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Create a UI

Goal: create a dashboard instance — a kitchen panel, a guest dashboard, a wall tablet — and decide which zones and controls it shows.

A UI is a distinct interface clients connect to. You can have many: room-specific panels, role-specific dashboards (homeowner / guest / installer), or device-specific layouts. The default interface is System UI (ID 0).

Before you start​

  • You're logged in as an administrator.
  • The zones you want this UI to show are commissioned (see Commission a Device).

1. Create the UI​

  1. Open UIs and click Add.

    Open UIs

  2. Set the basics: Name (lowercase_with_underscores), Label (what people see), an optional Group, and Sort Index for ordering.

2. Choose how zones are sourced​

This is the key decision — it determines where the UI's zones come from:

  • Space-linked UI — set a Site Space. The UI's zones are derived automatically from that space (every zone whose site_space_id matches). Turn on Show Child Spaces to include zones from descendant spaces too. Best when your site is modeled as spaces; the UI stays in sync as zones move between rooms.
  • Manual UI — leave Site Space empty and assign zones explicitly (next step). Best for curated or cross-cutting panels.
You can mix the two

On a space-linked UI, explicitly assigned zones act as overlays layered on top of the inherited set — handy for adding something that doesn't live in the space, like a shared front-gate camera.

3. Add zones (manual UIs)​

For a manual UI, choose which zones appear on the UI Zones screen:

Open UI Zones

  • Zones tab — assign individual zones directly. Best for small or final-touch setups.
  • Groups / UI Groups tabs — build reusable zone groups and assign whole groups to UIs at once. Best for large installations.

4. Set the navigation controls​

UI Controls are the navigation buttons (Lighting, Audio, Video, Climate, …) that appear in a UI.

Open UI Controls

  • Global controls (UI = null) appear in every UI by default.
  • UI-specific controls appear only on the assigned UI and override globals — use them to hide irrelevant controls or customize a panel.
  • Controls can be PIN-protected for sensitive areas, reordered, and given custom icons.

5. View it​

Use the UI's View action to open it in a new browser tab and confirm the zones and navigation look right.

What's next​