The ideal command center for your smart home is simple: take an old iPad, mount it somewhere central, and give it one job. Dashboard for your home is the really great Apple Home app that solves this problem. Cameras, thermostats, lights, local weather, and your calendar all on a single screen.
HomeKit Weekly is a series focused on smart home accessories, automation tips and tricks, and everything to do with Apple’s smart home framework.
The camera support is the coolest feature for me. You get live previews of up to four Apple Home cameras, or unlimited if you upgrade to the Premium tier, and there is a one-tap live button that flips every feed to its live stream at once. You can tap any individual camera, and it will go full screen. Two-way audio is built in if your camera supports it.
On the home management side, you can control up to four thermostats and up to eight switches, such as lights, outlets, and fans, grouped by room. There is also a six-day weather forecast pulled in for your home location.
The calendar view is a nice touch that makes it more than just a smart home management tool. It shows a weekly overview of your shared calendar, highlights the next event, and lets you swipe between weeks. You can even set a custom text color per calendar, which is super helpful if you have multiple calendars for sports, etc.
The app sleeps automatically after inactivity and wakes back up with a touch, the front camera, or a HomeKit motion sensor. It also respects light and dark mode based on your iPad’s settings.
The most recent version of the app also added a 3D floor plan. You can upload images of your home layout, and the app renders it as a top-down view, with lights, blinds, sensors, and locks appearing as tappable icons at their actual locations in the room. You can tap the lightbulb icon in the living room to toggle that light.
Below the floor plan, live camera thumbnails for entrances and outdoor spaces each have their own live badge. You can glance at the front door or the backyard without leaving the app’s main window. On the right side of the app, there are quick-scene buttons that are just below a status line confirming that all your windows and doors are closed.
The weather card shows the current temperature alongside a six-day forecast, and just below it, per-room temperature cards enable you to see and manage each thermostat independently. The calendar panel displays a seven-day strip of upcoming events, with countdown timers for things like a vacation or a birthday, counting down in days, hours, minutes, and seconds.
There is also iCloud backup for your configuration now, so if you end up using it on multiple iPads, it’s easy to import and export your settings.
The app itself is free, and the Premium tier unlocks unlimited cameras and thermostats, plus the floor plan feature for $9.99 a year. The developer says the app collects no data as well.
If you have a spare iPad and love Apple Home, this is a genuinely good way to put it to good use. It would pair nicely with this home mount. It requires iPadOS 17 or later and an existing HomeKit setup. It also works fine on an iPhone in portrait with a scrollable layout if you just want to try it out.
Dashboard for your home is available now on the App Store for free.
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HomeKit Weekly is a series focused on smart home…
Bradley has worked at K-12 independent schools for much of the last 20 years, serving as the head of the information technology department and leading classroom technology integration. He’s well-versed in enterprise Wi-Fi, macOS and iOS system management, school technology, and SaaS tools.
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