QuickBars for Home Assistant

Overview

QuickBars is a native Android TV application that provides a seamless, cross-app overlay to control Home Assistant. Instead of pausing a movie and opening a phone app, users press a remote key to toggle lights, climate, fans, scenes, cameras, and more - instantly, and out of any app.

Personal Mission

The idea started at home. My dad has difficulty with near vision, which made phone-based control impractical. The biggest, most visible screen in the house is the TV - yet there was no simple way to use it as a central, accessible remote. QuickBars began as an accessibility-first tool: big, clear controls that are fast, reliable, and effortless to use.

Very quickly it proved useful for everyone: why pick up a phone and dig through menus just to dim the lights? A single remote key should be enough.

Problem

• You want to control your smart home while watching TV. Right now you need to grab your phone, unlock it, open an app, and navigate through menus. Or worse - fight with a voice assistant.
• This experience is slow, distracting, and breaks immersion.
• Android TV users had no existing, reliable way to control Home Assistant without leaving their current app.
• TV remotes have custom keys, but OEM behavior and focus rules make global trigger capture and overlay focus non-trivial.

Solution

QuickBars runs a lightweight accessibility service to capture and interpret remote triggers, draws an overlay UI above any activity, and talks to Home Assistant over its WebSocket API for real-time state and commands. Users configure "QuickBars" - panels of controls tailored to their home (lights, scenes, climate, fans, cameras and more).

• Summon/hide QuickBar/Camera PiP with a remote key - no app switching.
• Composable UI (Jetpack Compose) designed for TV focus & large targets.
• Real-time entity sync via WebSocket; pessimistic entity state which relies on Home Assistant reported states.
• Configurable quick actions and per-device customization.
• And much more features...

Architecture

• Platform: Android TV (native, Kotlin + Jetpack Compose).
• Overlay & Triggers: AccessibilityService + overlay window designed for TV D-pad focus rules.
• Transport: Home Assistant WebSocket API (bi-directional, low-latency updates).
• Resilience: exponential-backoff reconnects, heartbeat/ping, and strict main-thread boundaries for UI (background work via coroutines).
• Security: long-lived token stored with the platform keystore; all traffic stays on the user's Home Assistant instance.

Accessibility & UX

• Large, high-contrast targets with predictable focus order.
• Remote-first interactions (D-pad, single, long-press and double press actions).
• Camera PiP toggle and quick actions without distracting from app audio (or video).
• Configurable key bindings; fallbacks where OEM keys are reserved.

Performance & Reliability

• Reconnect logic with jitter; UI remains responsive during network hiccups.
• Strict main-thread boundaries; background work with coroutines.

Security & Privacy

• Token stored in Android Keystore; no plaintext credentials.
• All communication stays within the user's local network (unless he opts in to remote HTTPS connection).

Results

QuickBars has grown organically with strong retention among power users and accessibility-motivated households. Reviews consistently call out speed, the remote-first UX, and "don't leave the video" convenience.