How to Build a Remote-Friendly Home Assistant Dashboard for Apple TV

A Home Assistant dashboard that works perfectly on a phone or tablet is not automatically a good Apple TV dashboard.

The difference is the way you interact with it.

On a touchscreen, you can tap any point on the screen, drag sliders, open small controls, and scroll quickly. On Apple TV, navigation is based on focus: the remote moves from one selectable element to another, and you then select the focused item.

Apple describes tvOS as a directional focus-based interface in which users move focus between onscreen components with the remote before selecting an action.

That means a good Home Assistant dashboard for Apple TV should be designed differently from a dashboard intended primarily for a browser, phone, or wall tablet.

This guide explains how to build a remote-friendly Home Assistant dashboard for Apple TV, including card selection, navigation, layouts, cameras, scenes, lights, climate controls, and common UX mistakes.

HADash is a native tvOS application designed to display and interact with existing Home Assistant dashboards on Apple TV. You can find the product at HADash official website and the public project documentation and card compatibility information at HADash GitHub repository.

Why Apple TV Dashboards Need Different Design

Home Assistant dashboards are made from views and cards. Cards can display information, control devices, run actions, show cameras, display weather, graph sensor history, and much more. 

On a phone, the user can directly touch whichever card they want.

On Apple TV, the user has to navigate through the interface.

That changes the most important design question.

Instead of asking:

How much information can I fit on this screen?

ask:

How quickly can someone reach the action they want with the remote?

That principle should guide almost every design decision.

1. Start With a Separate Apple TV Dashboard

Do not simply reuse your main Home Assistant dashboard.

Home Assistant supports multiple dashboards specifically so different interfaces can be created for different users, devices, rooms, and purposes. Its documentation gives examples such as a focused kitchen tablet dashboard, a guest dashboard, and a more detailed personal dashboard.

Create a dedicated TV dashboard.

A useful starting structure is:

Home

Lights

Cameras

Climate

Security

That is usually enough.

Your phone or desktop dashboard can continue to contain advanced configuration, detailed graphs, battery sensors, automation controls, and diagnostics.

The Apple TV dashboard should contain only the information and actions that make sense from the couch.

2. Design Around Focus Navigation

Apple’s tvOS interface uses directional focus.

The user moves the focused state from one interface element to another and then explicitly selects an item. Apple also notes that every interactive onscreen element on tvOS should be reachable through focus navigation. 

For Home Assistant, this means the physical relationship between cards matters.

Imagine this arrangement:

Movie Night | Relax | Good Night

Living Room | Kitchen | Hallway

Front Door | Climate | Security

The user can understand where focus will move.

Now imagine:

• six different card sizes;
• tiny controls between larger ones;
• nested stacks;
• sliders;
• cards placed asymmetrically;
• several unrelated widgets.

Navigation becomes harder to predict.

Better rule

Build visual rows and logical groups.

The interface should almost feel like a television menu rather than a desktop dashboard.

3. Use Fewer Cards on the Main Screen

The Home view should not become a smart-home database.

A practical TV Home screen may need only eight or ten controls.

For example:

Movie Night

Relax

Good Night

Living Room Lights

TV Backlight

Indoor Temperature

Front Door

Front Door Camera

Security Status

All Lights Off

Everything else can live in secondary views.

The fewer elements the remote must move through, the faster the dashboard feels.

4. Use Sections for Predictable Layouts

Home Assistant currently offers several view layouts, including Sections, Masonry, Panel, and Sidebar.

For an Apple TV dashboard, Sections is usually the best place to start.

Home Assistant’s Sections layout organizes cards in a grid and allows them to be grouped into logical sections. It also lets you configure the maximum number of sections across the screen.

For example:

Scenes

Movie Night

Relax

Good Night

Lights

Living Room

Kitchen

TV Backlight

Home Status

Temperature

Front Door

Security

This structure is easier to understand from a distance and easier to navigate with directional input.

Full Sections documentation: Home Assistant — Sections view

5. Do Not Use Too Many Columns

A large TV might tempt you to create five or six columns.

That does not mean you should.

A television is large physically, but it is also viewed from several meters away.

Three clearly defined groups are usually better than six narrow groups containing tiny cards.

A reasonable starting point is:

2–3 major columns or sections per screen.

For cameras or large graphs, use even fewer.

6. Make Important Cards Large

The most frequently used actions deserve the most visual space.

For example:

Movie Night should not be a tiny button hidden beside six sensor cards.

Give important actions:

• larger cards;
• clear icons;
• short names;
• predictable locations.

The Home Assistant Sections layout supports card resizing, making it possible to give important controls more space. 

7. Prefer Short Labels

Compare:

Activate Evening Living Room Lighting Automation

with:

Evening

Or:

Turn Off All Ground Floor Lighting Devices

with:

Downstairs Off

Or:

Front Entrance Door Contact Sensor

with:

Front Door

The user does not need to see Home Assistant’s internal implementation terminology.

The dashboard should communicate the result of an action, not its technical architecture.

8. Scenes Are Perfect for Apple TV

Scenes are particularly well suited to remote control because one button can replace several individual device operations.

Instead of navigating through:

Ceiling Light

Floor Lamp

TV Backlight

Dining Light

Blinds

Hallway Light

you can offer:

Movie Night

When activated, the scene can configure those devices together.

Another button might be:

Relax

Another:

Guests

Another:

Good Night

This dramatically reduces remote navigation.

9. Put Scenes Before Individual Devices

A useful Apple TV Lights view might be structured like this:

Scenes

Movie Night

Relax

Reading

Guests

Good Night

Main Lights

Living Room

TV Backlight

Dining Area

Other Lights

Kitchen

Hallway

Exterior

The actions most likely to be used from the sofa appear first.

Detailed device controls remain available, but they do not dominate the screen.

10. Button Cards Work Well With a Remote

Home Assistant’s Button card is one of the simplest interaction patterns for television use.

Buttons work particularly well for:

• scenes;
• scripts;
• lights;
• switches;
• simple actions.

HADash currently lists Button Card as supported in its public compatibility documentation.

Current compatibility information: HADash card support on GitHub

11. Be Careful With Sliders

Sliders are natural on touchscreens.

They are less natural on television interfaces.

Think about adjusting a light:

On a tablet you touch the brightness slider exactly where you want.

With a remote you may need to:

1. Navigate to the card.
2. Enter the control.
3. Adjust the value.
4. Exit the control.
5. Continue navigating.

If users constantly adjust brightness manually, a tablet may be better for that task.

On Apple TV, scenes often provide a cleaner alternative:

Lights 25%

Lights 50%

Movie Night

Reading

12. Avoid Tiny Interactive Elements

Apple specifically recommends making focus states clear and warns that focused interface elements can visually increase in size on tvOS. 

For a Home Assistant dashboard, avoid layouts containing many small adjacent actions.

Poor TV interface:

Light 1 | Light 2 | Light 3 | Light 4 | Light 5 | Light 6

Better:

Living Room

Main Lights

Lamps

TV Lighting

All Off

Even better:

Relax

Movie Night

Reading

All Off

13. Use Standard Home Assistant Cards First

Home Assistant provides built-in cards for many common smart-home functions, including lights, thermostats, weather, buttons, entities, sensors, pictures, graphs, and other devices. 

Full card documentation: Home Assistant — Dashboard Cards

For Apple TV, start with standard cards.

They tend to be:

• simpler;
• more predictable;
• easier to navigate;
• easier for native applications to support.

Only add custom cards when they provide something genuinely necessary.

14. Check HADash Card Compatibility

HADash renders supported Home Assistant cards natively rather than behaving as a general web browser.

According to the current public compatibility list, supported cards include examples such as:

• Button Card
• Light Card
• Thermostat Card
• Vertical Stack Card
• Heading Card
• Sensor Card
• Clock Card
• Entity Card
• Entities Card
• Gauge Card
• Weather Card
• Statistics Graph Card
• Markdown Card
• Picture Card
• Picture Entity Card

Compatibility changes as the app develops, so check the current list before designing a dashboard around a particular card. 

Current list: HADash GitHub — Cards Support

15. Avoid Designing Around Unsupported Custom Cards

One of the easiest ways to create compatibility problems is to build an Apple TV dashboard entirely around browser-specific custom cards.

Custom Home Assistant cards can depend on:

• JavaScript;
• browser events;
• custom CSS;
• touch gestures;
• popup systems;
• external libraries.

A native tvOS application cannot automatically reproduce every browser component.

For the TV dashboard, standard Home Assistant cards should form the foundation.

Keep complicated browser dashboards for your desktop or tablet.

16. Cameras Deserve Their Own View

Cameras are one of the strongest reasons to use Home Assistant on a large television.

Rather than squeezing multiple live feeds into the Home screen, create a dedicated Cameras view.

For example:

Cameras

Front Door

Driveway

Garden

Garage

HADash currently supports Picture Entity cards for cameras and its public changelog includes fullscreen camera functionality.

This makes the TV particularly useful for checking:

• doorbell activity;
• driveway movement;
• garden cameras;
• garage cameras;
• entrance gates.

17. Use One Large Camera When Detail Matters

Four camera feeds can provide a useful overview.

But if you actually need to identify something, use one large feed.

Home Assistant’s Panel view displays one card across the full width of the view, making it useful for content such as a large image or specialized display.

A camera-focused structure could therefore be:

Camera Overview

Front Door | Driveway | Garden | Garage

Then:

Front Door Fullscreen

for detailed viewing.

18. Do Not Overload the Camera View

More live streams mean more work for:

• Home Assistant;
• the network;
• cameras;
• client hardware.

Showing eight live streams simultaneously may look impressive but offer little practical value.

Start with the cameras people actually check.

For many homes that means:

Front Door

Driveway

Garden

Garage

Four is usually plenty.

19. Climate Should Be an Overview First

Climate controls can become complex.

A thermostat may expose:

• current temperature;
• target temperature;
• mode;
• fan;
• presets;
• humidity;
• schedules.

On Apple TV, start by showing what matters most:

22.5°C

Target 23°C

Heating

Humidity 48%

Then expose only the controls that people realistically use from the sofa.

HADash currently lists Thermostat Card as supported. GitHub

20. Build a Simple Security View

A TV security dashboard should answer:

Is everything normal?

For example:

Front Door — Closed

Patio Door — Closed

Garage — Closed

Living Room Window — Closed

Alarm — Armed

Garden Motion — Clear

Then include selected cameras.

This is more useful than showing every security entity Home Assistant contains.

21. Be Conservative With Dangerous Controls

A television is normally a shared device.

Anyone with access to the remote may potentially reach controls displayed on the dashboard.

Be cautious with:

• unlocking doors;
• opening garage doors;
• disabling alarms;
• security gates;
• potentially dangerous equipment.

A status-only card may be more appropriate than an actionable control.

22. Put Information Before Action Where Appropriate

Not every dashboard element needs to be clickable.

Some cards are useful simply because they show information.

Examples:

22.5°C

Front Door Closed

Alarm Armed

3 Lights On

Solar 2.1 kW

Weather 24°C

The Home screen can therefore combine a small number of actionable controls with passive status information.

23. Use Large, Simple Graphs

Large television screens can display graphs extremely well.

Useful examples include:

• temperature;
• energy consumption;
• solar production;
• humidity;
• air quality.

Avoid putting several tiny graphs side by side.

A secondary Energy or Climate view can present one or two large graphs that are easy to read from the couch.

HADash’s public documentation includes Statistics Graph Card support and History Graph functionality in its changelog. GitHub

24. Reduce the Number of Remote Clicks

Every frequently used action should be evaluated by one metric:

How many remote movements does it take to reach it?

Suppose Movie Night requires:

Down

Right

Right

Down

Right

Select

That is probably too much for one of the most common living-room actions.

Move Movie Night to the first screen.

The most important controls should ideally require only a few directional movements.

25. Keep Navigation Consistent Across Views

If Scenes are at the top of Home, consider keeping important controls near the top of other views too.

Avoid completely changing the logic of every screen.

For example:

Home

Scenes → Status → Camera

Lights

Scenes → Main Lights → Secondary Lights

Climate

Current Conditions → Controls → History

Security

Status → Doors → Cameras

Users learn the interface through repetition.

26. Do Not Create Too Many Views

Home Assistant supports multiple views inside each dashboard. A view functions as a tab and controls the layout of the cards it contains. 

But Apple TV navigation should remain simple.

For many homes:

Home

Lights

Cameras

Climate

Security

is enough.

You probably do not need:

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Hallway

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Bathroom

Garage

Garden

Energy

Network

Batteries

System

on the television.

Keep those detailed interfaces elsewhere.

27. A Good Home View Should Work From the Couch

Here is a practical example.

HOME

Scenes

Movie Night

Relax

Good Night

Lights

Living Room

TV Backlight

All Downstairs Off

Status

22.5°C

Front Door Closed

Alarm Armed

Camera

Front Door

A user sitting on the sofa can immediately understand the state of the house and activate the most common actions.

28. Recommended Lights View

LIGHTS

Scenes

Movie Night

Relax

Reading

Guests

Living Room

Main Light

Floor Lamp

TV Backlight

Nearby Rooms

Kitchen

Dining Room

Hallway

Global

Downstairs Off

All Lights Off

This gives both high-level scenes and individual control without overwhelming the user.

29. Recommended Camera View

CAMERAS

Primary

Front Door

Additional Cameras

Driveway

Garden

Garage

Use large camera cards rather than filling the screen with unrelated sensors.

If a camera needs attention, open it fullscreen.

30. Recommended Climate View

CLIMATE

Living Room

22.5°C

Target 23°C

Heating

Humidity 48%

Outside

24°C

Humidity 55%

Air

CO2 620 ppm

Air Quality Good

History

Temperature Graph

This is enough for normal household use.

31. Recommended Security View

SECURITY

Home

Alarm Armed

Front Door Closed

Patio Door Closed

Garage Closed

Windows

Living Room Closed

Kitchen Closed

Bedroom Closed

Motion

Garden Clear

Garage Clear

Camera

Front Door

Again, focus on exceptions and important state.

32. Consider Conditional Visibility

Home Assistant cards support conditional visibility, allowing certain information to appear only under specified conditions. 

This can make a TV dashboard much cleaner.

For example, only show:

Kitchen Window Open

when the window is actually open.

Only show:

Low Battery

when attention is required.

Only show:

Garden Motion Detected

when motion exists.

When everything is normal, the screen stays calm.

33. Exceptions Should Be Visually Obvious

Imagine the normal state:

Front Door — Closed

Garage — Closed

Windows — Closed

Alarm — Armed

Nothing should demand attention.

Now imagine:

Patio Door — OPEN

That should stand out.

A good dashboard visually prioritizes abnormalities rather than making every sensor equally prominent.

34. Avoid Excessive Scrolling

Long dashboard pages are acceptable on phones.

They are much less pleasant with a remote.

If a TV view requires repeated vertical scrolling, consider splitting it into another view.

For example:

Do not create one huge screen containing:

Lights

Climate

Cameras

Security

Energy

Weather

Instead create dedicated views.

35. Design From the Actual Seating Position

Do not finish the dashboard while sitting 50 centimeters from a computer monitor.

Open it on the television.

Sit where you normally sit.

Then check:

Can you read the temperature?

Can you immediately see which card is focused?

Can you identify Movie Night?

Can you tell whether the front door is open?

Can you navigate without thinking?

If not, simplify it.

36. Test With the Real Siri Remote

Mouse testing is not enough.

A layout that seems logical with a pointer may feel completely different when focus moves directionally.

Test:

• left;
• right;
• up;
• down;
• select;
• back.

Watch where focus goes.

If the result is surprising, reconsider the card arrangement.

Apple’s focus guidance explicitly emphasizes predictable directional navigation for tvOS interfaces. 

Apple’s focus documentation: Apple Human Interface Guidelines — Focus and Selection

37. Optimize for the Most Common 80% of Actions

Do not design the TV dashboard for every theoretical Home Assistant operation.

Think about what actually happens in the living room.

Perhaps:

40% — Movie Night

20% — lights

15% — front-door camera

10% — climate

10% — security status

5% — everything else

Your dashboard should reflect that distribution.

The most common actions should be easiest to reach.

38. Keep Administration Off the TV

There is usually no reason to put these on the Apple TV dashboard:

• automation editor;
• integration status;
• firmware updates;
• device diagnostics;
• network statistics;
• logs;
• detailed battery monitoring;
• Home Assistant configuration.

Use your phone, tablet, or desktop for administration.

The television should remain an operational interface.

39. Use a Dedicated Home Assistant User

HADash connects directly to a Home Assistant instance using a Long-Lived Access Token. Its current setup documentation explains how to create the token and add the Home Assistant server inside the app. 

For a shared television, using a dedicated Home Assistant user can make the installation easier to manage separately from your personal account.

Treat the Long-Lived Access Token like a password.

Never publish it or include it in screenshots.

Full HADash setup documentation: HADash setup and documentation

40. HADash Can Use Existing Home Assistant Dashboards

You do not need to rebuild your smart-home configuration inside the Apple TV app.

HADash connects to Home Assistant and displays supported content from existing dashboards. Its public documentation describes the app as bringing existing Home Assistant dashboards to the big screen without requiring dashboard reconfiguration inside HADash itself. 

This means the Apple TV workflow is:

Home Assistant creates the dashboard.

HADash displays and controls the supported dashboard content.

Product: HADash for Apple TV

Development and compatibility: HADash Public GitHub Repository

Common Apple TV Dashboard Mistakes

Mistake 1: Copying the Mobile Dashboard

A mobile dashboard is optimized for touch.

Create a dedicated TV version instead.

Mistake 2: Too Many Cards

If everything is important, nothing is important.

Move secondary information into additional views.

Mistake 3: Too Many Tiny Controls

Large screen does not mean tiny controls become comfortable.

Remember viewing distance.

Mistake 4: Too Many Sliders

Convert frequent combinations into scenes whenever possible.

Mistake 5: Complex Custom Cards Everywhere

Check native compatibility first.

Mistake 6: Cameras Hidden Deep in Navigation

If cameras are frequently used, give them their own top-level view.

Mistake 7: Long Entity Names

Use human-readable labels.

Mistake 8: Unpredictable Card Placement

Build clear rows and sections.

Mistake 9: Designing With a Mouse Only

Always test using the actual remote.

Mistake 10: Trying to Put the Entire Smart Home on One Screen

The TV dashboard is a control surface, not an inventory.

A Practical Apple TV Dashboard Blueprint

If you want a simple starting point, build this:

View 1: Home

Movie Night

Relax

Good Night

Living Room Lights

TV Backlight

Temperature

Front Door

Security

Front Door Camera

All Lights Off

View 2: Lights

Lighting Scenes

Living Room

Kitchen

Dining Room

Hallway

Exterior Lights

All Lights Off

View 3: Cameras

Front Door

Driveway

Garden

Garage

View 4: Climate

Living Room Temperature

Target Temperature

Humidity

Thermostat

Air Quality

Temperature History

View 5: Security

Alarm

Front Door

Patio Door

Garage

Windows

Motion

Front Door Camera

This provides a useful smart-home interface without turning Apple TV into a complicated administration console.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Thoughts

Building a good Home Assistant dashboard for Apple TV is primarily a UX problem.

The goal is not to reproduce the entire Home Assistant interface on the largest screen in the house.

The goal is to make the most useful smart-home actions easy to reach with a remote.

Start with:

• scenes;
• main lights;
• cameras;
• climate;
• security status;
• a few important sensors.

Use large cards.

Keep labels short.

Create predictable rows and sections.

Move detailed controls into secondary views.

Avoid interfaces designed primarily around touch interaction.

And most importantly, test the dashboard from the couch with the actual Apple TV remote.

Home Assistant provides the dashboard system and cards.

HADash provides the native Apple TV interface for supported Home Assistant dashboards. 

Current HADash development information, setup instructions, changelog, and card compatibility are available in the HADash public GitHub repository.

Sources

Home Assistant — Dashboards https://www.home-assistant.io/dashboards/

Home Assistant — Dashboard Cards https://www.home-assistant.io/dashboards/cards/

Home Assistant — Dashboard Views https://www.home-assistant.io/dashboards/views/

Home Assistant — Sections View https://www.home-assistant.io/dashboards/sections/

Apple Developer — Focus and Selection https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/focus-and-selection

HADash — Official Website https://hadash.eu/

HADash — Public GitHub Repository https://github.com/Jon-Elf/HADash-public