Looking for an easy smart home display

General
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I am the smart home tinkerer of my family and usually I’m happy with all the information I get and the ways I can check if things are working properly.
But the problem is that the rest of the family usually doesn’t. Because they don’t install all the apps and are not interested in learning all technical details.

So I’m looking for an easy way to let everyone in the family know if something might need attention. Like Tado (which controls my heating) switching to “away” mode in error.
I have a LaMetric clock at home that I can use to display short messages. But it’s very limited in terms of display size and number of messages being displayed.
Does anyone have a good idea how to get something like an extended LaMetric-style display?
e.g.

  • reusing an old phone/tablet with an app where I can send messages to via webhooks?
  • Some hardware that can do what I like?

One way to do this might be a Apilio hosted status page that I show permanently on an old tablet or e-ink screen… :thinking:

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To answer parts of my question myself, I created a variable in Apilio that stores the Tado state. I can pin that to the dashboard like this:

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So if there was a way to show a reduced Apilio dashboard on a e-ink display, I would be close. Just the part with the warnings is missing.
So for instance if I have other sensor data that suggest someone IS at home, but my heating thinks otherwise, a rule to mark such potential errors would be nice.

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6

I have a logicblock that calls my mobile (via Telegram Callbot) when Tado and my other sensors (Locative app) do not agree on whether the house is empty.

However, your idea of a display showing key info looks very interesting.

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I have not yet bought one (though I might see if Santa can arrange it… :smiley: ), but the Divoom Pixoo-64 is Wi-Fi enabled and you can update it via IFTTT

Divoom Pixoo-64

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It’s pretty frustrating we can’t just use Alexa or Google home screens for this…

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Nice display - I have never seen it before!

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