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Bridge Integration

The HomeTiles Bridge is the Home Assistant side of the project: a custom integration that pushes entity states, icons, sensor history, weather forecasts, and energy data to the displays via MQTT, and executes the light/switch/media/scene commands coming back.

Requirements

  • Home Assistant 2025.11 or newer
  • An MQTT broker configured in Home Assistant (see the setup guide)

Installation

  1. HACS → Integrations → three-dot menu → Custom repositories
  2. Repository: https://github.com/GalusPeres/HomeTiles-Bridge, category Integration, click Add
  3. Search for HomeTiles Bridge in HACS and download it
  4. Restart Home Assistant

Updates arrive through HACS like for any other custom integration.

Manual

Copy the custom_components/tab5_lvgl folder from the repository into your Home Assistant custom_components directory and restart Home Assistant.

Adding A Panel

Add the integration once via Settings → Devices & Services → Add Integration:

Field Meaning
Base topic MQTT namespace of the panel — must match the display's base topic (default tab5). Unique per panel.
HA prefix Topic prefix for entity state publishing (default ha/statestream) — same on all panels and displays.
Device name / manufacturer / model Optional metadata shown in the device registry.

Additional panels are discovered automatically: every display announces itself over MQTT when it connects. The first announcement links up with your manually created entry; any further display gets its own integration entry without manual steps.

Configuration

Open the integration entry and click Configure. Three sections:

Panel Settings

Base topic, HA prefix, and device metadata — same fields as above.

Entity Configuration

Select which entities the displays may use:

  • Sensors — any entity whose state you want on sensor tiles
  • Weather — weather entities for weather tiles/forecasts
  • Lights / Switches / Media players — controllable from the displays
  • Scenes & scripts — each selected entry gets an auto-generated alias (used by scene tiles); you can also map aliases manually in the text box, one alias=entity_id per line

Entity selections are shared across all panels — every display can use every entity configured here.

Energy Dashboard

Enable electricity, gas, and/or water. The displays' energy tiles pull their statistics from the Home Assistant Energy Dashboard, so that must be configured first. These checkboxes are synchronized across all panel entries.

MQTT Topics Reference

For debugging with an MQTT client (topic layout, {id} = panel device id):

Topic Direction Description
<base>/stat/connected Display → HA Connection status
tab5_lvgl/config/{id}/bridge/apply HA → Display Full configuration push
tab5_lvgl/config/{id}/bridge/icons HA → Display Lightweight icon updates
tab5_lvgl/config/{id}/history/* Both Sensor history request/response
tab5_lvgl/config/{id}/weather/* Both Weather forecast request/response
tab5_lvgl/config/{id}/energy/* Both Energy data request/response
<base>/cmnd/light Display → HA Light control commands
<base>/cmnd/switch Display → HA Switch control commands
<base>/cmnd/media Display → HA Media player commands
<base>/cmnd/scene Display → HA Scene/script activation

Entity states are published under <HA prefix>/<entity>/... by the bridge itself — Home Assistant's MQTT Statestream integration is not required.