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HomePlate

A Trmnl and Home Assistant E-Ink Dashboard for Inkplate e-paper boards.

Supported Boards

  • Inkplate 5
  • Inkplate 5v2
  • Inkplate 6
  • Inkplate 6v2
  • Inkplate 6 Plus
  • Inkplate 6 Plusv2
  • Inkplate 6 Flick
  • Inkplate 10
  • Inkplate 10v2

Home Assistant

Activities

HomePlate supports multiple display modes called activities. See activities.md for screenshots of each.

  • Home Assistant — Display a Home Assistant dashboard screenshot
  • Trmnl — Display a Trmnl mashup
  • Guest WiFi — Show a QR code for guests to join your WiFi
  • Info — Device info screen (battery, IP, version, etc.)
  • Message — Display text messages sent via MQTT

Features

  • Trmnl support
  • Display Home Assistant dashboards on a beautiful e-ink display
  • Display WiFi QR Codes for guests/friends to connect to home/guest wifi
  • Display messages directly from Home Assistant over MQTT
  • Makes full use of the ESP32's cores with FreeRTOS
  • Reports sensor data to Home Assistant over MQTT (Temperature, Battery, WiFi, etc.)
  • Change activity displayed via MQTT command (HASS dashboard, WiFi QR, Stats, text message, etc.)
  • Syncs RTC over NTP
  • Touch-pad buttons can start activities and wake from sleep
  • 1 month+ battery life!
  • Low battery warning displayed and sent over MQTT
  • Test display output directly from the config portal (message, WiFi QR, info screen)
  • OTA updates over WiFi
  • Partial screen updates in grayscale mode.
  • Power saving sleep mode.
  • Display any image from MQTT command
  • Supports PNG, BMP, and JPEG images

Installation

Web Installer (recommended)

The easiest way to install HomePlate is using the Web Installer — no development tools required, just a USB cable and Chrome or Edge. Pre-built firmware is also available on the Releases page.

  1. Connect your Inkplate to your computer via USB.
  2. Visit the Web Installer in Chrome or Edge.
  3. Select your board variant.
  4. Click Install HomePlate and select the serial port.

After flashing, the device will create a HomePlate-Setup WiFi network for configuration — see the Setup Guide for next steps.

PlatformIO (for developers)

If you prefer to build from source, see the Development Guide for PlatformIO build and flash instructions.

Setup

HomePlate is configured through a WiFi captive portal — no config files required. Flash the firmware, connect to the HomePlate-Setup WiFi network, and configure your settings through the web interface.

See setup.md for detailed setup instructions, settings reference, and timezone configuration.

To change settings later, hold the wake button during boot to re-open the config portal. On the original Inkplate 6, short GPIO 13 to GND during boot instead.

Tips for mounting your Inkplate in a picture frame, including adding an external USB-C port.

Set the TRMNL ID and TRMNL Token in the WiFi setup portal, and set the Default Activity to Trmnl.

The Alias Plugin can be used to display images from your local network, such as a Home Assistant Dashboard.

See trmnl.md for more information.

Home Assistant Dashboard

Create a Home Assistant Dashboard you want to display. I recommend using the kiosk-mode, card-mod and layout-card plugins to customize and tune the dashboard for your display.

Setup the Screenshot Home Assistant using Puppeteer service to create screenshots of the desired dashboards for the HomePlate. This also works with the Trmnl Alias plugin.

See hass.md and dashboard.md for additional details.

Upgrading

Update via Web Installer (recommended)

The simplest way to upgrade is via the Web Installer:

  1. Connect your Inkplate to your computer via USB.
  2. Visit the Web Installer in Chrome or Edge.
  3. Flash the latest firmware — your settings will be preserved.

WiFi Manager OTA

You can update the firmware over WiFi without a computer connected, using a firmware .bin file from the Releases page:

  1. Download the firmware .bin for your board from the Releases page.
  2. Boot the device into setup mode by holding the wake button during boot (on the original Inkplate 6, short GPIO 13 to GND).
  3. Connect to the HomePlate-Setup WiFi network.
  4. Upload the new firmware through the captive portal's firmware update page.

PlatformIO

For developers building from source, HomePlate can also be flashed via PlatformIO over USB or OTA. See the Development Guide for details.

Development

See the Development Guide for building from source, PlatformIO setup, debugging, tests, and advanced compile-time configuration.