An old Android phone can serve as the touchscreen for a smart-home dashboard. Adam Davidson reports using a Samsung Galaxy S8 to display Home Assistant controls for lights, heating, and TV. A separate IR/RF transmitter is a different approach for appliances that use remote-control signals.
Use the phone as a dashboard
In Davidson’s setup, the phone displays a simplified Home Assistant dashboard organized around guest-friendly controls. The light pages let users choose a room, switch lights on or off, and adjust brightness. Heating controls offer whole-house or guest-room choices and temperature adjustments; TV controls cover power, navigation, playback, and volume. Davidson says a relative used the panel successfully.
The phone is the screen for those controls. It is not, by itself, the separate signal transmitter used to operate infrared or radio-frequency devices.
Keep the dashboard on screen
Davidson used Fully Kiosk Browser to display the dashboard full-screen, without browser controls, and Android app pinning to keep it from being navigated away from accidentally. In his account, leaving the pinned screen required holding Back and Recents together, then entering the phone’s PIN.
Give guests a separate Home Assistant account
Home Assistant supports non-administrator users who can use the system and see their own dashboards but cannot access configuration and system settings. Home Assistant also describes a local-only user as a possible login for a kiosk. Its user configuration documentation explains these account roles.
Dashboard or IR/RF transmitter?
| Approach | What the phone does | What the approach uses |
| Home Assistant dashboard | Displays touchscreen controls for household devices | Home Assistant; Davidson’s setup also used Fully Kiosk Browser and Android app pinning |
| Separate IR/RF transmitter | Controls a separate transmitter through an app | A compatible transmitter and Smart Life; the demonstration used Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi for initial setup |
A transmitter handles remote-control signals
In a tutorial published May 9, 2023, MovilAndroide demonstrated using Smart Life with a separate transmitter to control infrared appliances. The app can use a preset remote or learn buttons manually. For the tutorial’s radio-frequency example, the presenter used 433 MHz. These details apply to that demonstration, not to every transmitter.
The tutorial also describes linking Smart Life with Google to control infrared devices by voice through Google Assistant. In that setup, radio-frequency devices could not be controlled directly through Google Assistant.
For the demonstrated transmitter’s garage-door setup, the presenter says rolling-code remotes are unsupported; the transmitter also needs power and internet access. Those conditions concern the device in the tutorial.
