Hi all,
I’ve been working on a Homey app for Vestaboard.
The aim is to bring Vestaboard properly into Homey — not just as a simple “send message” action, but as a live smart display that can be controlled from Flows, dashboards and the Homey mobile app.
Homey App Store:
Supported Vestaboards
The app is built for:
- Vestaboard Flagship — Cloud API or Local API
- Vestaboard Note — Cloud API
- Vestaboard Note Arrays — Cloud API
Supported Note Array layouts currently include:
- Two Notes wide
- Four Notes wide
- Two Notes stacked
- Four Notes stacked
- A 2 × 2 Note Array
Homey detects the board model and layout automatically after connecting. Text capacity, character handling, image conversion, widgets and Flow behaviour are then adapted to the detected board.
The app has been tested with a Vestaboard Flagship. Note and Note Array support is implemented and covered by automated tests, but I’d particularly welcome feedback from owners using those products on real hardware.
What does it do?
The app brings each Vestaboard into Homey as its own device.
It currently supports:
- Sending ordinary text
- Horizontal and vertical alignment
- Quotes with authors
- Two-line layouts and lists
- Labelled values
- Colours and colour fills
- Vestaboard character codes
- VBML content
- Transition effects and speeds
- Images from secure URLs
- Images supplied through Homey Image Flow Tags
- Image brightness, contrast, fitting and dithering
- Clocks and countdowns
- Temporary messages with automatic restoration
- Priority messages
- Saved presets and scenes
- Reusable text, templates, grids and visual layouts
- Shared content across multiple boards
- Per-board content
- Restart-safe playlists
- Random preset selection
- Message history and undo
- Connection and delivery status
- Redacted diagnostics
- Named groups of Vestaboards
- Sending to one board, a group or every paired board
The current board is also rendered as an image on the Homey device tile.
Dashboard and mobile widget
The app includes a device-bound Vestaboard widget for Homey dashboards and the mobile app.
The widget provides:
- A live split-flap board preview
- Black and white board themes
- Message composition
- Colour selection
- Direct send, clear, refresh and undo controls
- Saved content
- Visual layouts
- Playlist management
- Board groups
- Delivery history
- Connection testing
- Redacted diagnostics
The widget adapts automatically to Flagship, Note and supported Note Array dimensions.
Flow support
This is where the app becomes useful as part of a wider smart home.
Triggers include:
- Message changed
- Board became blank
- Board layout changed
- Connection lost
- Connection restored
- Delivery failed
- A queued message expired
Conditions include:
- Message contains selected text
- Board is blank
Actions include:
- Send a message
- Send a priority message
- Send a temporary message and restore the previous board afterwards
- Send aligned text, quotes, lists or labelled values
- Display an image
- Display a colour
- Send VBML or raw character codes
- Start or stop a clock
- Show a countdown
- Save or restore the current board
- Save and display scenes
- Display reusable content and templates
- Start or stop a playlist
- Undo the previous board change
- Refresh or test the connection
- Send to all boards or a named board group
Example automations
A few examples of what this enables:
- Show a welcome message when someone arrives home
- Display the weather and daily calendar each morning
- Show a countdown to a holiday, birthday or event
- Display an urgent alert temporarily, then restore the previous content
- Send a family message to every Vestaboard in the house
- Rotate between news, weather, reminders and saved content
- Show an image or colour when a Flow is triggered
- Display energy prices or other Homey values
- Notify someone if the Vestaboard connection is lost
- Use priority messages so an important alert cannot be replaced by lower-priority content
- Resume a clock or playlist automatically after a temporary message ends
Cloud and Local API setup
For the Cloud API, you’ll need a Vestaboard Read/Write token with both Read and Write permissions.
The Cloud API supports:
- Vestaboard Flagship
- Vestaboard Note
- Supported Note Arrays
For a Flagship using the Local API, you’ll need:
- The board’s local IP address or hostname
- A Vestaboard Local API key
- The board and Homey to be reachable on the same network
Local mode communicates directly with the Flagship over your LAN.
Important notes
Vestaboard Note and Note Arrays should currently use the Cloud API. Local API support for Note hardware is not documented.
Vestaboard Note Arrays do not expose transition endpoints through the Cloud API, so transition actions are skipped or reported as unsupported for those layouts.
A Cloud API token does not expose a stable board identifier. Pairing the same token more than once may therefore create duplicate Homey devices, so each board token should only be paired once.
Message-content retention is disabled by default. Delivery history can record status and timing without storing the actual message. If content retention is enabled, it remains stored locally on Homey and can be removed again from the app settings.
Cloud tokens and Local API keys remain in Homey device settings and are excluded from diagnostics.
This is an independent community integration and is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by Vestaboard.
Feedback welcome
I’d really welcome feedback from other Vestaboard and Homey users.
I’m especially interested in:
- Which product you use: Flagship, Note or Note Array
- Whether Cloud pairing works smoothly
- Whether Local API operation is reliable on Flagship
- Whether Note and Note Array layouts render correctly
- How images look across different board sizes
- Whether playlists and temporary-message restoration behave as expected
- Which Flow cards are most useful
- What other content types or automations you’d like to see
For general discussion, feature ideas and bug reports, please reply here.
When reporting an issue, it helps to include the Vestaboard model, connection type, Homey model, app version and redacted diagnostics.
Thanks,
JZ
