Energy

Solar panels, a home battery and a time-of-use tariff only save money if someone acts on them. A viewport in the kitchen or utility room turns the numbers into what to do: run the dishwasher now, the car charges overnight.

Energy graph — The energy screen: solar against the forecast, and where the power went

The case for Switchboard

Advice, not graphs. Run the dishwasher now: 2 hours of spare solar is something anyone in the house can act on. A graph in an app isn’t.
Seen where the decisions are made. The washing machine, dishwasher and car are used by the whole household, not just whoever installed the solar app.
It only says something when it matters. Each line shows only while its condition is true, so the list is short and always current.
E-ink costs almost nothing to run. A display that tells you to save energy shouldn’t be a tablet left on all day.

Setting it up

This screen uses the sidebar layout:

Left: Weather with the solar forecast, then Battery.
Right: a Now section of entity items, then Energy totals.

Each Now item is a sensor and a condition. For example, a template sensor for the hours of spare solar, shown while it’s over 1. The cheapest window can come from your tariff’s Home Assistant integration. See Viewport layouts.