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Connect to Home Assistant

The device is managed from Home Assistant through the first-party Dashboard Assistant integration. Install it once and every kiosk on your network shows up as a device with its own controls and sensors — display power, brightness, pages, screenshots, OS updates and more (see the entity reference).

The integration is distributed through HACS as a custom repository — it is not in the default HACS store, so searching HACS alone won't find it. Adding the repository is a one-time step; after that, updates show up in HACS like any other integration.

Prerequisites

  • A running Home Assistant instance you can reach in a browser.
  • HACS installed and set up. If you don't have it yet, follow the official HACS installation guide.

1. Add the custom repository

  1. In Home Assistant, open HACS from the sidebar.
  2. Click the ⋮ menu in the top-right corner and choose Custom repositories.
  3. In the Repository field, paste: 
    https://github.com/ajfriesen/dashboard-assistant-integration
  4. Set Type (or Category) to Integration.
  5. Click Add, then close the dialog.

2. Install the integration

  1. Back in HACS, search for Dashboard Assistant and open it.
  2. Click Download and pick the latest version.
  3. Restart Home Assistant when prompted (Settings → System → Restart). HACS only copies the files; Home Assistant loads the integration on restart.

No version to download? Enable beta versions

Current releases are release candidates, which are published as pre-releases — and HACS hides pre-releases by default, so the download dialog can appear empty. On the integration's page in HACS, open the ⋮ menu, choose Redownload, and enable the beta versions toggle to see them.

3. Add the device

After the restart, Home Assistant discovers the kiosk on its own over mDNS — a "Dashboard Assistant" discovered card appears under Settings → Devices & services. Click Configure and choose Pair automatically (recommended): a device that has not been paired yet hands over its API token by itself, so there is no PIN and nothing to type.

If the card doesn't appear, or you preset a token, add it manually:

  1. Go to Settings → Devices & services → Add integration.
  2. Search for Dashboard Assistant and select it.
  3. Enter the connection details:
    • Host / port — the device's IP or hostname; the API defaults to port 8081.
    • API token — the api_token from the device's seed file. The device never displays its token, so if you did not preset one, use the automatic discovery path instead and let it pair.

A device only pairs once

An already-paired device refuses to hand out its token again — that is what keeps a stranger on your network from adopting your panel. To pair it with a new Home Assistant instance, factory-reset it from its admin page first.

What you get

The kiosk appears as a single device with all its entities — the complete list is in the entity reference, and the Usage guide shows what day-to-day control looks like.

Two things happen behind the scenes that are worth knowing about:

  • The integration creates a dedicated non-admin Home Assistant user for the kiosk (named after the device, visible under Settings → People) and logs the device's browser in with it — that is why the panel never shows a login screen. The user is removed again if you delete the integration.
  • If the Music Assistant add-on is installed, a Music Assistant page is added to the device's page list automatically, already signed in.

Updating

When a new release is published, HACS shows an update on the Dashboard Assistant card. Click Update, then restart Home Assistant.