FridgeBoard and Home Assistant

FridgeBoard is ready to go on its own. If your home runs Home Assistant, it plugs right in and gets even better.

What it can do

Sensors and buttons tick things off. A door sensor on the drawer where the lead lives starts the dog’s walk, and ends it when the lead goes back. A button by the food marks a pet fed. A button on the pill bottle marks a medicine given. A sensor on the toothbrush holder ticks Brush teeth in Bedtime.
Lights and sensors on the shared screen. Swipe across a light to dim it, tap to turn it on or off, or start Movie night. Handy for anyone who finds a voice assistant or a phone app hard to use.
FridgeBoard tells Home Assistant what happened. A routine finished, a chore ticked, a walk, a feed or a medicine: each one is an event your automations can use. Dim the hall light when Bedtime is done.
Your automations do things on FridgeBoard. Put “The washing’s done” on the shared screens, add to any list, or tick a chore, a job or a routine step.

The FridgeBoard app in Home Assistant calls out to FridgeBoard. Nothing in your home is opened to the internet, FridgeBoard never gets your Home Assistant address or a token, and only what you tick in the app is ever sent.

Setting it up

You need Home Assistant OS, which most homes use. If Home Assistant’s Settings has Apps in it (or Add-ons on older versions), you have it.

Add the FridgeBoard app. On your phone, open FridgeBoard, go to Settings › Home Assistant and tap Add to Home Assistant. If that shows 404, add it by hand: in Home Assistant go to Settings › Apps › Install app, tap ⋮ › Repositories, and add https://github.com/villmatt/fridgeboard-ha.
Install it. Tap FridgeBoard Bridge, then Install, then Start, and turn on Show in sidebar.
Link it. Open FridgeBoard in Home Assistant’s sidebar. On your phone, tap Get a code and type it in.
Tick what FridgeBoard may use. Sensors and buttons that do something on FridgeBoard, and lights, switches, scenes, sensors and people for the shared screen. Nothing is ticked at first.
Say what each one does. Back on the phone, under Settings › Home Assistant, tap + by When something happens. Pick the sensor or button, then what it does: start and end a walk, mark a pet fed, give a medicine, tick a chore or a routine step, or wake the sleep screen.

Lights and sensors on the shared screen

Everything you tick in the FridgeBoard app in Home Assistant that can be a tile shows up on the shared screen. Open ☰ › Arrange Home and tap +. Under Smart home there’s:

A Smart home card. Make it any size. Its ⋯ fills its pages: add a light, switch, scene or sensor, pick its size, and add more pages as you need them. Swipe the card sideways to change pages.
Each one on its own, for a light that belongs somewhere else on Home. It can be 1 by 1, 2 by 1 or 1 by 2.

On a tile:

A light that dims: swipe across it to set the level (up and down when it’s tall), and all the way down to turn it off. Tap it to turn it on or off. It comes back on at the level it had before. A coloured bulb’s tile shows its colour.
A switch or a light that doesn’t dim: tap anywhere to turn it on or off. A fan spins while it’s on.
A scene or a script: tap it to run it.
A sensor: shows its reading, like the temperature outside or whether the back door is open.
A person or a tracker: shows where they are: Home, Away or the zone they’re in, like Work or School. Only the zone’s name leaves Home Assistant, never a map position. Needs version 0.5.0 of the app.

Its name, icon and colour. Hold a tile for a moment to give it its own name and icon, and pick its colour when it’s on: match the light, or one of ten. You can set the same things in the FridgeBoard app in Home Assistant, under each one you tick, and either place shows the other’s changes.

Nothing under Smart home? Nothing’s been ticked yet that can be a tile. Open FridgeBoard in Home Assistant’s sidebar and tick a light, switch, scene, sensor or person.

Locks, garage doors and alarms can’t be tiles. If a tile says to update the app, open Home Assistant’s Settings › Apps › FridgeBoard Bridge and tap Update.

Blueprints

A blueprint is an automation with the hard part done. Tap a button to add it to your Home Assistant, then fill in the form.

FridgeBoard: when something happens. Do something when a routine is finished, a chore is ticked, a walk starts or ends, a pet is fed or a medicine is given. Pick just one routine or one person if you like.

Add to Home Assistant

FridgeBoard: message the shared screens. Put a message on the shared screens when something changes, like “The washing’s done” when the washing machine turns off, or “Someone’s at the door” when the doorbell’s pressed.

Add to Home Assistant

Then go to Settings › Automations & scenes › Blueprints, tap the blueprint, fill it in and save.

Your own automations

Every time something happens on FridgeBoard, Home Assistant gets a fridgeboard_event. To use one as a trigger in the automation editor:

Go to Settings › Automations & scenes, tap Create automation, then Create new automation.
Tap Add trigger, search for Manual event and pick it.
In Event type, type fridgeboard_event.
In Event data, type what to match, one per line. For Ben finishing Bedtime:
```
type: routine_finished
routine: Bedtime
person: Ben
```
Leave out a line to match any. Just type: chore_done fires for every chore.
Tap Add action and pick what happens, like Light › Turn off. Save it.

To see exactly what each one sends, open FridgeBoard in Home Assistant’s sidebar. Its page shows the last 20, with their data.

type	What happened	Its data
`routine_started`	The first step of a routine was ticked	routine, person
`routine_finished`	Every step was done	routine, person, minutes
`chore_done`	A chore or a job was ticked	task, kind, person, coins
`walk_started`	A walk started	pets, person
`walk_ended`	A walk ended	pets, minutes, person
`pet_fed`	A pet was fed	pet, meal, person
`medicine_given`	A medicine was given	medicine, for, person

Every event also says via: the shared screen’s name, phone, or Home Assistant.

Asking FridgeBoard to do things

An automation can ask FridgeBoard to do something with a fridgeboard event. In the editor, tap Add action, search for Manual event, type fridgeboard as the Event type, and the data below.

action	Data	Does
`message`	text, screen, urgent	Puts a message on the shared screens until someone taps Got it
`shopping`	item	Adds it to Shopping
`list`	list, item	Adds it to that list
`chore`	task	Ticks the chore
`job`	job	Ticks a job (one with no set day)
`step`	routine, step, person	Ticks a step in a routine
`medicine`	medicine, for	Gives the dose due now
`feed`	pet	Marks the pet fed
`walk`	pet	Starts the walk, or ends it if it’s going
`wake`	screen	Wakes a screen from its sleep screen

Add person to any of them to say who did it. Names are as FridgeBoard shows them, and capitals don’t matter. Leave out screen for every screen. For example:

action: message
text: The washing's done

If a name isn’t found, the FridgeBoard page in Home Assistant’s sidebar says so under Lately.

A step only Home Assistant ticks. On the phone, open the routine, tap the step and turn on Only Home Assistant ticks it. Then a tap on the shared screen won’t tick it, and only the sensor or button will. An adult’s phone can still put it right.

FridgeBoard inside a dashboard

On a wall tablet that runs Home Assistant, a dashboard can show the shared screen beside your cameras and floor plan.

On your phone, go to Settings › Home Assistant and turn on Show inside a dashboard.
In Home Assistant, edit the dashboard and add a Webpage card with the address https://fridgeboard.me/board.
The first time, it shows a code. Connect it like any shared screen, from the phone’s Settings › Screens.

Questions

When should I link it?

Whenever you like. FridgeBoard is up and running on its own from the first day, and linking Home Assistant adds all of this on top. The Home Assistant community is the best place to learn it.

The Add to Home Assistant button shows 404

Add the app by hand, as in Setting it up. The button needs Home Assistant’s “My” links. Adding a line that says my: to configuration.yaml and restarting turns them back on.

What does FridgeBoard see?

Only what you tick in the FridgeBoard app in Home Assistant, and only whether each one is on or off (or its reading). A tap on the Smart home card can only turn on, turn off or run what’s on the card.

Still stuck?

Email hello@fridgeboard.me, or ask in the FridgeBoard community on Facebook.