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Anton Frolov commissioned an illustrator to draw his home and used the artwork as the foundation for a Home Assistant dashboard. The illustrated interface layers device images and status information over the house scene, aiming to make controls more inviting for his family. The report does not provide cost, usage data or evidence that other household members now use it more often.
Anton Frolov commissioned an illustrator to draw his home and turned the artwork into an interactive Home Assistant dashboard, using illustrated rooms as the background for smart-device controls and status indicators. In his report, Frolov says he wanted an interface that his family would find more appealing than the dashboard they had been avoiding; whether it has increased household use is not reported.
Frolov says he had spent about a year automating his home with Home Assistant, an open-source smart home platform. Some routines ran automatically, including switching off air conditioners when everyone left and adjusting sprinkler run time based on weather. Other tasks still required someone to use an app. Garden lights were a particular frustration: a timer shut them off, and the household had to open an app to extend the timer when the lights began blinking.
After considering a floor-plan interface, including 3D and pixel-art approaches, Frolov commissioned an environment artist whose style suited the project. He supplied an architectural plan, room photos, visual references, examples of dashboards and a technical brief. That brief specified transparent image files, day and night versions, and separate device artwork for different states. He says exporting every asset on a shared canvas, with components kept in their intended positions, saved later alignment work.
Frolov built the interface with Home Assistant’s standard picture-elements card. The illustration serves as the background, while device images, icons and sensor readings sit above it. Conditional elements can appear or disappear based on device status, and state-dependent images show different artwork for devices such as an air conditioner. Frolov’s report describes the build approach, but does not give a project budget, the artist’s identity or a measured comparison of dashboard use before and after the redesign.
A More Approachable Smart Home Interface
The project addresses a practical issue in home automation: a system can work technically while still being inconvenient for people who do not want to learn its controls. Frolov’s account centers on shared household use, not simply adding more automation. A familiar visual map may make it easier to see which room or device a control affects, though the report does not establish that this approach works for every household.
It also illustrates how a smart home interface can depend more on prepared visual assets than on custom software. Frolov says commissioning and briefing the artist accounted for much of the project’s work, while the interactive layout used a built-in card. The trade-off is that a custom illustration requires time, coordination and assets designed for technical use, including matching versions for different lighting and device states.
custom smart home dashboard artwork
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From Automation to a House Map
Home Assistant lets users bring smart devices and automations into a single system, but Frolov says his earlier dashboard was not appealing to the rest of his household. He considered a physical switch for the garden lights, then concluded it would not address the timer or situations where app controls were more practical. The issue was not a lack of automation; it was the interface people needed to use when a decision still required them.
Frolov looked at floor-plan dashboards, including 3D scenes and pixel-art layouts. He found that the 3D examples he saw often used a static model with interactive icons layered over it, while pixel-art designs involved drawing or arranging graphics manually. He chose to commission an artist instead. His technical recommendations—including shared image dimensions and separate device states—come from his own project and are not presented as official Home Assistant requirements.
“Why not build a dashboard so cool that everyone would want to use it?”
— Anton Frolov, in his report
interactive home assistant interface
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Use and Project Costs Not Reported
The report does not identify the illustrator, state how much the commission cost, or give a completion date. It also does not include usage figures or an account of whether other family members adopted the new dashboard after it was installed. Frolov presents the project as an interface designed to be more inviting, but the article does not independently measure its effect.
The supplied source text ends while describing how animated device images work, so it does not establish every technical detail of the finished setup, such as the complete configuration or the final handling of each device state. The artist’s availability and the time required for a similar commission will vary; Frolov says finding and booking an artist can be difficult and that artwork may take weeks or months.
smart home device icons and images
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Further Build Details Remain Open
Frolov’s report documents the commissioning process and the basic Home Assistant structure, but the available material does not announce a follow-up release or planned update. Readers seeking to reproduce the setup would need the full configuration and image assets, along with details about their own Home Assistant devices and layout.
For a similar project, Frolov’s account points to the next practical step: agree on the artwork’s technical requirements before illustration begins, including file formats, day and night scenes, device states and shared canvas dimensions. Whether he will publish further implementation details or report on family use over time remains unknown.
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Key Questions
What is the dashboard?
It is an illustrated view of Frolov’s house used as an interactive interface for Home Assistant. Device controls and status information appear as layers over the room artwork.
How did he make the illustration interactive?
Frolov used Home Assistant’s picture-elements card. He placed the house image in the background and layered device images, icons, sensor labels and conditional elements over it.
What did he ask the illustrator to provide?
His brief called for transparent images, day and night versions, separate artwork for device states and files exported on a shared canvas so components would line up. These were requirements for his project, not stated platform rules.
Did the new dashboard get his family to use Home Assistant?
Frolov says he designed it because his family did not want to use his previous dashboard. The report does not provide follow-up evidence or usage figures showing whether that changed.
How much did the illustration cost?
The report does not disclose the artist’s fee or the project’s total cost. It also does not name the illustrator.
Source: hn
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