Home Assistant: 10 Add-ons Worth Installing

1. Flightradar24 — live flights overhead on your dashboard

Pulls every aircraft inside a radius of your house and gives you a radar/map card plus a list of callsigns, origin and destination. Free, no subscription. Two repos: the integration does the data, a separate custom card does the pretty radar.

Integration — AlexandrErohin/home-assistant-flightradar24 Card — Springvar/flightradar24-card

1. HACS → search "Flightradar24" → Download → Restart. It is in the default store, so no custom repository needed for the integration.
2. Settings → Devices & Services → + Add Integration → Flightradar24. Set the monitoring latitude/longitude (defaults to your HA home location).
3. Raise the radius — the tweak he called out. Reopen the integration's Configure screen and change Radius from the default (he had 1,000, which only caught planes literally over the house) to 5,000. Read the unit off the field label before you type; wider radius = more flights on the map and a busier list.
4. Install the card: HACS → three dots → Custom repositories → https://github.com/Springvar/home-assistant-flightradar24-card → type Dashboard → Add. Then search Flightradar24 Card → Download → Restart.
5. Add the card with your coordinates — the second tweak. Dashboard → Edit → + Add card → Show code editor → paste the YAML below and put your lat/lon in. Miss this and the radar renders wrong or empty. The location must sit inside the area the integration is fetching.
6. Stop it bloating your database — the third tweak. Add the recorder block below to configuration.yaml, then restart. Without it, every plane state change is written to your HA database forever.

Card YAML (replace the coordinates with yours):

type: custom:flightradar24-card
flights_entity: sensor.flightradar24_current_in_area
location:
  lat: 63.430472
  lon: 10.394964
radar:
  range: 35
  background_map: color
  background_map_opacity: 0.5
  aircraft-color: rgb(255,100,0)
  aircraft-marker-size: large

Recorder exclusion for configuration.yaml:

recorder:
  exclude:
    entities:
      - sensor.flightradar24_current_in_area
      - sensor.flightradar24_entered_area
      - sensor.flightradar24_exited_area

2. C.A.F.E. — a visual flow editor for native HA automations

This is the "third way" he described: Node-RED-style connect-the-dots editing, but it compiles down to plain Home Assistant automation YAML. No second runtime, no vendor lock-in, and it imports your existing automations so you can drag a new line off a condition instead of hand-writing another branch.

FezVrasta/cafe-hass

1. HACS → three dots → Custom repositories → paste https://github.com/FezVrasta/cafe-hass → Type: Integration → Add.
2. Find "C.A.F.E." in HACS → Download → Restart Home Assistant.
3. Settings → Devices & Services → + Add Integration → search "C.A.F.E." and add it. A C.A.F.E. entry appears in the sidebar.
4. Import an existing automation: open C.A.F.E., use its import/YAML-load option on a simple automation you already have (his example: a motion sensor turning on a light with one condition).
5. Edit visually: drag a new connection from the condition node to a second action node, set the different time/light setting, and save. Check Settings → Automations — the automation is updated with correct native YAML logic.
6. Sanity check before you trust it: it is beta-stage software that rewrites your automations. Back up automations.yaml (or take a full HA backup) before your first save.

3. Frosted Glass theme (+ Theme Manager)

The fastest cosmetic upgrade on the list: translucent, blurred cards over your own background image, in the vein of iOS liquid glass but tidier. Ships light and dark variants, and a full vs Lite build.

Theme — wessamlauf/homeassistant-frosted-glass-themes Manager — wessamlauf/frosted-glass-manager

1. Install card-mod FIRST (see pick 10b). The theme depends on it for the blur and glass styling; without it you get a flat, broken-looking dashboard.
2. Enable themes in configuration.yaml if you have never used a custom theme — add the block below and restart.
3. HACS → search "Frosted Glass" → Download → Restart Home Assistant. (If it does not appear, add https://github.com/wessamlauf/homeassistant-frosted-glass-themes as a custom repository with type Theme.)
4. Pick the variant: click your username, bottom-left → Theme dropdown → choose Frosted Glass, Frosted Glass Light or Frosted Glass Dark. Set the mode selector next to it to Dark if you want dark permanently rather than following the system.
5. Choose full vs Lite — his tweak. The full version restyles pop-ups too and does a lot of live rendering; he saw stutter on an iPad. The Lite build leaves pop-ups alone but runs fast on tablets and older devices. Start with Lite on any wall tablet.
6. Customise without YAML: install the Frosted Glass Theme Manager integration (HACS, same publisher, custom repository type Integration if not in the store). It generates Frosted Glass Custom and Frosted Glass Custom Lite and lets you set accent colour and background image from the UI.
7. His exact background trick: he kept the theme's stock background image, darkened it slightly in any photo editor, and re-uploaded it via the Theme Manager. More contrast behind the glass, more legible text.

frontend:
  themes: !include_dir_merge_named themes

4. Firemote Card — a real remote for Apple TV / Fire / Shield / Roku

A pixel-accurate on-screen remote card. He built his own Apple TV remote out of dashboard buttons a year earlier and this replaces the lot. Supports Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Chromecast, Homatics, NVIDIA Shield, onn., Roku, Xiaomi and generic Android TV.

PRProd/HA-Firemote

1. Set up the device integration first. For Apple TV: Settings → Devices & Services → + Add Integration → Apple TV, pair with the on-screen PIN. That creates both a media_player.* and a remote.* entity — Firemote needs both.
2. HACS → search "Firemote" → Download → Restart Home Assistant.
3. Dashboard → Edit → + Add card → search "Firemote". The card has a full visual editor — pick Device family (apple-tv, amazon-fire, roku, nvidia-shield, chromecast, onn, xiaomi, none), then the exact Device type.
4. Scale it up — his tweak. Set scale to make it physically match the real remote in your hand, so muscle memory carries over. Default is 100 (percent); any positive number is valid. He went full size on a phone dashboard.
5. Assign app-launch buttons (app_launch_1 … app_launch_4) to the four apps you actually open, and give the card a visible_name_text so you know which room's TV it drives.

Example Apple TV card YAML (swap in your entity IDs):

type: custom:firemote-card
entity: media_player.apple_tv_4k_2nd_gen
device_family: apple-tv
device_type: appletv-4k-gen2
apple_tv_remote_entity: remote.apple_tv_4k_2nd_gen
scale: 100
compatibility_mode: default
app_launch_1: apple-appstore
app_launch_2: apple-tv-arcade
visible_name_text: Family Room
name_position: top

5. Bubble Card — instant pop-ups (his favourite on the list)

Hides anything bulky behind a button that opens an instant pop-up, then dismisses when you tap away. Faster and less jarring than navigating to a sub-view and back. Pair it with the flight radar or the Music Assistant card — both are too tall to live on a main dashboard.

Clooos/Bubble-Card Clooos/Bubble-Card-Tools (Module Store)

1. HACS → search "Bubble Card" → Download → Restart Home Assistant.
2. Optional but recommended: also install Bubble Card Tools (HACS, type Integration) — it is the backend for the built-in Module Store and its 100+ community modules.
3. Create the pop-up: Dashboard → Edit → + Add card → Bubble Card → set Card type: Pop-up. Give it a hash — a unique anchor like #flights. Put the pop-up card at the top of the view.
4. Put your heavy card inside it: in the pop-up's editor, add the Flightradar24 card (or media player, or anything else) as a nested card.
5. Create the trigger: add a Bubble Card → Button anywhere on the dashboard and set its tap action to Navigate → #flights. Tapping opens the pop-up; tapping outside closes it.
6. Test on the device that matters (wall tablet or phone) before you rebuild the whole dashboard around it.

6. Chime TTS — a notification chime before your house talks

Plays a short sound immediately before (or after) a TTS announcement, so a spoken notification does not startle a room mid-conversation. Ships a library of built-in chimes and accepts your own MP3.

nimroddolev/chime_tts

1. HACS → three dots → Custom repositories → https://github.com/nimroddolev/chime_tts → Type: Integration → Add. Then search Chime TTS → Download → Restart.
2. Settings → Devices & Services → + Add Integration → Chime TTS.
3. Use it in an automation: replace your existing tts.speak action with the chime_tts.say action and set chime_path. He uses the built-in preset named soft.
4. Custom sound (optional): drop an MP3 into /config/www/ and set chime_path: /local/your-sound.mp3.
5. If it fails with Piper — his workaround. Chime TTS worked with Google Translate TTS but not with his local Piper engine. Fix: call chime_tts.say with the chime only and no message, then call tts.speak with Piper on the next line. Two actions, same effect, stays fully local.

The Piper-safe two-step (automation YAML):

actions:
  - action: chime_tts.say
    data:
      chime_path: soft
      message: ""
      entity_id: media_player.kitchen_speaker
  - delay: "00:00:01"
  - action: tts.speak
    target:
      entity_id: tts.piper
    data:
      cache: true
      media_player_entity_id: media_player.kitchen_speaker
      message: "You have calendar events today."

7. Team Tracker — live scores for your team, as a dashboard card

Pulls your team's schedule and live score from ESPN's APIs into a sensor, then renders it as a genuinely good-looking card: countdown before kickoff, live score and in-game stats during. Covers NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, NCAA, soccer, golf, tennis, MMA and racing.

Integration — vasqued2/ha-teamtracker Card — vasqued2/ha-teamtracker-card

1. Add the integration as a custom repository: HACS → three dots → Custom repositories → https://github.com/vasqued2/ha-teamtracker → Type: Integration → Add → find Team Tracker → Download → Restart.
2. Add the card as a custom repository: same menu → https://github.com/vasqued2/ha-teamtracker-card → Type: Dashboard (shown as Lovelace/Plugin on older HACS) → Add → Download → Restart.
3. Match the versions. Integration and card are compatible when MAJOR and MINOR match — a v0.2.x integration needs a v0.2.y card. Mismatched majors/minors is the usual cause of a blank card.
4. Configure the team: Settings → Devices & Services → + Add Integration → Team Tracker. Enter the league ID (e.g. NFL) and the team ID (ESPN's abbreviation, e.g. ARI). Repeat for each team.
5. Add the card: Dashboard → Edit → + Add card → code editor → paste the YAML below.
6. Make it appear only on game day (his usage — info without notifications): wrap it in a conditional card keyed on the sensor state so the dashboard stays clean the rest of the week.

type: custom:teamtracker-card
entity: sensor.team_tracker_ari

type: conditional
conditions:
  - condition: state
    entity: sensor.team_tracker_ari
    state_not: NOT_FOUND
card:
  type: custom:teamtracker-card
  entity: sensor.team_tracker_ari

8. Atomic Calendar Revive — the calendar card that earns its kitchen screen

Replaces HA's plain calendar card with a properly readable agenda: upcoming events grouped by day, a live progress bar on the event happening right now, and the event vanishing once it ends. Works with Google Calendar and CalDAV, and has a full visual editor.

totaldebug/atomic-calendar-revive Full documentation

1. Get your calendar into HA first: Settings → Devices & Services → + Add Integration → Google Calendar (or CalDAV / Local Calendar). Google needs a Google Cloud OAuth client — follow the official Google Calendar integration docs step by step; it is the fiddliest part of this whole guide. You end up with calendar.* entities.
2. HACS → search "Atomic Calendar Revive" → Download → Restart Home Assistant.
3. Dashboard → Edit → + Add card → "Atomic Calendar Revive". Use the visual editor to tick the calendars you want (you can merge several — his family's shared Google Calendar plus his own).
4. Tune the readability settings in the editor: days to show, hide finished events, and the "now" progress indicator. Then bump font sizes if it lives on a kitchen wall screen.
5. Starting YAML if you prefer the code editor — the card has hundreds of options, so build from this and extend via the options reference.

type: custom:atomic-calendar-revive
name: Family
entities:
  - entity: calendar.family
  - entity: calendar.work
maxDaysToShow: 7
showCurrentEventLine: true
showProgressBar: true
hideFinishedEvents: true
showRelativeTime: true

9. Music Assistant Player Card (+ Queue Actions)

The default media player card cannot do what Music Assistant can. This one shows the upcoming queue, lets you transfer or join players, browse media and toggle devices on and off. Two repos — the card will not work without the integration.

Card — droans/mass-player-card Integration — droans/mass_queue

1. Have Music Assistant running first: the Music Assistant server add-on plus its HA integration, with at least one player configured.
2. Install Queue Actions FIRST — this is the gotcha he flagged. HACS → three dots → Custom repositories → https://github.com/droans/mass_queue → Type: Integration → Add → download Music Assistant Queue Actions → Restart → then Settings → Devices & Services → + Add Integration → Music Assistant Queue Actions. Skip this and you get no album artwork and no queue.
3. Then install the card: HACS → Custom repositories → https://github.com/droans/mass-player-card → Type: Dashboard → Add → download Music Assistant Player Card → Restart.
4. Add it: Dashboard → Edit → + Add card → Music Assistant Player Card → choose your Music Assistant media_player.* entity. Turn off the buttons and rows you do not use — the editor exposes each one.
5. Deal with the height — his one complaint. The card is tall and scrolls awkwardly on a desktop dashboard. Fix: put it inside a Bubble Card pop-up (pick 5) behind a small button. Tap the button, adjust the music, tap away.

type: custom:mass-player-card
entity: media_player.kitchen

10a. Mushroom Cards — the missing default cards

Home Assistant has absorbed a lot of Mushroom's ideas into core, but not all of them — the select / dropdown card, chips, and the template card are still worth having. Low cost, and most community dashboard designs assume you have it.

piitaya/lovelace-mushroom Card docs

1. HACS → search "Mushroom" → Download → Restart Home Assistant. It is in the default store.
2. Dashboard → Edit → + Add card → the Mushroom cards appear under Custom: — Entity, Template, Chips, Select, Light, Climate, Person, and more.
3. The one core still lacks: add a Mushroom Select Card against any input_select.* or select.* entity for a real dropdown on the dashboard.
4. Optional: the matching Mushroom themes if you are not using Frosted Glass.

10b. card-mod — restyle one specific card

A theme changes every card. card-mod changes one. His example: the outdoor temperature on the kitchen dashboard, made big and yellow so it reads across the room while everything else stays normal. It is also a hard dependency of the Frosted Glass theme.

thomasloven/lovelace-card-mod Wiki & recipes

1. HACS → search "card-mod" → Download → Restart Home Assistant.
2. Check your HA version: card-mod 4.2.0+ requires Home Assistant 2026.2.0 or newer. On older HA, HACS will offer you a compatible 3.x/4.0 release instead — take it rather than forcing the latest.
3. Apply it: open any card's code editor and add a card_mod: block with CSS. Start from the example below, then use the wiki for element selectors when you need something deeper.
4. Debugging: if styling does nothing, hard-refresh the browser and confirm the CSS selector matches — card-mod fails silently on a wrong selector.

type: entity
entity: sensor.outdoor_temperature
card_mod:
  style: |
    ha-card {
      --primary-text-color: #ffd60a;
      font-size: 34px;
      font-weight: 700;
    }

10c. Timer Bar Card — visualise any running timer

Turns a timer.* entity (or a switch with a duration) into a progress bar. His use: a garage timer that turns the lights off ten minutes after the last motion, so he can see at a glance how long is left instead of guessing.

rianadon/timer-bar-card

1. HACS → search "Timer Bar Card" → Download → Restart Home Assistant. It is in the default store.
2. Create the timer (if you do not have one): Settings → Devices & Services → Helpers → + Create helper → Timer, set the duration (e.g. 00:10:00).
3. Wire the automation: motion detected → timer.start; timer finished → turn the lights off. Re-triggering motion restarts the timer.
4. Add the card with the YAML below. It works for dishwashers, sprinklers, 3D printers and kitchen timers too.

type: custom:timer-bar-card
entities:
  - timer.garage_lights
name: Garage lights off in
bar_width: 70%

10d. Weather Radar Card — animated rain radar

An animated rain/cloud radar built on RainViewer's global tiles, so it works anywhere without a local weather service. Good companion to the flight radar on an outdoor or patio dashboard.

Makin-Things/weather-radar-card

1. HACS → search "Weather Radar Card" → Download → Restart Home Assistant. Default store.
2. Dashboard → Edit → + Add card → "Weather Radar Card". Set the centre point and zoom to your area.
3. Set your own coordinates in the card config (below) — the default centre will not be your town.
4. Tune the frame count and speed in the visual editor if the animation is heavy on a tablet.

type: custom:weather-radar-card
card_title: Radar
center_latitude: 13.1939
center_longitude: -59.5432
zoom_level: 7
frame_count: 10
map_style: Light
show_marker: true

10e. Kiosk Mode — hide the header and sidebar

Reclaims the top bar and left sidebar so a wall tablet shows only the dashboard. The trick he uses: append ?kiosk to the URL, which means you do not have to configure anything per-user.

NemesisRE/kiosk-mode (maintained fork)

1. HACS → search "Kiosk Mode" → Download → Restart Home Assistant.
2. Check the version against your HA: HA 2026.2.0+ needs kiosk-mode v10.0.0 or newer; HA between 2025.5.1 and 2025.10.0 tops out at v7.4.0. Installing the wrong one gives you a sidebar that never hides.
3. The URL method (easiest): open the dashboard with ?kiosk on the end — header and sidebar disappear. Chain extra parameters with &, first one only gets the ?.
4. In Fully Kiosk Browser (wall tablets): Settings → Web Content → Start URL and set it to your dashboard URL plus ?kiosk. Reload the app to confirm.
5. Optional per-user rules: add a kiosk_mode: block to the dashboard's raw configuration if you want it always-on for a tablet user but normal for you.

http://homeassistant.local:8123/lovelace/kitchen?kiosk

kiosk_mode:
  user_settings:
    - users:
        - tablet
      hide_header: true
      hide_sidebar: true