Desk Kiosk¶
A dedicated iPad (11-inch, on a desk arm) runs the Desk Companion dashboard full-screen all day — a glance-first "Midnight Glass" board built for the office desk.
Open it at /desk-companion (the Desk entry in the sidebar).
What's on it¶
| Panel | Shows |
|---|---|
| Time + Weather | Live clock, date, office temperature, and outdoor temp/conditions |
| Office Air | A comfort ring around the office temperature (green 68–76°, amber/red outside that), with VOC · CO₂ · RH underneath — each colored by level |
| Energy Today | Today's electricity cost, the live time-of-use rate (green off-peak / red PEAK 3–6 pm), current kW, and a 6-hour whole-home power trend |
| Now Playing | The Office Apple TV — cover art, title, and source when something's playing; tap to play/pause. (See the note below on why it's the Apple TV and not the soundbar.) |
| House at a Glance | Garage doors, leak sensors, who's home, and internet speed — anything red needs attention |
Kiosk control (hide/show the HA menus)¶
The dashboard runs full-bleed — Home Assistant's top header and left sidebar are hidden — controlled by a single helper:
input_boolean.kiosk_mode("Desk Kiosk Mode"). On = full-bleed kiosk. Off = the header/sidebar come back so you can navigate on the iPad.
You can flip it from anywhere (your phone's HA app, Developer Tools → States, or a button on another dashboard) — it updates the iPad instantly, no reload.
"Hey Siri, Kiosk Mode Off"¶
Two webhooks let Siri toggle it:
- HA → Settings → Home Assistant Cloud → Webhooks → enable "Kiosk Mode — On (webhook)" and "Kiosk Mode — Off (webhook)" and copy each
https://hooks.nabu.casa/…URL. - iPhone Shortcuts app → two shortcuts named "Kiosk Mode On" / "Kiosk Mode Off", each a Get Contents of URL → its cloudhook URL → Method: POST.
- Say "Hey Siri, Kiosk Mode Off" to get the menus back; "…On" to hide them again.
Manual escape hatch
On a regular browser you can also append ?disable_km to the URL (/desk-companion?disable_km) to temporarily show the menus without touching the helper.
iPad setup (one-time)¶
- Install the Home Assistant app on the iPad; sign in.
- Open the Desk dashboard.
- Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access → On. Open the dashboard, triple-click the side button to lock the iPad to it.
- Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never; keep it on the charger (the screen is LCD — no burn-in).
- Optional: enable Night Shift for warmer color in the evening.
To exit Guided Access: triple-click, enter the passcode.
Note: why "Now Playing" follows the Apple TV¶
Home Assistant can only display what the player reports, not what a speaker is outputting. The office soundbar (Samsung Q990D) is integrated via Google Cast, which only sees content cast directly to it — audio arriving over HDMI, Bluetooth, or AirPlay is invisible to HA (the soundbar just reports "off"). The Apple TV is a real player that reports its own now-playing, so the tile follows it.
If you want HA to see everything you play (any AirPlay/Spotify/etc.) regardless of source, the path is Music Assistant — play through it and it both streams to the soundbar and reports full now-playing. That's a separate future project.