Make Your Home Assistant Dashboard Come Alive with Animara

If you have ever glanced at a Home Assistant dashboard and thought, “Okay, that switch is on… but what is it actually doing?”, you are not alone. A flat icon can tell you a binary state. It rarely shows the story.

Animara is built for that gap. It is a set of realistic, animated device icons (and optional ready-made dashboards) for Home Assistant. Each icon follows the entity behind it, so the picture changes with the state—cooling, washing, open, closed, and more.

On Brandon’s Home Assistant setup, Animara is what made the dashboard feel alive—especially the SONOFF water valves, whose Animara icons show water flowing when the valves are on. That is the kind of at-a-glance cue that is hard to get from a generic glyph.

Here’s a still screenshot of Brandon’s dashboard. In the live dashboard, the water-valve artwork animates when the valves are on.

Still screenshot of my Home Assistant dashboard. The three SONOFF water valves on the right use Animara icons; in the live dashboard those valve icons animate when the valves are on.

See it in action: the valve handle turns and animated water appears when the valve is on, then stops when it is off.

Why visual state helps

Smart homes generate a lot of quiet status. You do not always want to open a more-info panel or parse a sensor string. Seeing a washer that looks like it is mid-cycle, or a valve that looks open with flow, helps you confirm the right device without translating every entity name in your head.

That does not replace automations, alarms, or a real security system. It makes the dashboard easier to read—especially on a wall tablet or phone when you only have a second to check.

What Animara offers

From animara.io, Animara currently focuses on:

• Animated device icons for Home Assistant (a free sampler plus a full paid pack)
• Optional dashboards such as Animara Home, Showroom, and Glass looks (Float / Glow) that build from your rooms and areas
• A Complete option that packages icons and dashboards together

Install paths are documented on the official guide: one-resource JavaScript module links hosted by Animara, or a manual copy into Home Assistant’s www folder. Details and steps live here: animara.io/install.

Before you get started

Animara is a third-party customization for Home Assistant. As with any custom dashboard card, we recommend backing up your setup before installing. Animara says its license checks don’t send your entity states or dashboards; you can read more in its privacy policy.

Try it—and save 10% as an ameriDroid customer

Explore the gallery, demos, and products at https://animara.io. At checkout, enter discount code AMERIDROID10 for 10% off any Animara product (icons, dashboards, or Complete)—once per order.

Disclosure: ameriDroid is an Animara affiliate. We earn a commission on purchases made using our code.

If your Home Assistant dashboard is already full of devices, Animara is a fun way to make those states feel obvious the moment you look. We are glad to share a tool that made our own dashboard clearer—and we hope the code helps you try it.