Home plan
The plan is Homer's main screen. The flat is drawn to scale, with lights, sensors, outlets and cameras on it. Tapping a light turns it on and off, tapping a room opens a card with all of its lights.
The state comes from Home Assistant. A light that's on tints its room warm and draws a halo under the light: the brighter it is, the wider the halo. That way the home reads from across the room, without labels.
Views
| View | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Plan | A flat plan from above. Works on any device |
| Isometric | Rooms are raised to wall height, with glass in the windows. Everything is tapped the same way as on the plan |
| 3D | The home with shadows, real light from the lights and the sun. Rotate with a finger, pinch to zoom, two fingers to pan |
| Walk | You're inside the home, in first person. Details in Walk |
| Coverage | A layer over the plan: what motion sensors see and where the Zigbee link is weak |
In the app one button cycles through the views: Plan → Isometric → 3D. The button label says where it will take you: “Show isometric”, “Show home in 3D”, “Back to flat plan”. On a phone the button is under the home name, on a tablet — in the header. Walk starts from 3D with the “walk” button.
On the web these are four tabs: Plan, Isometric, 3D, Walk. Editing and coverage on the web are only on the “Plan” tab.
Isometric and 3D
Walls in isometric and 3D are shown in four ways:
| What you see | |
|---|---|
| full | All walls at full height |
| auto cut | The wall between you and the room is lowered to a ledge, the far one stays whole. This is the default |
| cut | All walls are lowered to a ledge |
| none | No walls |
The isometric view can be rotated a quarter turn, on the web with the Rotate home button.
In 3D, tapping a room opens it. Tapping a device marker selects it rather than switching it. The exception is a device with its own 3D model, such as a TV: a tap switches it. A long press on a marker — on a light without its own model too — opens the device window. On the web, a right-click on an item in 3D and isometric opens its card, and for an item linked to a device — the quick control bar as well. The 3D tab on the web has Download home .glb — for Blender and other 3D apps.
The sun in 3D follows the real time and the home's location: near the horizon the light is orange, at noon it's white, at night the moon shines. The Time of day slider winds time by hand. Location and north are set in Settings → Home → Home location.
On the TV the views are controlled with the remote: the arrows rotate the home, “OK” changes the zoom.
Full screen
Expand plan to full screen hides the header, the room list and the system bars. Rooms open as a sheet from the bottom. The ☰ Menu button stays in the corner with the header actions: turn off all lights, music on speakers, energy, arrange mode, add device, coverage, theme. On the TV the remote's “menu” key opens it. To go back — Collapse plan.
Zoom
- Pinch with two fingers to zoom, drag with one finger to move the plan.
- Tapping a room fits it to the screen. That's the easiest way to hit a small bathroom on a phone.
- To go back to the whole plan — the Whole plan chip, another tap on the same room, or pinch out.
Markers and labels don't grow when you zoom in.
Rooms
The first tap on a room zooms in and highlights it. A bar appears at the bottom: name, “N of M on”, a switch for the whole room and a button to open the card. The card expands from the bar.
The card opens directly, without the bar, from the room list under the plan and on a long press on the floor. On a tablet the card is always in the right panel, on a phone — a sheet.
In the room card:
- the room's lights: lights, groups, brightness, White / Color;
- the pencil Rename room — all devices of the home will see the new name;
- Place device and Place an item;
- Set up room devices.
While an alarm is on, the bar and the card don't open.
Devices on the plan
| Device | How it's shown |
|---|---|
| Light | A filled marker — on, hollow — off. A color light paints the fill and halo with its color |
| Light group | A rounded square with a sliders icon among its lights |
| Temperature, humidity | A number at its point: “23.4 °C” |
| Motion, presence | A cool room highlight when triggered |
| Door or window opening | A mark on the opening itself that is open |
| Leak, smoke, gas | An alarm over the whole screen |
| Outlet | A marker, switched with a tap. Not counted in “N of M on” and “turn off everything” |
| Camera | The latest frame next to the camera, refreshed every 10 minutes. A tap — live view with sound |
Homer takes the sensor type from Home Assistant. If a cheap Zigbee sensor has an empty type, fix it on the device screen.
An alarm can be collapsed but not closed: while the sensor is wet, “Home alarm” stays in the header. The next leak opens full screen again.
Which lights are in which rooms and which HA entities they point to is in Settings → Devices → Devices on the plan. Marker size is in Appearance.
Lights from the plan
| Action | What happens |
|---|---|
| Tap a light | Turn it on or off |
| Tap a group | Turn the whole group on or off. It turns on at the level it was turned off at |
| Long press on a marker | The device or group window; on the web — the device card on the right |
| Right-click on a marker (web) | The device quick control bar at the cursor |
| Switch in the room bar | Turn the whole room on or off |
| Turn off all lights in the header | Turn off the whole home |
There's no double tap on purpose: otherwise a normal tap would fire with a delay.
Device window
A long press on a marker opens the device window — the same on a phone and a tablet. For a group its lights are visible right away. There are also Set up device and Group members.
Light group
A group has one slider for all lights. It controls not each light's brightness but the overall light: first all lights dim together, and near the bottom they go out one by one. Under the slider you can see the step: “3 of 5 on · 76% each”. If that gets in the way, the group has the Dim lights one by one setting: turn it off, and the lights stay on all the time, only brightness changes.
- White / Color, temperature, hue and saturation — for a group that's on, if the lights support it. Color goes only to lights that are on.
- Effects: “Sunrise”, “Sunset”, “Night”, “Reading”, “Movie”, “Candle” and others. While an effect drives the light, the sliders are locked, with a Take back control button next to them.
- Changed one light separately — the group goes into “Manual mode”: the shared slider doesn't force its layout. Touch the shared slider or toggle — manual mode is off.
The home overview has an All lights card: one toggle and the same effects. New lights join it by themselves.
Alice and wall switches
Alice and physical switches reach the lights through Home Assistant and know nothing about group steps. For “Alice, brightness 20%” to also turn lights off one by one, the group needs a virtual light in Home Assistant: the ha/homer_living_group.yaml package, instructions in the file header. While that light exists and is added to the group, the app controls it rather than counting the steps itself.
Protection from accidental taps
Any device can have protection turned on. Then before switching, the app asks “Turn off “…”?” — from the plan, from the room card and from the device window.
| Protection | Where it applies |
|---|---|
| Personal | Only on this screen. Removed in the device settings |
| “Not everyone controls it” | On all screens of the home. A guest and someone with lights-only access can't switch such a device at all |
Bulk commands — “turn off everything”, the room switch — don't touch protected devices. But a light inside a group goes out with the group, and a Home Assistant scene switches everything recorded in it.
Coverage
In the app — the Sensor and Zigbee coverage button in the tablet header or the Coverage item in the “More” menu on a phone. On the web — the Coverage button on the “Plan” tab.
- View cones of motion and presence sensors, clipped by walls. Angle and range come from the sensor model, 110° and 7 m by default.
- Hatching — places nobody sees.
- Weak Zigbee devices: link below 60.
- The hint “a router would help here”.
The layer is drawn on the plan and in isometric, not in 3D.
Link quality
Settings → Debug → Demo and debugging → Debug mode. A ring appears around each marker:
| Ring | Link |
|---|---|
| Green | Good |
| Yellow | At the limit |
| Red | Commands get lost or crawl |
| Dashed | The device is silent |
The worse the link, the thicker the ring. That way you can see where to put a repeater. This is only in the app.
Floors
In a multi-storey home a floor switcher appears above the plan: Floor up / Floor down arrows and floor tiles, the top one first. A floor without a name is labelled “Floor N”. On the web floors are switched with chips.
- Under the flat plan the floor below shows as a thin outline, and stairs from below as dashes.
- In 3D the home is visible whole: everything above the selected floor is translucent.
- Stairs can be straight, with a turn, or with a U-turn. Steps are counted automatically. You can walk the stairs in the walk.
- Roof: gable, hip, shed, flat or pyramid.
How to draw floors and stairs is in Home editing.