Outdoor Dashboard: Garden, Gate, Pedestrian Gate, Irrigation, Weather, Tank, and Diagnostics
Outdoor Dashboard: Garden, Gate, Pedestrian Gate, Irrigation, Weather, Tank, and Diagnostics
Thirteen lessons have produced more than a dozen helpers, scripts, and automations. This lesson gathers all of it into one dashboard, organized by what you check every day versus what you only check during a failure.
Budget around 70 minutes. I'm assuming you already know the dashboard editor from Module 13. This lesson is mostly card-by-card configuration, not new automation YAML.
Layout Principle: Status, Control, Diagnostics
We split the outdoor dashboard into three sections, ordered by how often you'll actually check them. Status at the top: what you check daily, in one glance. Control in the middle: buttons you use a few times a week. Diagnostics at the bottom: sensor battery levels, last update times, service modes, checked rarely, but it has to be easy to reach when something isn't working.
Section 1: Status
type: entities
title: "Outdoor status"
entities:
- entity: input_select.garden_mode
name: "Garden mode"
- entity: binary_sensor.driveway_gate_closed
name: "Driveway gate"
- entity: binary_sensor.garage_door_closed
name: "Garage door"
- entity: binary_sensor.pedestrian_gate_closed
name: "Pedestrian gate"
- entity: sensor.tank_level_pct
name: "Rainwater level"
- entity: binary_sensor.rain_detected
name: "Rain"
- entity: sensor.wind_speed
name: "Wind"
- entity: sensor.outdoor_temperature
name: "Outdoor temperature"Section 2: Control
type: grid
columns: 2
title: "Control"
cards:
- type: button
name: "Open driveway gate"
icon: mdi:gate-open
tap_action:
action: call-service
service: script.driveway_gate_open_from_confirmed_closed
confirmation:
text: "Are you sure you want to open the driveway gate?"
- type: button
name: "Open pedestrian gate"
icon: mdi:door-open
tap_action:
action: call-service
service: script.pedestrian_gate_send_strike_pulse
confirmation:
text: "Are you sure you want to open the pedestrian gate?"
- type: button
name: "Pause irrigation 24h"
icon: mdi:pause-circle
tap_action:
action: call-service
service: script.irrigation_pause_24h
- type: button
name: "Secure garden before storm"
icon: mdi:weather-lightning-rainy
tap_action:
action: call-service
service: script.secure_garden_before_storm
confirmation:
text: "Retract the awning and pause irrigation?"Notice that the buttons opening the driveway gate and the pedestrian gate carry confirmation right on the card: this is the concrete realization of the "deliberate human confirmation" principle from Lessons 5 and 6, visible at the interface level, not just buried in automation code.
Section 3: Diagnostics
type: entities
title: "Outdoor diagnostics"
entities:
- entity: input_boolean.outdoor_automation_enabled
name: "Outdoor automation"
- entity: input_boolean.outdoor_alerts_enabled
name: "Outdoor alerts"
- type: section
label: "Sensor batteries"
- entity: sensor.battery_rain_sensor
name: "Battery: rain sensor"
- entity: sensor.battery_mailbox_reed
name: "Battery: mailbox"
- entity: sensor.battery_lawn_soil_probe
name: "Battery: lawn soil probe"
- type: section
label: "Last update"
- entity: sensor.weather_station_last_update
name: "Weather station"The diagnostics section is your first stop when something "suddenly stops working": a dead wireless sensor battery is the most common cause of silent failures in outdoor installs, far more common than a bug in an automation.
Mobile View vs. Desktop View
On a phone, the diagnostics section eats up valuable space during everyday use: consider hiding it under a separate tab or moving it to the end, using what you learned about conditional card visibility from Module 15. The status and control sections should fit without scrolling on a typical phone screen.
Why It's Worth Keeping the Outdoor Dashboard Separate from the Home Dashboard
A separate outdoor view, rather than dropped in as an extra section on the main home dashboard, has one practical advantage: opened less often, it clutters the everyday Start screen from Module 13 less, while staying fully accessible the moment you actually need it, during a storm, say, or before leaving for vacation.
Customizing the Dashboard by Season
The outdoor dashboard built in this lesson doesn't have to look the same year-round: in winter, the irrigation section loses relevance (the system's off), while the frost and pipe-protection sensors from Lesson 12 gain it. It's worth considering conditional cards, showing different dashboard sections depending on the season, instead of keeping every card visible all the time regardless of its current usefulness.
Integrating with Phone Widgets from Module 16
The most important information on the outdoor dashboard, like gate state or a low-tank alert, is worth mirroring as a home-screen widget on your phone, following the patterns from Module 16. That shortens the path from noticing a problem to reacting: instead of opening the Home Assistant app and navigating to the outdoor dashboard, key information is visible right away, with no extra taps.
Push Alerts vs. Static Dashboard Cards: When to Use Which
| Situation | Right channel |
|---|---|
| Critical, needs an immediate reaction (gate open overnight) | a push alert, not just a dashboard card |
| Informational, to review when convenient (tank level at 60%) | a static dashboard card, with no interrupting notification |
| Diagnostic (a sensor's signal strength) | a card in the diagnostics section, checked only when you suspect a problem |
An Outdoor Event History Gathered in One Place
Beyond the current status shown on the dashboard, it's worth considering a dedicated history card, chronologically collecting the most important outdoor events from recent days: gate openings, irrigation runs, weather alerts. A history card (a history-graph or a logbook, both built into Home Assistant) filtered down to outdoor entities only gives you a quick overview of what happened outside, without digging through the whole system's general event log.
An Outdoor Dashboard on a Smartwatch: A Condensed View of Key Information
For household members using a smartwatch paired with the Home Assistant app, it's worth preparing a heavily trimmed version of the outdoor dashboard: just gate state and any critical alert, with no full diagnostics section that would be unreadable on a small watch face. This condensed view, instantly available with no need to pull out a phone, is especially useful while working in the garden, when the phone stays inside.
Color and Icon Conventions on the Outdoor Dashboard for Quick Recognition
Using colors consistently on the outdoor dashboard (green for a safe state, red for an alert, yellow for something that needs attention) lets you assess the situation in one glance, without reading every label individually. The same color convention, applied consistently across every dashboard throughout the course, builds an intuitive, coherent visual language for the whole smart home system.
How to Test This Lesson
1. Open the dashboard on your phone and confirm the status section fits with no scrolling.
2. Tap every control button and confirm the confirmation dialog appears.
3. Confirm every battery entity in the diagnostics section shows a current, sensible value.
Common Mistakes
Everything on one screen with no hierarchy: hard to find what actually matters right now.
No confirmation on physical-access buttons: an accidental tap opens the gate.
Ignoring the diagnostics section: a dead battery caught only after a week of sensor silence.
Practical Task
☐ Build the outdoor dashboard with three sections: status, control, diagnostics.
☐ Add confirmation to every button touching a gate or the pedestrian gate.
☐ Check the mobile view and, if needed, hide diagnostics under a separate tab.
Key Takeaways
Three sections: status, control, diagnostics, ordered by how often you use them.
Confirmation on the dashboard is the visible realization of the safety principle from earlier lessons.
Battery diagnostics is the most common source of silent outdoor failures.
What's Next
Next lesson: Outdoor Failures: No Signal, Water in the Box, Frost, Battery, Internet, Power, and Seasonal Tests. A systematic review of what can fail and how to be ready for it.
