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Admin page

The tablet's screen is deliberately dull. It shows your dashboard, a navigation bar and a read-only info view, and nothing on it can change how the device is configured. A shared screen gets touched by guests, housemates and children, and none of them should be able to re-point it, roll it back or reboot it.

Everything that does change the device lives on the admin page, which you open from another machine on the same network:

http://<device-ip>:8099/

The IP is on the tablet itself: tap ❤ on the bottom bar, then the ⓘ in the top-right corner.

The admin page has no password

Anyone who can reach the device on your network can open it and factory-reset the tablet. That is a deliberate trade for being able to recover a device whose screen offers no way in, but it does mean the device belongs on a network you trust, not a shared or guest one. The page hands out no credentials, and the Home Assistant API token is never shown there.

What it does

Device. Read-only identity and network details: name, hostname, MAC, IP, machine ID, model, serial, installed version and the Home Assistant URL. The same view the ⓘ button shows on the tablet.

Recovery. Pick an earlier system generation and boot into it. Use this when an update broke something. The device switches generation and reboots, and keeps booting that one until you deploy again.

Factory reset. Clears the Home Assistant URL, the login token, the device API token, your display preferences and saved Wi-Fi networks, then reboots onto the onboarding screen. You have to type RESET to arm the button.

Because it clears Wi-Fi, a reset display comes back broadcasting its own setup network, which is what lets you move one to a different house. It also means a reset knocks the display off your network, and this page has no password: anyone who can reach it can put a display into a state that needs a phone and a walk over to it.

Factory reset is also how you re-pair a device with Home Assistant. A device hands its API token to Home Assistant automatically until Home Assistant has used it once, and a reset puts it back in that state, so there is no code to type and no button to press on the tablet. Remove the old entry in Home Assistant first, because its token stops working.

You only need this for a device that is already in Home Assistant. One that has never been paired pairs on its own, including a device preconfigured with a seed file.

If the network is gone

The admin page needs the network, so it cannot help a device that will not join Wi-Fi. Three paths remain:

  • If the display has never been online, it broadcasts its own setup network. Scan the QR code on its screen and configure Wi-Fi from your phone: see Wi-Fi setup.
  • Drop a seed file on a USB stick and plug it in. The device applies it and restarts the kiosk.
  • Pull the card or disk and read the journal directly, or reflash it.