Max Gramser
6148dfd211
The tiles draw what Home Assistant reports (a new /api/states answers for the tiles on the page); the ··· menu gets Identify (the screen's own show_alert with flash), Copy layout from another screen, Export and Import as JSON; the Alerts page opens with Try it (/api/alerts/test, one screen or all); the library filters by room and hides what is placed, with lit icons for what is on; ⌘K searches screens, entities and actions; the Update badge lists what's new from the changelog (copied into the image) and a running update shows a progress bar with the ESPHome stage and the last log line. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
3.6 KiB
Installation and everyday use
See the full installation guide.
Open New screen in the sidebar to install a screen: connect it via USB to the
Home Assistant machine, choose the board, name and USB port, then click Install.
The profile with unique keys goes into the ESPHome folder of the HA configuration,
any missing Wi-Fi goes into secrets.yaml (existing secrets are left untouched), and the
build and flash run in the same window; it then shows the API key
for pairing. Is the Home Assistant machine out of reach of the screen, such as a server or a
virtual machine? Choose Download under Install via: ESP Screens builds the firmware and
you put it on the screen from your own computer with ESPHome Web in
Chrome or Edge. Pairing itself happens in Home Assistant under Settings → Devices & services (a button in the window and on the not yet in Home Assistant card under My screens). Each screen has its own profile. Firmware & USB in the sidebar is
for existing profiles: check, build or reinstall via USB, the IP address (OTA) or
Download. Existing ESPHome profiles in the HA config folder are
found automatically.
Settings in the sidebar has the nightly firmware updates (the Update badge of a screen lists what's new, a running update shows its progress), the Alerts cheatsheet with a form to try an alert
(an alert on one screen, or on every screen with the esp_screens_show_alert event)
and Claude: install the ESP Screens skill for Claude Code in Home Assistant, or
download it for claude.ai, and ask Claude for the alert automation.
Tap the bar at the top of any page in the mockup to set the Top bar of a screen: the name on the left, up to six items on the right (time, analog clock, date, or an entity with an icon, such as temperature, a door, the alarm, or "last changed"). Drag to reorder, tap to configure; firmware 0.2.32 or newer renders them.
After pairing via the HA ESPHome integration, choose the tiles in ESP Screens.
Tap a tile and its settings open in a drawer on the right, with the mockup still in view: click behavior, larger values, mini-sliders, a wider tile, backgrounds.
The mockup shows what Home Assistant reports right now: values, On or Off, positions, the song that plays. Identify in the ··· menu blinks a screen so you know which one it is; the same menu copies the layout of another screen, or exports and imports one as JSON. ⌘K searches screens, entities and actions.
Screen settings, the tab next to Layout, has brightness and standby. Read current data in the ··· menu of a screen helps with
missing attributes or an offline screen. New cards require firmware 0.2.0.
The ··· menu of a screen also has Override YAML for a persistent, hardware-specific
<screen>.local.yaml file. It is loaded after the shared package and does not
replace the managed name, credentials, Wi-Fi, OTA or package connection.
The screen carries the same settings itself (firmware 0.2.44 or newer): hold the top bar for about a second and a half, or put the built-in Settings card on a page. What is changed there appears here within a second, and the other way around.
In Home Assistant every screen also has a Wake and a Sleep button (firmware 0.2.45 or
newer). Press them from an automation with button.press: Wake lights the screen up and restarts the
standby time, Sleep puts the screen in standby right away, also with Auto standby off. Wake is not a
touch, so an open card or a later page still goes back to page 1 on time (firmware 0.2.56 or newer).