Home Assistant LCARS

Star Trek LCARS theme for Home Assistant

Color codes and font choice from https://www.thelcars.com --thanks Jim Robertus!

💥BREAKING CHANGES IN 4.0💥

Home Assistant LCARS is built using the functionality of card-mod. Version 4.x of card-mod includes numerous breaking changes to all themes, including Home Assistant LCARS. Most standard cards using this theme should update without any issues. Any cards with custom css applied using card-mod: style: may need to be manually updated to card-mod's new element selectors (i.e. hui-card instead of ha-card). See card-mod's README and README-application as starting points.
Because of the changes mentioned above, a few cards are no longer supported or need a special workaround. The workaround is to place the card inside a vertical or horizontal stack. This changes how card-mod sees the card and applies the theme. Cards known to have issues include:
- ⚠️ custom-button-card: stack workaround required for some theme classes. Apply the desired theme class to the stack. Use Custom Button Cards style capabilities to make the button look how you want it.
- ⚠️ todo-list-card: stack workaround required when Todo List is located within a grid or layout card.
Bar cards can now be scaled by changing the font size of the card (see Tips and Tricks below). Because of this, the markdown must not include any font sizing, such as the header #.
This is an almost complete rewrite, including several css optimizations. Dashboards designed using previous versions may need to be updated slightly due to small changes in spacing and padding.
iOS16 and some Qt-based browsers (e.g. Ubuntu Touch 24) have mixed support for nested css which is used heavily in the theme. To help support these systems, a flattened version of theme has been added, themes/lcars_flat.yaml. This version of the theme can be installed by deleting the lcars.yaml placed in your Home Assistant's config/themes by HACS and placing lcars_flat.yaml there instead. Flattening removes support some some edge cases, but most of the theme should work as expected. This flattened version isn't regularly tested, so please report issues using GitHub or the Discord.

🎉NEW FEATURES IN 4.0🎉

Themed stacks

Vertical and horizontal stacks can now be themed and nested. Add a header, middle, or footer class and the stack title is placed in border

themed stacks

Buttons as bars

New classes button-bar-left and button-bar-right allow buttons to appear like the bars, including icons and states. Thanks @bobzer for the idea!

LCARS Style Sidebar

The sidebar menu has been given a LCARS facelift! Thanks @3of9 for this stunning work!
Not all of the documentation images have been updated to reflect this addition.

themed sidebar

Custom text in the header clock

Using an optional helper, you can add text to the header clock!

custom text next to the clock

LCARS Style Settings

The Settings pages have been given LCARS styling! Lozenge-style lists, LCARS fonts, and many more touches.

themed settings page themed developer tools menu

Examples

Dashboard

default

Edit modes

Mobile view

Included themes

Classic, 25th Century, Next Generation, Lower Decks, Romulus, Cardassia, Kronos, Nemesis (and more!).

Preamble

I am most definitely not a real web developer, and fumbled my way into the initial release with the help of Stack Exchange and various blogs on CSS techniques. My main goal was and still is to keep this theme 100% CSS/JS with no extra assets required besides the font. I'm positive there are better ways to implement anything and everything I've done thus far, so PRs are welcome. I will continue to improve things as I learn and add more comments to my CSS so that you can know what things do and maybe tell me how it can be better if you know. I have tested this theme with most of the out-of-the-box cards that ship with Home Assistant, and some available in HACS like the Mail and Packages card. However, I'm sure there are some that could still be terribly broken. Simply create an issue and I will address it.

Installation instructions

Prerequisites

I. Enable themes and install card-mod

Install card-mod per the instructions on its GitHub page.

Make sure in your configuration.yaml file you have the following:

frontend:
themes: !include_dir_merge_named themes
extra_module_url:
 - /www/community/lovelace-card-mod/card-mod.js?hacstag=1234567890 #or wherever you put card-mod

Under the Home Assistant config folder, create a new folder named themes
Restart Home assistant to apply the changes.

II. Add the fonts

This theme requires you to add either the Tungsten font or the Antonio font. If both are available, the theme will use Tungsten. Tungsten is the actual font used in the later seasons of Picard. Antonio is a very similar and is slightly less horizontally compressed.

A. Tungsten[^1] is available free for personal use from Font Downloader.

Download and unzip the font files
Place Tungsten-Medium.woff2 and Tungsten-Bold.woff2 in <home-assistant-directory>/www/community/fonts/
Download Tungsten.css from the HA-LCARS GitHub and place it also in <home-assistant-directory>/www/community/fonts/
Navigate to Settings → Dashboards → 3-dot menu → Resources and add the following new Resources:
/hacsfiles/fonts/tungsten.css and select 'stylesheet'

-OR-

B. Antonio[^2] is available from Google Fonts and can be added as a Dashboard Resource

Navigate to Settings → Dashboards → 3-dot menu → Resources and add the following new Resources:
https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Antonio:wght@400;700&display=swap and select 'stylesheet'

III. Add the Javascript file

This theme requires you to add a javascript file to your Dashboard Resources

A. Navigate to Settings → Dashboards → 3-dot menu → Resources and add the following new Resources:
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/th3jesta/ha-lcars@js-main/lcars.js and select javascript

-OR-

B. If you don't trust someone's random JavaScript hosted on a CDN (I get it), you can download the lcars.js file directly from GitHub, audit it yourself, and place it in your <home-assistant-directory>/www/community/.

This will need to be done with every HA-LCARS update.
Do not add /local/community/lcars.js to extra_module_url; it will not work there.

[!WARNING] IF YOU USE CLOUDFLARE IN FRONT OF YOUR SITE:
Purge your site cache in CloudFlare (Purge Cache under Quick Actions) anytime you update the local file or if you are using the JSDelivr link and a new version of HA-LCARS is released. This needs to happen whether you are using the JSDelivr link or putting it in your www folder. Unless you tell it not to, CloudFlare caches anything in your site that it can.

III. Set up the clock

In order for the clock to work, you need to set up the Time & Date integration.

A. From the Integations menu

Go to Settings → Devices & Services → + Add Integration → Time & Date
Select the sensor type Time
Click Submit

-OR-

B. Add the following to your configuration.yaml:

sensor:
  - platform: time_date
    display_options:
      - 'time'

[!IMPORTANT]
You may wish to remove the new Time & Date entities from Home Assistant's Recorder integration so they don't fill you database with updates every second. Examples on how to do that: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/recorder/#common-filtering-examples

IV. Create the helper entities

This theme has toggle controls for sound and textures, number controls for border sizes and menu font size, and an optional template sensor for adding custom text to the header. Create these helper entities by going to Settings → Devices & Services → Helpers and create two of type Toggle, two of type Number, and one of type Template named as below:

LCARS Sound (entity id should be input_boolean.lcars_sound)
- Toggles button and tap sounds
LCARS Texture (entity id should be input_boolean.lcars_texture)
- Toggles a grain pattern and backlight effect
LCARS Vertical (entity id should be input_number.lcars_vertical)
- Sets the width of vertical borders
- Min value: 26
- Max value: 60
LCARS Horizontal (entity id should be input_number.lcars_horizontal)
- Sets the width of horizontal borders
- Min value: 6
- Max value: 60
Optional: LCARS Menu Font (entity id should be input_number.lcars_menu_font)
- Sets the font size (in px) of the sidebar menu
Optional: LCARS Header (entity id should be sensor.lcars_header)
- Add text to the clock area of the header
- Example Template: {{ "LCARS " + states('sensor.time') }}

These entities can be controlled directly from viewing the entity, or you can even add buttons to your dashboard to control them, just like any other entity.

Install the theme

Install via HACS by searching "LCARS" or download the latest release and extract and drop the lcars folder into your themes folder.

Enable theme

Option 1: Via profile

Open your Home Assistant Profile
Under User Settings → Themes, select one of the new LCARS themes

Option 2: Setting the default `backend-selected` theme

In order to have this theme set automatically as the backend selected default, add the following automation to your Home Assistant:

- alias: Set Default Theme
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - event: start
    platform: homeassistant
  condition: []
  action:
  - data:
      name: LCARS Default # or whichever other theme is available, like LCARS Lower Decks
    service: frontend.set_theme

Usage instructions

Classes

The theme includes some classes that can be added to cards like this to give them special styling:

card_mod:
  class: header-left

[!NOTE]
The class names are only indications of what types of cards they were intended for, but the classes can be applied to any card you like. I cannot guarantee how well they will work outside of their intended uses, however.

The classes are as follows:

header-left header-right header-contained header-open - top blue bar (in Default theme) meant for Markdown and Heading cards and with one H1 line that will start a section

YAML Result

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: header-left
content: '# header-left'

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: header-right
content: '# header-right'

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: header-contained
content: '# header-contained'

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: header-open
content: '# header-open'

middle-left middle-right middle-contained middle-blank - side red bar (in Default theme) meant for non-button sections below header and above footer

YAML Result

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: middle-left
content: '# middle-left'

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: middle-right
content: '# middle-right'

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: middle-contained
content: '# middle-contained'

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: middle-blank
content: '# middle-blank'

footer-left footer-right footer-contained footer-open - bottom gray bar (in Default theme) meant for the last card in a section

YAML Result

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: footer-left
content: '# footer-left'

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: footer-right
content: '# footer-right'

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: footer-contained
content: '# footer-contained'

type: markdown
card_mod:
  class: footer-open
content: '# footer-open'

button-small - squared off buttons intended to go in middle sections and horizontal-stacks and grids

YAML	Result
`type: light entity: light.jesse_s_desk name: Desk Lamp card_mod: class: button-small`

button-large - rounded button meant to be standalone outside of header/middle/footer sections

YAML	Result
`show_name: true show_icon: true type: button tap_action: action: call-service service: frontend.reload_themes data: {} target: {} show_state: true card_mod: class: button-large`

button-lozenge-left button-lozenge-right - pill-shaped button; only works on standard button cards; also works on button cards in a horizontal-stacks and grids up to two columns wide; more columns get glitchy and is not advised

YAML Result

show_name: true
show_icon: true
type: button
tap_action:
  action: toggle
entity: switch.speakers
icon: mdi:speaker-multiple
card_mod:
  class: button-lozenge-left

show_name: true
show_icon: true
type: button
tap_action:
  action: toggle
entity: switch.lightsaber
card_mod:
  class: button-lozenge-right

button-bullet-left button-bullet-right - similar to the lozenge, but with a squared-off side; same column restrictions apply

YAML Result

show_name: true
show_icon: true
type: button
tap_action:
  action: toggle
entity: light.bedroom_tree
card_mod:
  class: button-bullet-left

show_name: true
show_icon: true
type: button
tap_action:
  action: toggle
entity: switch.counter_lights
card_mod:
  class: button-bullet-right

button-capped-left button-capped-right - similar to the bullet, but capped on the round side; same column restrictions apply

YAML Result

show_name: true
show_icon: true
type: button
tap_action:
  action: toggle
entity: light.bathroom
card_mod:
  class: button-capped-left

show_name: true
show_icon: true
type: button
tap_action:
  action: toggle
entity: switch.built_in
card_mod:
  class: button-capped-right

button-barrel-left button-barrel-right - similar to the bullet, but no rounding at all; same column restrictions apply

YAML Result

show_name: true
show_icon: true
type: button
tap_action:
  action: toggle
entity: light.bathroom
card_mod:
  class: button-barrel-left

show_name: true
show_icon: true
type: button
tap_action:
  action: toggle
entity: switch.built_in
card_mod:
  class: button-barrel-right

button-bar-left button-bar-right - button in the style of a header bar. Uses large text and includes the icon and state of shown; same column restrictions apply

YAML Result

show_name: true
show_icon: true
show_state: true
type: button
entity: light.porch_light
name: Porch
card_mod:
  class: button-bar-left

show_name: true
show_icon: true
show_state: true
type: button
entity: light.garage_light
name: Garage
card_mod:
  class: button-bar-right

bar-left bar-right bar-large-left bar-large-right - standalone header-type bar; only intended for and tested with Markdown and Heading cards. Comes with a standard and large versions, see Tips & Tricks for custom sizing

YAML Result

type: markdown
content: 'bar-left'
card_mod:
  class: bar-left

type: markdown
content: 'bar-large-left'
card_mod:
  class: bar-large-left

type: markdown
content: 'bar-right'
card_mod:
  class: bar-right

type: markdown
content: 'bar-large-right'
card_mod:
  class: bar-large-right

list-<lozenge|bullet|capped|barrel>-<left|right> - styled to-do lists using the lozenge, bullet, capped, and barrel styles in left and right variants similar to the button-* classes discussed above.

YAML Result

type: todo-list
entity: todo.testing
title: To-do List
theme: LCARS Default
card_mod:
  class: list-capped-right

type: todo-list
entity: todo.testing
title: To-do List
theme: LCARS Lower Decks I
card_mod:
  class: list-lozenge-left

type: todo-list
entity: todo.testing
title: To-do List
theme: LCARS Picard II
card_mod:
  class: list-barrel-left

Make your own color themes

Custom themes can be created down at the bottom of lcars.yaml. Or, search for "===THEMES", which will take you right there. To create your own theme, copy the LCARS Default section to the bottom of the file and change the lcars-ui-* and lcars-card-* variables to your liking, using the color references at the top of the file, The LCARS website, or define your own.

Tips and tricks

[!NOTE]
If you have anything to add here, create a PR with your tip and I will review it to add to this list.

Stacks and stacks and stacks

Make use of Vertical Stack cards. Whether in this theme or any other theme, they are invaluable for keeping dashboards organized. In LCARS, a Vertical Stack card should contain a Markdown card first with the title of the group and the header class applied, then any number of middle class cards and button class single buttons or in horizontal stacks or grids, and then finally a footer class applied to the last card in the vertical stack. You can see this formation in all of the screenshots at the top of this page. Here's an example Vertical Stack card and all of its contents:

YAML Result

type: vertical-stack
cards:
  - type: markdown
    card_mod:
      class: header-left
    content: '# Climate'
  - type: weather-forecast
    entity: weather.home
    card_mod:
      class: middle-left
  - type: thermostat
    entity: climate.dining_room
    card_mod:
      class: footer-left

Additionally, since version 4.0, vertical and horizontal stacks can be themed. This allows multiple cards to be stacked evenly within LCARS framing:

YAML Result

type: vertical-stack
grid_options:
  columns: 48
  rows: auto
card_mod:
  class: header-left
cards:
  - type: heading
    heading_style: title
    heading: Stack Example
    icon: fa6-solid:cubes-stacked
    badges:
      - type: entity
        entity: input_number.lcars_horizontal
      - type: entity
        entity: input_number.lcars_vertical
      - type: entity
        entity: input_boolean.lcars_texture
    card_mod:
      style: ":host .title {font-size:2em;}"
  - type: horizontal-stack
    card_mod:
      class: header-right
    cards:
      - show_name: true
        show_icon: true
        type: button
        entity: light.east_flood_lights
        card_mod:
          class: button-lozenge-left
      - show_name: true
        show_icon: true
        type: button
        entity: light.south_flood_lights
        card_mod:
          class: button-lozenge-right
  - type: horizontal-stack
    card_mod:
      class: middle-right
    cards:
      - show_name: true
        show_icon: true
        type: button
        entity: light.porch_light
        card_mod:
          class: button-lozenge-left
      - show_name: true
        show_icon: true
        type: button
        entity: light.garage_light
        card_mod:
          class: button-lozenge-right
  - type: horizontal-stack
    card_mod:
      class: footer-right
    cards:
      - show_name: true
        show_icon: true
        type: button
        entity: light.front_lights
        card_mod:
          class: button-lozenge-left
      - show_name: true
        show_icon: true
        type: button
        entity: light.stoop_light
        card_mod:
          class: button-lozenge-right

Button Cards in Section Layout

When using Home Assistant's Sections layout (currently the default for new dashboards), button cards are forced to be two rows tall. While LCARS button themes will work, they will look bigger than in the examples. The size can be corrected by setting the grid_options: rows: auto as such:

YAML Result

type: button
show_name: true
show_icon: true
show_state: true
entity: light.front_lights
card_mod:
  class: button-lozenge-left
grid_options:
  columns: full

type: button
show_name: true
show_icon: true
show_state: true
entity: light.front_lights
card_mod:
  class: button-lozenge-left
grid_options:
  columns: full
  rows: auto

Section Layout Headings

By default, Home Assistant creates a Heading Card at the top of each Section. This card can take the header and bar classes!

YAML Result

type: heading
heading_style: title
grid_options:
  columns: 18
  rows: auto
heading: LCARS Settings
icon: local:Star Trek/starfleet-star-badge
badges:
  - type: entity
    entity: input_number.lcars_horizontal
  - type: entity
    entity: input_number.lcars_vertical
  - type: entity
    entity: input_boolean.lcars_texture
card_mod:
  class: header-contained
  style: |
    :host .title { font-size: 2em;}

type: heading
icon: local:Star Trek/starfleet-star-badge
heading: LCARS Settings
heading_style: title
badges:
  - type: entity
    entity: input_number.lcars_vertical
  - type: entity
    entity: input_number.lcars_horizontal
  - type: entity
    entity: input_boolean.lcars_texture
card_mod:
  class: bar-left
grid_options:
  columns: 18
  rows: auto

Blank Headers

You can create a blank header or footer by creating a Markdown card and putting ##   in the Content field, and change the size by modifying the number of #. It looks like this:

Font on a single dashboard

If you are only applying the theme to a dashboard or a card, the font won't render on the cards. You can brute-force loading the font on a per-card basis by adding the following style to every card:

YAML	Result
`type: markdown content: '# Card-level theming' theme: LCARS Default card_mod: class: header-left style: \| ha-card > * { font-family: Antonio }`

Font on air-gapped installs

If you want to host the font yourself, such as running a Home Assistant instance in a car or on an air-gapped network, you can learn how to download the font and install it from issue https://github.com/th3jesta/ha-lcars/issues/69.

Right-aligned text

You can switch the alignment of text in a card, such as the markdown card for header-right, by adding custom CSS per card like so:

YAML	Result
`card_mod: class: header-right style: \| ha-card { text-align: right; }`

Button Background Colors

You can set a button's background color to the color of the light by adding custom CSS per card like so:

YAML Result

card_mod:
  class: button-capped-right
  style: |
    ha-card {
      {% if is_state('light.terasa', 'on') %}
        {% set rgb_color = state_attr('light.terasa', 'rgb_color') %}
        background-color: rgba({{ rgb_color[0] }}, {{ rgb_color[1] }}, {{ rgb_color[2] }}, 1) !important;
        color: black;  /* or any other logic for text color */
      {% else %}
        background-color: #dd4444 !important;
        color: black;
      {% endif %}
    }

buttons with state-dependent background colors

Custom Bar Sizes

You can the size of a bar card by scaling the font size of the card like so:

YAML Result

type: vertical-stack
cards:
  - type: markdown
    content: Defiant Class Bar
    card_mod:
      class: bar-left
      style: |
        :host {
          font-size: 16px !important;
        }
  - type: markdown
    content: Constitution Class Bar
    card_mod:
      class: bar-left
  - type: markdown
    content: Galaxy Class Bar
    card_mod:
      class: bar-left

Known issues

Font and sidebar and header CSS styles only load when a dashboard has been loaded first. If you navigate directly to a non-dashboard page without loading a dashboard first, things will look pretty awful, though still functional. Simply load a dashboard and hit the back button. This is a quirk of the card-mod addon on which this theme relies, so it's outside my ability to fix.
Menu pages like Development Tools and Profile are functional, but not great. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do to address this as card-mod does not provide a method to change some of these pages. Issues raised for anything comepletely broken and unsuable that I may have missed are welcome, as are PRs to make to make things better.
Sometimes when a dashboard loads, not all CSS styles will load and all or most cards will end up looking like the button-large cards. This is more prevalent on large dashboards. Try reloading the page, and if that doesn't work, load a smaller dashboard and then go back to the offending dashboard.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to @JHuckins for color theming support and testing!
Thanks to @csanner for the new classes and additional fixes and tweaks!
Thanks to @Anthrazz for the bar classes!
Thanks to @mtezzo for the entity toggle for textures/gradients, and the Modern theme (my new favorite)!
Thanks to @CmdreIsaacHull for various fixes, improvements, themes, and new classes!
Thanks to @askpatrickw for figuring out how to self-host the font!
Thanks to @z3r0l1nk for light color-matching button trick!
Thanks to @smugleafdev for the right-justified text tip!
Thanks to @Routhinator (via Discord) for the right-footer fix!
Thanks to @bobzer for the button-bar idea!
Thanks to @3of9 for the sidebar and themes!
Thanks to @adejong5 for the v.4 rewrite!
Thanks to @blazingdynamo for the to-do list ideas!

Links

Discord: https://discord.gg/gGxud6Y6WJ

LCARS Resources: https://www.thelcars.com

Attribution & Disclaimer

LCARS design elements inspired by Star Trek™ and adapted from resources at thelcars.com by Jim Robertus.

This project is a non-commercial fan production. Star Trek and all related marks, logos, and characters are solely owned by CBS Studios Inc. This fan production is not endorsed by, sponsored by, nor affiliated with CBS, Paramount Pictures, or any other Star Trek franchise.

No commercial exhibition or distribution is permitted. No alleged independent rights will be asserted against CBS or Paramount Pictures. This work is intended for personal and recreational use only.

[^1]: Tungsten is designed by Tobias Frere-Jones and Jonathan Hoefler with contributions from Sara Soskolne, Erin McLaughlin, and Aoife Mooney. Tungsten is a registered trademark of Hoefler & Co. [^2]: Antonio is designed by Vernon Adams and is free to use in accordance with the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.

ha-lcars

About ha-lcars

Platforms

Languages

Links

README.md

Home Assistant LCARS

💥BREAKING CHANGES IN 4.0💥

🎉NEW FEATURES IN 4.0🎉

Themed stacks

Buttons as bars

LCARS Style Sidebar

Custom text in the header clock

LCARS Style Settings

Examples

Dashboard

Edit modes

Mobile view

Included themes

Preamble

Installation instructions

Prerequisites

I. Enable themes and install card-mod

II. Add the fonts

-OR-

III. Add the Javascript file

-OR-

III. Set up the clock

-OR-

IV. Create the helper entities

Install the theme

Enable theme

Option 1: Via profile

Option 2: Setting the default backend-selected theme

Usage instructions

Classes

Make your own color themes

Tips and tricks

Stacks and stacks and stacks

Button Cards in Section Layout

Section Layout Headings

Blank Headers

Font on a single dashboard

Font on air-gapped installs

Right-aligned text

Button Background Colors

Custom Bar Sizes

Known issues

Acknowledgements

Links

Attribution & Disclaimer

Option 2: Setting the default `backend-selected` theme