Companion App

Any device running the Athena Android app - a phone, or a wall-mounted tablet - can report its own battery, screen on/off, network, and Do Not Disturb state to Athena, for use on dashboards and in automations. Not restricted to phones; "Companion App" covers any device the app runs on.

The Athena Android app itself

A thin native shell around your own instance - its WebView points at your instance's local and/or remote address rather than bundling a copy of the frontend, so it always shows exactly what your server actually serves. Connecting tries whichever address last worked first and falls back to the other one automatically on failure. Self-signed HTTPS certificates use trust-on-first-use, the same shape SSH host-key checking uses - shown once, remembered, flagged if it ever changes. Not yet on the Play Store; for now the current build is bundled in the compose repo as Android/athena.apk (github.com/makershopfi/athena) - download that and sideload it.

Turning on sensor reporting

From inside the app, go to Configuration > Companion app and turn on "Enable sensor reporting", then choose an update frequency: periodic (roughly every 15 minutes, lower battery use, no persistent notification) or near-instant (reacts to screen and network changes right away, but needs Android's own mandatory persistent low-priority notification to stay running in the background). Do Not Disturb reporting needs its own separate permission grant, requested from the same screen.

Once a device is reporting, its sensors show up in the automation editor: pick Companion App Devices as the Source on a State Trigger or Condition, then the device and one of its sensors (battery level, charging, screen on/off, Do Not Disturb, network).

On the Athena side

Any device that connects the app to your instance gets its own card on the Companion App page under Devices & Services - sensor reporting does not have to be turned on for a device to appear here and be managed. Cards are named after the reported model by default - rename them, and set location/area the same way any other device does (handy for telling a mounted tablet apart from a phone). Each device's detail page shows manufacturer/model/OS version/memory, its current sensors, and a live activity feed of recent changes - the same shape every other integration's device page already has - plus the kiosk and launch-dashboard controls below.

Kiosk mode

Kiosk mode strips the app down to dashboard content only - no sidebar, no header bar - for a wall-mounted panel. First allow it on the device itself: Configuration > Companion app, "Allow kiosk mode on this device". After that you can turn it on or off from the dashboard's own three-dot menu on the device, or remotely from that device's page under Devices & Services. Kiosk mode survives an app restart or a device reboot, coming back up on the dashboard it was left on, and the screen is kept awake while it is active. On a touchscreen, swipe left or right to change dashboard, and long-press for a small menu to switch dashboard or exit.

Which dashboard opens on launch

Each device's detail page has two selections. Startup page is where the app navigates every time it launches while not in kiosk mode - "Last page visited" (the default) or a specific dashboard. Kiosk dashboard is the one kiosk mode opens on each time it starts - "Last dashboard" (the default: whatever was shown last, swiping included) or a specific one. Swiping still moves freely during a session; the next launch returns to the pinned dashboard.

Screen blackout

Also on the detail page: after a set number of minutes with no touch, kiosk mode paints the whole screen black - including Android's status bar and navigation bar - until the next touch. A touch or a Wake Device Screen automation both clear it and restart the countdown from a full interval. The screen stays on, so waking is instant; this just cuts burn-in and power draw on an always-on panel. "Off" by default.

Blackout fade and Wake fade set how long the overlay takes to fade to black and back (defaults 400 / 250 ms; 0 for an instant cut). The detail page also shows the panel's own last-reported screen state.

Dim backlight on blackout (on by default) also switches the panel's backlight off while blacked out, rather than lighting a black screen - real power and screen-wear saving. Waking restores it instantly. Turn it off to keep the plain black overlay at normal brightness.

Automations can drive the blackout: Wake Device Screen (Automations) turns the screen back on and clears the blackout; Blackout Device Screen does the reverse. Pair Blackout Device Screen with a Delay node after a "no motion" trigger to dim a panel when a room empties, and Wake Device Screen with a motion trigger to bring it back.