A user shares how Claude helped build a smart home dashboard
A Reddit user shared how they used Claude to make a Home Assistant dashboard. They said they did not start by asking Claude to make a nice-looking screen. Instead, Claude helped clean up unused items, organize names and areas, study real usage patterns, and ask questions about how the user lives in the home.
Key points
- Claude was used first to clean up unused Home Assistant items and old setup clutter.
- The user organized areas, labels, and naming rules before working on the screen design.
- MCP tools were used to look at what the user actually used during the past week.
- Claude asked questions about how the user lives with the house before suggesting the layout.
- The final plan focused on glanceable information, one-tap actions, scenes, and stats.
Quick term guide
- Home Assistant
- Free, open-source software that connects and controls smart home devices from one central dashboard.
- dashboard
- A screen that shows key information like usage and cost in one place.
- Solo makers
- People who build and launch their own products or services entirely on their own.
- workflow
- A repeatable set of steps for getting a task done.
- screenshot
- A digital image that shows exactly what is visible on a computer screen.
- template
- A ready-made structure that can be reused for similar work.
- MCP tools
- Tools that let an AI agent use outside apps, files, or services.
- MCP tool
- A plug-in that lets an AI assistant like Claude directly run an action — such as reading a file or searching the web — by calling an external service