A community member has shared Kobo HA Dashboard, an open-source (MIT) project that runs a native Home Assistant dashboard on a Kobo e-reader, plus a desktop setup tool that builds the dashboard and installs it over USB. The idea is a calm, always-on panel on an e-ink screen. The project is on GitHub and was announced on the Home Assistant community forum. We haven’t used it ourselves, so this is a read of what the author documents.
What it does
- Cards for lights, switches, fans, thermostats (with plus and minus buttons), sensors with 24-hour graphs, media players, weather with a forecast, and scene and script buttons.
- Large type and colours chosen to survive the Kaleido colour filter, with partial refreshes so only changed areas redraw.
- A frontlight button, with optional auto-off after a period without taps.
- Portrait or landscape, four themes, and 11 languages.
- Exit with the on-screen button or the power button, and the Kobo’s reader resumes where you left it.
The setup tool runs in your browser on macOS, Windows or Linux. You give it your Home Assistant URL and a long-lived access token, and it builds pages from your areas, skipping technical entities like child locks and status LEDs. Nothing is written until you click Save, and the last 20 saved versions are kept.
The battery update
Version 0.3.0 is about battery life. The dashboard now subscribes to Home Assistant’s WebSocket API instead of polling on a timer, and falls back to polling every 60 seconds if the connection drops. When nobody is touching the screen it redraws at most once a minute. An optional sleep mode turns Wi-Fi off and suspends the Kobo, waking on a timer to refresh or when you press the power button. It is off by default and never sleeps while charging. The author notes that the Kobo stays awake while the dashboard is open, so for a permanent panel keep it on a charger or use the light auto-off.
What to check before you try it
- Model: only the Kobo Clara Colour is listed as tested. Clara BW, Libra Colour and Elipsa 2E are marked as should work but untested, and older Kobos and some Tolino readers as experimental.
- Firmware: the project installs NickelMenu, which the README says needs firmware 4.6 or newer and does not yet support firmware 5.x. The tool warns about unsupported firmware.
- Addressing: the Kobo cannot resolve .local names, so use Home Assistant’s IP address. A DHCP reservation in your router keeps that address from changing.
- Token: the setup needs a long-lived access token. Treat it like a password, and consider whether you want a token with that reach stored on a small consumer device.
- Reversibility: the README says nothing is jailbroken, your books and account are untouched, and NickelMenu can be removed by placing an empty file named uninstall in its folder. If something goes wrong, holding the power button for about 15 seconds restarts the Kobo.
- Unsigned app: on macOS the setup app is not signed and on Windows SmartScreen may warn, so you will need to approve it manually.
The author also says the project was built with Claude Code. It is a young project with four commits at the time of writing, so expect rough edges.
Where this fits
For an installed system, this is a cheap way to get a glanceable, low-glare status panel where a lit tablet would be annoying, such as a bedside or hallway. It is a hobby project rather than a supported product, so we would not make it the only way to reach a critical control. If you have a spare Clara Colour and are comfortable with a USB install, it looks like a low-risk experiment. If you would have to buy a Kobo just for this, a dedicated wall tablet remains the more predictable choice.