I Hired An Illustrator To Draw My House. Now It’s My Home Assistant Dashboard

TL;DR

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Anton Frolov commissioned an illustrator to draw his house and turned the artwork into a Home Assistant dashboard with animated device states and controls. He says the custom interface was designed to make the system more appealing and usable for his family; the source does not report whether household use increased.

Anton Frolov has turned custom illustrations of his home into an interactive Home Assistant dashboard, placing device controls and status indicators over drawings of the rooms and garden. In a report about the project, he says the aim was to make the smart-home interface appealing enough for his family to use, after household members avoided his earlier dashboard.

Frolov says he had been automating his home with Home Assistant, an open-source smart-home platform, for about a year. Many routines ran automatically, including switching off air conditioners when everyone left and adjusting the sprinkler schedule according to weather. Some tasks still required a person to use an app, however. Garden lights were one example: a timer switched them off, and blinking lights signaled that the timer was about to expire.

He considered a physical switch but said it would not address every situation, and some devices were easier to operate through an app. Frolov settled on a house floor plan as the basis for a new interface. Instead of making the artwork himself, he commissioned an environment artist whose portfolio and style suited the project. The artist received an architectural plan, room photographs, visual references, examples of dashboards and a technical brief.

That brief covered how the artwork would be used in the interface. Frolov says he requested transparent image files, separate day and night versions, and individual layers for devices, with images representing off and on states. He recommends having each component exported on the same-size canvas and positioned consistently, so the layers line up when assembled. For his garden, he says he needed a third version showing the nighttime scene with the lights on.

A Dashboard Built Around the Home

The project shows one way a smart-home interface can be designed around a household’s actual layout rather than a list of devices. Frolov’s report describes an interface where the illustration carries most of the visual design, while controls and status readings appear over the relevant rooms. He says this was intended to address a practical problem: other people in the household did not want to use the dashboard he had before.

For Home Assistant users, the approach also illustrates how a familiar floor-plan image can serve as more than decoration. Device states can be shown directly in the relevant part of the house, making it easier to see what is on and interact with it. The report does not provide usage figures or establish that the new design changed how often family members used the system; it records Frolov’s goal and implementation.

From Automation to Illustration

Frolov says his earlier setup aimed to make routine tasks happen without anyone needing to open an app. The remaining controls mattered because automatic rules do not cover every choice: residents may want to extend a garden-light timer or start the sprinkler manually. He describes the existing Home Assistant dashboard as one that his family did not want to use, prompting him to look for a more engaging interface.

He considered both 3D floor plans and pixel-art designs before choosing an illustrator. In his account, some 3D dashboards used static models with interactive icons layered over them, while pixel art would have required him to draw the scene or assemble sprites himself. The commissioned artwork was intended to depict the home while also meeting the practical requirements of an interactive display.

“For the first time, it’s one the whole family actually enjoys using.”

— Anton Frolov, the report’s author

Adoption and Setup Details

The source report does not give a publication date, the cost of the commission, the illustrator’s name, or the time required to complete the artwork. It also does not quantify whether the new dashboard led more family members to operate smart-home devices themselves. Frolov’s statement that the family enjoys using it is his account of the result.

The supplied source text ends during its explanation of how Home Assistant displays changing device images. It identifies the picture-elements card and mentions image, icon, state-label and conditional elements, but does not provide the full implementation details or a complete configuration. The precise setup may vary with the devices and artwork files used.

Using the Artwork in Home Assistant

Frolov’s account describes placing the house illustration as the background of Home Assistant’s picture-elements card, then positioning device images and status information over it. He says the card can use different images for device states, with icons, labels and conditional elements supporting the interface.

The report does not announce a product release or a later milestone. Its practical next step for someone following the same route is to prepare the floor plan, reference material and technical specifications before commissioning artwork, then align the exported layers in the dashboard. Frolov advises requesting animated WebP files directly if animations are needed; he says he initially requested PNG sprite sheets and converted the frames himself.

Key Questions

What did Anton Frolov build?

He used custom illustrations of his home as the basis for an interactive Home Assistant dashboard, with device states, controls and readings placed over the drawings.

Why did he commission an illustrator?

Frolov says his family did not want to use his earlier dashboard. He hoped a floor-plan interface built around artwork of their home would be more appealing to use.

Which Home Assistant feature did he use?

He identifies the built-in picture-elements card. The artwork serves as the background, while image, icon, state-label and conditional elements can be positioned over it.

What should be included in an illustrator’s technical brief?

Frolov’s brief included transparent images, day and night versions, separate device layers for different states, and exports on a shared canvas so elements stay aligned. He also supplied a floor plan, room photographs and visual references.

Did the new dashboard make the whole family use Home Assistant?

Frolov says it is the first dashboard his family enjoys using, but the report gives no usage measurements or other evidence to quantify how household adoption changed.

Source: hn