beacon

Your family's daily signal

Beacon is a free, open-source family command center for wall-mounted displays. It runs as a Home Assistant add-on or standalone — turn any tablet or spare screen into a beautiful family dashboard with no subscription fees and no cloud dependency.

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Features

• Weekly Calendar -- Beautiful week view with color-coded family members; supports HA calendar entities and a built-in local calendar
• Grocery & Shopping Lists -- AnyList, Home Assistant Shopping List, and local list support
• Task / Todo Lists -- Home Assistant todo entities and local task lists with dashboard integration
• Chore Tracking -- Assign chores, track streaks, and celebrate completions with a family leaderboard
• Music Controls -- Control Music Assistant, Home Assistant media players, and browse playlists from the display
• Photo Slideshow -- Display family photos between interactions
• Timer / Countdown -- On-screen timer for cooking, homework, and more
• Screen Saver -- Automatic screen saver with clock overlay
• Weather -- Real-time weather from your Home Assistant weather entity
• 8+ Themes -- Skylight, Midnight, Midnight Light, Nord, Dracula, Monokai, Rose, Forest, and dark mode (automatic or manual)
• Family Management -- Per-member colors, calendar filtering, and PIN-based profiles
• Meal Planning -- Meal plan bar with weekly dinner overview
• Standalone Mode -- Works without Home Assistant using local calendars, lists, and tasks

Installation

Home Assistant Add-on (Recommended)

The fastest way to get started is the one-click button:

Or install manually:

1. In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Add-ons > Add-on Store
2. Click the overflow menu (...) and select Repositories
3. Add: https://github.com/asachs01/beacon
4. Find Beacon in the store and click Install
5. Start the add-on and click Open Web UI

Tip: For the best experience on a wall-mounted tablet, enable Show in sidebar in the add-on's Info tab so Beacon is one tap away.

Standalone / Development

git clone https://github.com/asachs01/beacon.git
cd beacon
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser. Beacon works fully without Home Assistant — calendars, lists, and tasks are stored locally in the browser.

Configuration

Beacon is configured through the Home Assistant add-on options panel:

Option	Default	Description
weather_entity	weather.home	Home Assistant weather entity ID

Additional settings (themes, family members, chores, calendar sources, list providers) are configured through the Beacon UI itself.

Why Beacon?

• Free & open source — no subscriptions, no cloud accounts, no vendor lock-in
• Private by design — all data stays on your network; nothing phones home
• Home Assistant native — deep integration with calendars, media players, lists, weather, and more
• Works standalone — built-in local calendar, task lists, and shopping lists work without HA
• Fully themeable — 8+ themes with automatic dark mode
• Voice & LLM ready — MCP server, voice API, and HA custom sentences for hands-free control

Built With