Dashboards are great for monitoring and controlling your Raspberry Pi projects, here’s how you can get started with Dashboard on your Raspberry Pi.

This article will guide you through the process of installing Dashboard on a Raspberry Pi, from setting up the environment to configuring and customizing your dashboard. …

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This article will guide you through the process of installing Dashboard on a Raspberry Pi, from setting up the environment to configuring and customizing your dashboard.

1. Introduction Dashboards are an excellent way to monitor and control your Raspberry Pi projects. They provide a centralized interface to view sensor data, adjust settings, and perform actions remotely. In this article, we will guide you through the process of installing Dashboard on your Raspberry Pi device.

2. Prerequisites Before starting the installation process, make sure that you have the following prerequisites:

• A Raspberry Pi with a running Raspbian OS (preferably the latest version)
• An internet connection to download and install necessary packages
• Python 3.6 or higher installed on your device

3. Setting Up the Environment To start, update your package lists and upgrade any existing packages by running the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y

4. Installing Node.js and npm Dashboard requires Node.js and npm (Node Package Manager) to run. You can install them using the following command:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | sudo bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

5. Installing Dashboard Now that you have Node.js and npm installed, you can proceed to install Dashboard using the following command:

sudo npm install -g dashboard

This will download and install the latest version of Dashboard from the npm registry.

6. Creating a New Dashboard After installation, create a new directory for your dashboard project and navigate to it:

mkdir my-dashboard
cd my-dashboard

7. Initializing Dashboard Initialize your dashboard by running the following command:

dashboard init

This will generate a package.json file, as well as a dashboard directory containing the default configuration files and example widgets.

8. Configuring Dashboard Open the config/default.js file in your favorite text editor and modify it to fit your needs. At minimum, you should set the following properties:

• title: The title of your dashboard (shown in the browser tab)
• widgets: An array of widgets to include on your dashboard (more on this later)
• port: The port number to run Dashboard on (default is 30000)

9. Creating Widgets Dashboard uses widgets to display data and interact with your Raspberry Pi projects. There are several built-in widget types, such as:

• text: Displays static text
• image: Displays an image from a URL or local file
• value: Displays the value of a variable
• button: Triggers an action when clicked

To create a new widget, add it to the widgets array in your configuration file. Here’s an example:

{
  type: 'value',
  label: 'Temperature',
  value: function() {
    return sensor.readTemp(); // Replace this with your actual temperature reading function
  }
}

This widget will display the current temperature value from a sensor. You can customize its appearance using additional properties like units, minValue, and maxValue.

10. Starting Dashboard To start your dashboard, run the following command:

dashboard start

You should now be able to access your dashboard by navigating to http://<your-pi's-ip>:30000 in a web browser. You can also add it as a bookmark or create a QR code for easy access on mobile devices.

11. Customizing Your Dashboard You can further customize your dashboard by modifying the CSS and HTML templates. The default templates are located in the dashboard/public directory, but you can replace them with your own files if needed. To do this, create a new directory called views, then add an index.html file and a styles.css file inside it. These will override the default templates.

12. Conclusion Congratulations! You have successfully installed Dashboard on your Raspberry Pi and created a basic dashboard. You can now monitor and control your projects remotely using this convenient interface. To add more widgets or customize the appearance of your dashboard, refer to the official documentation: https://dashboard.readthedocs.io/en/latest/.