backlight:

   sudo systemctl enable --now pigpiod

Configuration

Set Home Assistant URL and token in dash_config.py directly:

HA_URL = os.getenv("HA_URL", "http://REDACTED:8123")
HA_TOKEN = os.getenv("HA_TOKEN", "REDACTED")

Also define your local network CIDR for correctly identifying connected state (in the same dash_config.py file):

REQUIRED_NETWORK = ipaddress.ip_network("192.168.1.0/24")

Sensors

The sensor IDs are defined in the dash_setup.py file. The energy and solar screens (5 and 1) require all sensors to exist to have the required amount of data for display. The other screens (2, 3 and 4) will auto-adjust to fit the list of sensors defined.

Additional ID-specific parameters are set in the same in dash_setup.py with the random value initialization for test mode hardcoded in dash_functions.py (for now). Temperature sensors accept a warning value that will color them red. The lower limit warning value is hardcoded to 10°C. Other sensors also accept threshold or default values that trigger their alternate color.

All device labels, names, menu items and messages displayed on the screen now have dual-language support and are loaded from dash_translation.py.

Test the Dashboard

cd /path/to/pidash
python3 dashboard.py

Run as a Service

Create /etc/systemd/system/dashboard.service:

[Unit]
Description=PiDash Dashboard
After=pigpiod.service
Requires=pigpiod.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /path/to/pidash/dashboard.py
WorkingDirectory=/path/to/pidash
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then:

sudo systemctl enable --now dashboard.service

Changelog

See dash_setup.py

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