ESPHome Device Builder Dashboard

Status: in active development. Roughly alpha, closing on beta. Issues and feedback welcome — please check existing issues / the project board first, and join the Discord channel for live discussion.

A new dashboard for ESPHome — a guided interface for composing device configs, exploring components and boards, managing automations, and pushing firmware updates.

Try it

The dashboard ships as an opt-in preview in the official Home Assistant add-on and in ESPHome Desktop. Pick the path that matches how you run ESPHome today:

Home Assistant add-on

Open the ESPHome add-on configuration (Stable, Beta, or Dev — all three carry the toggle), flip Use new Device Builder Preview on, and restart the add-on. The container's init step pip-installs the latest prerelease of esphome-device-builder and the supervisor service launches it instead of the classic dashboard. The toggle is reversible — turn it off + restart to fall back to the classic dashboard.

The add-on's data layout stays the same (/config/esphome/ for YAMLs, /data/ for build artefacts) so flipping the toggle doesn't move or duplicate any state.

ESPHome Desktop (macOS / Windows / Linux)

Install ESPHome Desktop v0.7.0 or later, then click the system-tray icon and pick Backend → ESPHome Builder (stable) or ESPHome Builder (beta). The daemon restarts under the chosen backend and the tray badge updates to reflect which one is running. Switch back to Classic ESPHome Dashboard the same way.

Standalone (PyPI)

For developers, headless servers, or anyone running outside the add-on / Desktop shapes:

python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install esphome-device-builder

esphome-device-builder ~/esphome-configs

For the beta channel, pass --pre to opt the resolver into prereleases — e.g. pip install --pre esphome-device-builder for a fresh install, or pip install --upgrade --pre esphome-device-builder to pull the newest beta on top of an existing install. --pre only opts the current command into prereleases; rerun the upgrade command to refresh.

The server starts on http://localhost:6052. Run with --help for the full flag set.

Install from a GitHub release

Every build is published to PyPI, so the install above is the preferred path. The same wheels are mirrored on the GitHub releases page — handy as a fallback if PyPI is unreachable.

python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate

# Replace <version> with a release tag (X.Y.Z stable, X.Y.ZbN beta).
pip install "https://github.com/esphome/device-builder/releases/download/<version>/esphome_device_builder-<version>-py3-none-any.whl"

esphome-device-builder ~/esphome-configs

From source (contributors)

Requires uv:

git clone https://github.com/esphome/device-builder
cd device-builder
script/setup
source .venv/bin/activate
esphome-device-builder ./configs --log-level debug --dev

--dev serves index.html with Cache-Control: no-cache so a re-deployed frontend wheel isn't masked by a browser-cached SPA shell pointing at a now-deleted hashed bundle. Hashed bundles themselves stay immutable regardless. Skip --dev in production — the browser's default heuristic is fine when you're not rebuilding every few minutes.

Roadmap

• ✅ Standalone backend with WS-first API, persistent compile queue, mDNS device discovery
• ✅ Curated board + component catalogs (nightly catalog sync from upstream ESPHome)
• ✅ Functional parity with the legacy dashboard (one intentional decline: the HA Supervisor /auth POST flow — the new backend's HA add-on path is ingress-only by design, see issue #85)
• ✅ Opt-in preview toggle in the Home Assistant add-on (use_new_device_builder config option, available on the Stable, Beta, and Dev channels)
• ✅ Backend selector in ESPHome Desktop ≥ v0.7.0 (system tray → Backend)
• 🚧 Same toggle in the standalone ESPHome Docker image (ghcr.io/esphome/esphome) — currently only the HA-addon image carries it
• 🗺️ See the project backlog for in-progress work and what's planned next

Documentation

• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md — controllers, event bus, firmware queue, catalog sync, deployment.
• docs/API.md — every WebSocket command, request/response shapes, event types.
• esphome_device_builder/definitions/README.md — contributor guide for board manifests.

Contributing

Contributions welcome — board definitions especially (definitions/README.md).

Every PR needs exactly one label from this set so it lands in the right release-notes section: breaking-change, new-feature, enhancement, bugfix, refactor, docs, maintenance, ci, dependencies. CI enforces the rule via pr-labels.yaml.

Bugs / feature ideas: open an issue and the chooser will route you to the right venue (this repo for dashboard bugs, esphome core for compile/firmware issues, org Discussions for ideas, Discord for chat).

License

Apache-2.0 — Maintained by Open Home Foundation.