Screensaver

The panel can use a screensaver when it's not being used. When active, it can dim the normal screen, show a dim clock, display a Home Assistant image, or turn the backlight off so the panel goes dark. Touch the screen to wake it up.

There are three screensaver modes, configured in Settings > Sleep & Schedule > Screensaver on the Setup page:

Disabled

The screensaver does not run automatically. This is the default setting.

Timer

The screensaver turns on after the panel hasn't been touched for a set amount of time. Choose from:

• 10 seconds
• 30 seconds
• 1 minute
• 5 minutes (the default)
• 10, 15, 20, 30, or 45 minutes
• 1 hour

If the 10 or 30 second choices are not shown, update the panel firmware first. The web page checks what range the installed firmware supports before showing the shorter timer values.

What Happens

Use Then to choose what happens when the screensaver activates:

• Screen Dimmed — keeps the normal screen visible, but lowers the backlight. The first tap wakes the screen instead of pressing a card.
• Clock — shows a large drifting clock at reduced brightness. The time updates at each minute boundary, and the clock repositions itself to prevent burn-in.
• Display Off (the default) — switches to a black screen and turns the backlight off completely. While the backlight is off, EspControl can exercise the LCD pixels in the background to reduce burn-in risk; this should not be visible.
• Camera — on ESP32-P4 panels and the 4-inch 4848S040 ESP32-S3 panel, shows the selected camera.* or image.* entity full-screen. Choose Fit to keep the whole image visible (with black space where its shape does not match the panel) or Fill to crop the image to the screen. The image refreshes when Home Assistant reports an update and the previous successful image stays visible while a replacement downloads. If no image is available, the panel shows Camera unavailable and retries safely.

When Screen Dimmed is selected, Manual brightness mode uses Dimmed Screen Brightness. Automatic and Timed brightness modes use separate Daytime Dimmed Screen Brightness and Nighttime Dimmed Screen Brightness values, changing at the same sunrise/sunset or dawn/dusk boundary as the main screen. When Clock is selected, set separate Daytime Clock Brightness and Nighttime Clock Brightness values.

Show date adds the local date below the Clock screensaver, centered in a smaller font. It is off by default, is saved across restarts, and moves with the clock to reduce burn-in. The month uses the panel’s selected language. Update the panel firmware if the toggle is not shown.

The 4-inch ESP32-S3 camera screensaver uses the panel's native 480×480 resolution. The screensaver requests the original Home Assistant snapshot to avoid extra compression, then resizes it on the panel. If downloading or decoding it fails, subsequent requests ask Home Assistant for display-sized snapshots for the rest of that screensaver session. Sharpness still depends on the source image; filtered JPEG resizing preserves detail when reducing images and smooths edges when enlarging them.

Animated GIFs from the selected camera.* or image.* entity play automatically in the Camera screensaver, with both Fit and Fill supported. Playback stops when you wake the panel or leave Camera mode. The usual GIF file, size and memory limits apply; large images may play more slowly. Single-frame GIFs remain still. The media Cover Art screensaver continues to show a still frame.

Photos from Immich

Use EspControl Immich Companion to show photos from your Immich library, albums, Memories or keyword searches. Its Home Assistant integration provides an image.* entity that works with Then → Camera, plus slideshow controls and photo-detail sensors.

Follow Connect to EspControl to install the companion, choose the image entity, match the screen shape and add optional date or location metadata. The companion controls photo selection and slideshow timing; EspControl displays the images when the screensaver activates.

Photo metadata

With Camera selected, enable Display Metadata below Display Clock to reveal the Photo Metadata Entity field. Enter a Home Assistant sensor.* entity containing the current photo's caption, date, or location. Turning the toggle off hides metadata and the field without clearing the saved entity. Existing metadata setups remain enabled after upgrading.

Text appears toward the bottom-right on screens at least 1024 pixels wide. On smaller screens and large panels rotated into portrait, it appears in the upper-right corner. Empty, unknown, and unavailable states are hidden; the clock stays in the same position. Metadata can also appear with Display Clock switched off. Long text wraps to at most three lines.

Display Clock applies only to the Camera screensaver, including camera.* and image.* sources. It is hidden while the media Cover Art screensaver is active. Camera and clock-overlay controls appear only when the installed firmware supports them.

Sensor

Instead of a timer, the screensaver is controlled by a motion or presence sensor (like a mmWave sensor mounted nearby). When someone is in the room, the screen stays on. When nobody is detected, the screen goes to sleep — and wakes up again when someone walks past.

To use this, enter the name of your motion or presence sensor from Home Assistant (for example, binary_sensor.hallway_presence) in Presence Entity. This remains the Screensaver's own sensor; Night Schedule has a separate Sensor Entity when it uses Sensor mode.

Below the presence entity, use Then to choose whether the panel dims the screen, shows the clock, displays a camera/image, or turns the display off when nobody is detected. Camera is available on ESP32-P4 panels and the 4-inch 4848S040 ESP32-S3 panel, using the same Camera Entity setting as Timer mode. The Fit and Fill choices apply here too.

Presence wakes the panel from those dimmed, clock, camera, or display-off states. When the normal cards or media cover art are already visible, presence does not change the page or restart the cover-art timer.

Switching back to Timer keeps the sensor name saved, so you can return to Sensor mode later without typing it in again.

TIP

Touching the screen or pressing its Screen: Wake button in Home Assistant always wakes it up, no matter which screensaver mode you're using.

Wake from Home Assistant

Every panel exposes a stateless Screen: Wake button in Home Assistant. Pressing it behaves like touching the sleeping panel: it wakes a dimmed, clock, camera, display-off, cover-art, or manually sleeping screen and restarts the normal inactivity timers. If the screen is already awake, it extends the active period without changing the page or pressing a card.

You can use the button in an automation, for example to wake the panel when a door opens:

triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.front_door
    to: "on"
actions:
  - action: button.press
    target:
      entity_id: button.your_panel_screen_wake

Replace the example entity IDs with your own door sensor and the panel's Screen: Wake entity. Home Assistant assigns the final button entity ID, so select the entity from the automation editor rather than relying on the example name.

Screen Schedule

The screen schedule is separate from the screensaver. Use it when you want the panel to be fully dark, dimmed, or showing a clock overnight.

When Night Schedule is using fixed Time hours, it has priority over screensaver sensor wake during night time. The screensaver presence sensor still keeps the panel awake and wakes it during normal daytime operation, but it does not override scheduled night time. Touch and Home Assistant button wake still work, using the temporary wake settings from the screen schedule.

If you want presence to control when the panel is in night mode, set Night Schedule to Sensor mode instead of Time mode.

On the first start after updating to the separate-sensor firmware, the existing Screensaver Presence Entity is copied to the Night Schedule Sensor Entity once. You can then change either setting independently without affecting the other.

PIN protection after wake

In Settings > Sleep & Schedule > Pin Protection, turn on Require PIN after wake to show the PIN controls. Enter a numeric PIN (1–16 digits) and choose Save to enable protection. Until a PIN is saved, turning on the toggle only opens setup; refreshing the page returns it to off.

Use the same field and Save button to change the PIN. Clear removes it and disables protection; turning off the toggle keeps the saved PIN for later use. Saved settings survive a restart. Update the panel firmware if the controls are not shown.

Randomize keypad layout is off by default. Turn it on to shuffle the digit layout each time the PIN keypad opens. The choice is saved on the panel.

The Screen Lock card manages the same PIN and keypad preference in its card editor. It works with Require PIN after wake turned off. Its Screensaver on lock option can start the screensaver immediately; with the option off, the current screen remains visible and touching it opens the PIN keypad. Unlocking after a screensaver also releases a preceding card lock. To clear the shared PIN, use Clear in Settings > Sleep & Schedule > Pin Protection; this releases the lock and disables automatic PIN protection.

After a screensaver or manual sleep, the touchscreen shows the PIN keypad. Enter the PIN and press the checkmark to unlock. A wrong PIN clears the entry and keeps the controls blocked. X clears entered digits; when the entry is empty, it returns to the previous cards or screensaver view while keeping the screen locked. Touch wake, presence wake, scheduled wake, and the local Screensaver card all use the same protection. With protection disabled or no PIN saved, wake works as before. When protection is active, tapping a Cover Art playback button wakes the PIN keypad without changing playback; use your media controls after unlocking.

This protects local touchscreen controls, including status buttons and alarm modals. It does not protect network, Home Assistant, OTA, or web administration access. Someone with web setup access can change or clear the PIN; configure web authentication separately if needed. The PIN is never returned by the settings API or included in backup JSON. Importing a backup clears the destination panel's PIN, so set a new PIN on its web setup page afterward.

Start the screensaver with a card

Add the Screensaver card to the home screen or a subpage. It needs no Home Assistant entity. Tapping it immediately starts the selected Then action: Display Off, Screen Dimmed, Clock, or Camera on supported panels. It works even when automatic screensavers are disabled, presence is detected, or media is playing. Tap the screen to wake it, then enter the PIN if protection is enabled.