A second life for five old iPads.

Second Life Home: a Home Assistant dashboard that gives old calendar screens a much bigger job.

A look at the dashboard

The screens below come from the working interface with synthetic demo data, so you can see the layout without seeing private calendars or camera feeds.

Second Life Home dashboard showing sample light controls, a thermostat, an agenda, and an illustrated demo camera — The actual dashboard interface, shown with synthetic sample data. The camera image is an illustration; no live home details are displayed.

Explore the sample-data demo ↗

From calendar screens to home controls

I have five iPad 4s that I used to use just for calendars. They still have perfectly useful screens, but their old software makes a lot of modern apps and websites difficult to use. I wanted to get more out of the hardware I already had.

The result is Second Life Home: a swipeable home dashboard built for the old iPads. Calendars are still there, alongside camera views, lights, thermostat controls, and music. An old tablet can be a useful window into the house again.

How we built it

I used ChatGPT to write the code and create the GitHub repository, working through the design and trying it on my own setup. The original dashboard was tested on an iPad 4 running iOS 10.3.4. This has been a practical project built around what works at home; I have not independently reviewed all of the generated code or verified every installation path.

Home Assistant connects the devices and calendars. Music Assistant handles the music integration. A small Python server does the work of talking to Home Assistant and keeps its credentials off the tablets. The iPads display a lightweight web page using older-browser-compatible JavaScript, with no new tablet app or jailbreak needed. One always-on server can serve multiple tablets.

Supporting old Safari shaped the whole project. Camera views use MJPEG or refreshed snapshots where needed, rather than assuming a modern video player. The goal was a useful everyday interface that the screens could actually run.

Device screen with sample light switches and a living-room thermostat, shown using demo data — Lights and climate controls on the Devices screen. Sample data; this showcase does not operate real devices.

Try it or make it your own

I published the project under the MIT license, with setup instructions, a sample-data demo, and optional Docker deployment. You supply your own Home Assistant setup, devices, and any music accounts. It works for me locally; other hardware and integrations may need adjustments.

View Second Life Home on GitHub ↗