Home Assistant wall display: Shelly Wall Display, NSPanel Pro and Aqara

A dedicated wall display is a finished device mounted in a wall box or next to a switch, with a small touch screen, that controls the home without reaching for a phone. The models most often chosen with Home Assistant are the Shelly Wall Display, the Sonoff NSPanel Pro and the Aqara panels.

This guide is about exactly those devices. A separate guide covers the other approach, a tablet on the wall in kiosk mode. They are not the same: a tablet is a larger, flexible screen for any dashboard, while a dedicated wall display is a built-in control point in one specific place.

The aim is to help you choose: what a given panel can do, how it connects to Home Assistant, where its limits are and which problems appear most often. It is not a full step by step setup for every model, because each one integrates differently.

A dedicated panel works well as a permanent control point for one room or area: light, the heating in that room, blinds, a scene, sometimes an alarm overview. It hangs in a visible place and looks like part of the installation, not like a device left on a shelf.

Many of these devices do more than show a screen. The Shelly Wall Display has a relay and sensors, the Sonoff NSPanel Pro has a built in Zigbee gateway, the Aqara panels also act as a Zigbee hub. A panel can therefore be a screen, a switch and a bridge for nearby devices at the same time.

A wall display does not replace a phone or a full dashboard. It should show a few of the most important things for the place where it hangs. Before you pick a model, decide whether the panel should only control, or also collect sensor data or run a local Zigbee network.

This is the first decision and it is worth making it deliberately, because the two options lead to a different result.

A dedicated wall display

Benefits: it looks like a built-in part of the installation, it is permanently mains powered so there is no swollen battery problem, it takes up little space and it often adds a relay, sensors or a Zigbee gateway. It can also be cheaper than a good tablet with a frame and power.

Limits: the screen is small, the hardware is weaker and the software is closed or half open. Support for a Home Assistant dashboard varies by model: from showing it directly, through sideloading an app, to no such option at all. Deep visual customisation is harder than on a tablet.

A tablet in kiosk mode

Benefits: a large, good screen, full freedom of the dashboard and kiosk mode, any layout and theme. Downsides: the battery under constant charging, the mounting and power run, a less built-in look and the higher cost of a good setup.

In short: if you want a large, polished dashboard in one central place, choose a tablet. If you want a neat control point in several rooms, close to the switches, choose dedicated panels. Many homes combine both approaches.

The Shelly Wall Display is a panel mounted in a standard wall box, mains powered, with a touch screen of about 4 inches. It has a built in relay, so it can replace a switch, and sensors for temperature, humidity and illuminance.

It connects to Home Assistant through the Shelly integration, which works locally. Home Assistant sees the panel's relay and sensors as entities, and you can use them in automations and on any dashboard.

The screen itself shows the Shelly interface by default. In newer firmware the panel can also display a chosen Home Assistant dashboard directly instead of the Shelly screen. That is convenient, but the browser built into the panel has limited performance, so the dashboard has to stay simple and light.

The Shelly Wall Display is a good choice when you want a mains powered device that also switches a circuit, measures the room conditions and shows a few tiles. It is not a good choice when you want a rich, animated premium panel.

The Sonoff NSPanel Pro is an Android based panel, mounted in a wall box and mains powered, with a touch screen of about 4 inches. It has a built in Zigbee 3.0 gateway and a temperature and humidity sensor. Unlike the older NSPanel it has no load relay, it is a control device.

Out of the box it works in the eWeLink ecosystem. Because there is Android inside, the community sideloads the Home Assistant app or Fully Kiosk Browser onto the panel and uses it like a small wall tablet. The panel then shows a chosen Home Assistant dashboard.

This works, but it is not officially supported. Installing an extra app needs developer mode and a connection over ADB, and a system update on the panel can remove the sideloaded app or change its behaviour. The panel's Zigbee gateway can be exposed to Home Assistant, but that is a separate setup.

The NSPanel Pro makes sense when you want a single device that combines a wall panel with a Zigbee gateway, and you accept that full use with Home Assistant is an unofficial path that sometimes needs fixing.

The Aqara panels, for example the Aqara Panel Hub S1E, are wall touch screens, mains powered, that also act as a Zigbee 3.0 hub for Aqara devices. The panel screen handles scenes, climate and connected devices in the Aqara Home app.

Integration with Home Assistant looks different from the panels above. The Aqara screen cannot be replaced with a Home Assistant dashboard, because the interface is closed. What does reach Home Assistant are the devices the panel handles: through Matter, through an Apple HomeKit bridge or through an unofficial cloud integration.

In practice an Aqara panel is therefore a control surface and a hub for Aqara hardware, and Home Assistant sees those devices indirectly. If you already have many Aqara sensors and switches, the panel tidies up their control on the wall. If you are looking for a screen for your own Home Assistant dashboard, this is not the device.

The older Sonoff NSPanel, without the Pro name, is a different device: it has two relays and a simple screen without Android. A popular route is to flash it with custom firmware through ESPHome and a ready made community interface, so the panel shows tiles driven from Home Assistant. This gives a lot of control, but it needs flashing the firmware and maintaining the configuration.

There are also other Android based wall panels and panels from various system vendors. The way to judge them is always the same: check whether the panel shows a Home Assistant dashboard directly, whether it needs a sideloaded app, or whether it only exposes its devices through Matter or HomeKit.

The phrase Home Assistant wall panel in practice covers all of these at once: dedicated displays, tablets in kiosk mode and panels with custom firmware. That is why the specific model and integration method matter when choosing, not the category name itself.

It helps to separate two things: what the panel shows on its own screen, and what Home Assistant knows about it.

Shelly Wall Display: the local Shelly integration exposes the relay and the sensors as entities. The panel screen shows the Shelly interface, and in newer firmware it can show a chosen Home Assistant dashboard.

Sonoff NSPanel Pro: full use with Home Assistant means sideloading the Home Assistant app or Fully Kiosk Browser onto the panel's Android. The built in Zigbee gateway is exposed separately. Without those steps the panel only works in eWeLink.

Aqara panels: the devices the panel handles reach Home Assistant through Matter, a HomeKit bridge or a cloud integration. The screen itself stays in the Aqara ecosystem.

For every variant the same rule applies: the account or token used by the panel should have limited permissions, and the Home Assistant server address should be stable and predictable, so the panel does not lose its connection after a restart.

The screen is small, usually about 4 inches, so it fits a few tiles rather than a full dashboard. Resolution and brightness are average and the viewing angles can be narrow.

The hardware is weak compared with a tablet. Animations, maps and long entity lists run slowly or not at all. A dashboard for a panel has to be designed sparingly.

The software is closed or half open. A firmware update can change the screen behaviour, remove a sideloaded app or break the way the menu is hidden. The panel has to be checked after major updates.

Not every panel shows a Home Assistant dashboard. Some devices, like the Aqara panels, only expose their own devices and leave their screen in the vendor's ecosystem.

The panel does not show the dashboard after a restart. After a power cut the device returns to its own start screen, not to the Home Assistant view. Setting the panel to return to a chosen address on its own, together with a stable server address, helps.

The sideloaded app disappears after an update. This mainly affects the NSPanel Pro. After a system update on the panel you sometimes have to sideload the Home Assistant or Fully Kiosk app again.

The dashboard is slow or does not load. The panel cannot keep up with a heavy view. A separate, simplified dashboard with large buttons and no maps or animations helps.

The panel logs itself out. The session token expired or the device lost its connection. A long lived token tied to the panel account and a predictable server address help.

Devices from the panel do not appear in Home Assistant. This mainly affects Aqara. You have to check whether the panel exposes them through Matter or HomeKit and whether the bridge is added correctly.

The panel's Zigbee gateway clashes with the existing network. Two separate Zigbee networks in one home can interfere with each other. It is worth planning which hub handles which devices and separating the channels.

Start from what the panel should do in that place. A point by the entrance usually shows leaving the house, the alarm and the weather. A panel in the living room: light, a scene and the temperature. A panel in the bathroom or bedroom: heating and blinds.

If you are replacing a switch in that spot anyway and want to measure the room conditions, the natural choice is the Shelly Wall Display. If you also need a Zigbee gateway and accept the unofficial route, consider the NSPanel Pro. If you already have many Aqara devices, an Aqara panel tidies up their control.

If, on the other hand, you want a large, consistent dashboard in one central place, a tablet in kiosk mode is the better choice, and dedicated panels are better left for smaller control points.

Whatever the device, a panel only looks good with a separate, designed dashboard: few tiles, large buttons, a dark theme, content matched to the place. That is already an interface project, not just a hardware setting.

I can help choose a wall display for specific rooms, judge whether a dedicated panel or a tablet fits better in a given place, carry out the integration with Home Assistant and, above all, design the dashboard: the layout, the theme and behaviour that changes with the time of day. The result is a panel matched to the home, not just a screen on the wall.

This guide draws on the official Home Assistant documentation and the panel manufacturers' materials:

• Home Assistant: Shelly integration
• Shelly: Wall Display knowledge base
• Sonoff: NSPanel Pro
• Home Assistant: Matter integration
• Home Assistant: dashboards and views