3rd party Application launchers

[maxlyth]

My first introduction to Home Assistant wall panels came when blakadder documented how to reliably jailbreak a Sonoff panel back in 2022 and since then the Ultra Small Launcher has been part of my toolkit to navigate a panel for admin purposes and escape the vendor applications.

I can't find the source code or even the origin for blakadder's launcher so it occurred to me that I could add the capability to ha-paneld and do that in a Home Assistant friendly way. I'm not planning to build a default launcher or replace the standards compliant Google Play launcher on modern (Android 13+) panels but I think there should be an easy way to launch apps when the vendor has chosen not implement a navbar or launcher.

I currently have at least 3 UIs (HA UI, HTTP UI and Android App) where config is possible and a launcher adds another UI dimension. I know I have a major refactor in the future which is a reason the release versions are hovering around 0.8.x; I am planning 0.9 to be my UI release before features are stabilised for the mythical 1.0.

If there is anyone with ideas/opinions on this front then let me know.

[maxlyth]

The built-in admin launcher now covers this: it provides access to installed apps, the dashboard, Android settings and ha-paneld configuration, and ha-paneld can manage the panel’s HOME app.

That resolves the original gap without depending on another launcher, so I’m closing this discussion.