Key Concepts

Quick rundown of the terms you’ll see in the app and these docs. Already familiar with Home Assistant? Skip to Setup.

Entities

An entity is anything Home Assistant knows about — a light, a sensor, a lock, a speaker. Every entity has an ID like light.living_room and a state (like “on”, “72°F”, or “locked”).

Each tile on your watch represents one entity.

Domains

The domain is the type of entity — the first part of the ID. light.kitchen is a light, lock.front_door is a lock, climate.thermostat is climate.

The domain determines what happens when you tap a tile, what entity view you get when you open it, and what icon shows up. Wrist Assistant supports 50+ domains.

Tiles

A tile is how an entity shows up on your watch. It has an icon, shows the current state, and changes color when active. Tap to toggle, long-press for the radial quick menu. Tap behavior can be overridden per tile — see Custom Tap Actions.

You customize tiles on the iPhone app — icons, colors, animations, rules. You can also add a confirmation prompt to any tile so it asks before toggling — useful for things like garage doors or locks. The watch displays the result.

Pages

Pages are screens of tiles. Swipe left and right between them — rooms, categories, whatever grouping makes sense for you.

Most people use 3–6 pages. You can name them, reorder them, and add as many as you want.

Scenes and Scripts

Scenes set multiple devices at once — “Movie Night” dims the lights and closes the blinds. Scripts run a sequence — “Good Morning” starts the coffee maker and sets the thermostat.

Both show up as tiles you can tap to activate.

How It All Connects

Home Assistant  →  iPhone App  →  Apple Watch
  (the brain)    (the designer)   (the remote)

Home Assistant talks to your physical devices. The iPhone app is where you design your layout. The Apple Watch is where you control things. Changes on the iPhone sync to the watch automatically.

The watch connects to Home Assistant over Wi-Fi, your iPhone’s Bluetooth connection, or cellular. It’ll use your iPhone’s connection when available, but the iOS app doesn’t need to be open or running. The watch works on its own — even if your iPhone is off.

Quick menu is a radial shortcut menu. Long-press a tile and up to 8 shortcuts fan out — slide to one and release. Adjust a value, switch pages, send a TTS announcement, open a camera — all without lifting your finger.

Status Pages

Status pages are scrollable summaries of your home — every light that’s on, every door or window open, who’s home, low batteries, room temperatures. Assign one to a quick menu slot and it opens as a glance-and-dismiss overlay. Highly customizable rows, live group counts, dynamic lists.

Page Peek

Page peek overlays a page on top of the page you’re already on. Reach for a quick menu slot, glance, release to dismiss — back where you started. Great for cameras, security dashboards, and anything you check but don’t dwell on.

Rooms

Rooms map Home Assistant areas to pages. Walk into a room and Wrist Assistant can switch pages automatically, show an intro card, and load per-room Point Control zones. A Room Jump gesture takes you to the current room from anywhere.

Templates

Template tiles show custom data using Jinja2 — the same language Home Assistant uses. Combine sensor readings, count open doors, display energy usage, or show anything you can express in a template.

Focus Filters

Focus Filters trigger Home Assistant actions when your iPhone’s Focus mode changes. Sleep Focus dims the lights. Work Focus adjusts the office. It all happens in the background.

Free vs. Premium

30-day free trial of everything. After that, free users keep 1 page, 1 complication, and basic customization. Nobody likes subscriptions — Premium is a single lifetime purchase that unlocks unlimited pages, complications, quick menus, camera streaming, and full customization.

Nothing gets deleted if you don’t upgrade. Buy Premium later and it all comes back.

Next Up

Ready to connect? Setup Guide →

Something not working? Troubleshooting →