u/Pristine_Basis_6470

This is a live Home Assistant dashboard I’ve been building for my house in Nova Scotia.

It started after Hurricane Fiona, when we were without power for around 9–12 days and some people nearby were out even longer. During that outage, one of the most frustrating parts was having information scattered everywhere: power outage maps, weather alerts, road conditions, battery levels, cameras, internet status, and local updates were all in different apps or websites.

So I started turning my Home Assistant dashboard into more of a live “storm board” than a normal smart home dashboard.

It shows local outage data, affected customers, weather alerts, radar, wind/rain data from my weather station, highway cameras, Starlink status, security camera status, and battery backup levels all in one place.

It’s intentionally busy. The goal was not minimalism, but quick situational awareness from across the room during storms and outages. Most of the dashboard uses a traffic-light style system: green is fine, yellow means watch it, red means something probably needs attention.

I’m still tweaking the layout and readability, but this has become one of my favourite practical data projects so far.

This might be a little different from the usual prepper post, but it came from the same place.

After Hurricane Fiona, we were without power for around 9–12 days here in Nova Scotia, and some people around us were out even longer. That storm really made me realize how messy it is trying to keep track of everything during a long outage. Power company website, weather alerts, road conditions, cameras, battery levels, internet, Starlink, random local updates… it all ends up spread across a bunch of apps and websites.

So I started building this Home Assistant dashboard as a kind of “what’s going on right now?” screen for the house.

It’s not meant to be a clean little phone dashboard. It’s busy on purpose. I wanted something I could throw on a TV or wall display and glance at from across the room to see what needs attention.

Right now it shows:

• NS Power outages, affected customers, markers, and outage map
• Environment Canada alerts and weather
• Weather radar / rain map
• Local emergency / fire ticker
• Ecowitt weather station info like temp, pressure, rain, wind, and gusts
• Nova Scotia highway traffic cameras
• Starlink Mini stats like ping, download/upload, power draw, connectivity, usage, heating, and last restart
• Tapo H500 / security camera status
• EcoFlow battery banks with battery %, stored kWh, total load, and output draw
• Calendar, sunrise/sunset, and lunar phase

Most of it uses a basic traffic-light idea. Green is fine, yellow means keep an eye on it, red means I should probably check something. During a storm or outage, I don’t want to read every tiny number. I just want the screen to make the important stuff obvious.

The power side is the bigger prepper part for me. My Starlink Mini is running on DC power through my EcoFlow setup, and the security cameras are also being kept on DC instead of regular AC outlets. With the batteries and a Bluetti Charger 1 alternator charger in my vehicle, I can usually get around 24–30 hours of runtime depending on load and how much I’m topping things back up.

This doesn’t replace the boring important stuff like water, food, flashlights, heat, radios, etc. It’s more of an information layer. During Fiona, not knowing what was going on was one of the most annoying parts, so this is my attempt at putting the important info in one place.

I’m still tweaking the layout, opacity, font sizes, and how readable it is from across the room, but it has turned into one of my favourite Home Assistant projects.

I’m including a short video/screen recording of it running, plus the YAML in case anyone wants to pick through it or borrow ideas.

Dashboard YAML:
https://pastebin.com/3NMqkyM6

Configuration YAML:
https://pastebin.com/7v14MSRB

It’s probably overbuilt and definitely not minimalist, but that was kind of the point. I wanted something more like a household storm board than a normal smart home dashboard.