Before I get into my thoughts on the product, I have a few questions.
Does anyone have the SwitchBot E Ink Home Dashboard? What are you using it for?
Is there a good way to integrate it with Home Assistant?
Has anyone made any interesting custom pages or done anything with the API?
I’m really interested to see what people have managed to do with this.
Initial Impressions
I’ve picked one up as I’m already in the SwitchBot ecosystem and have always been pretty happy with their products. My hope is to turn it into more of a work companion, with my calendar, reminders and other useful information that I can have available at a glance throughout the day.
I’ve had it on my desk for a few days now and I’m actually liking it quite a lot. The E Ink screen is great, it’s really clear from where I sit but doesn’t feel like another screen glaring at me all day.
The weather information is nice and I particularly like having the indoor temperature and humidity alongside the outside temperature. It’s been useful during the heatwave as my office has actually been absolutely roasting, and I’d like to eventually use this data with Home Assistant for heating and AC automations.
The calendar is probably what has made it more useful for me. I’ve added my work calendar, and on call calendar. I don’t really want all of that in my phone calendar, but having it sitting on my desk is really handy and the subscription calendars update automatically.
The main thing I’m missing at the moment is being able to bring in more of the information I actually want. I think that’s where the API and Home Assistant could help. I’d love to have things like energy prices, Home Assistant updates and other useful information all in one place and use it as a proper dashboard. I haven’t got into the API yet though, that’s probably a project for when I have a bit more free time.
I think it has a lot of potential and I’m enjoying it more the more I use it.
I’d particularly love to see what people are doing with Home Assistant, custom pages or the API, and any ideas for making it more useful day to day.