Home Assistant Mushroom Cards is a custom card collection that transforms the default Home Assistant dashboard from a functional but utilitarian interface into a clean, modern, iOS-inspired control panel. Mushroom replaces the standard entity cards with rounded, colorful chips and cards that have large touch targets, consistent spacing, and visual feedback animations. It is the most popular custom dashboard component in the Home Assistant ecosystem, with over 5,000 GitHub stars and active development.
The default Home Assistant Lovelace dashboard works, but it looks like a developer built it for developers. Mushroom Cards make your dashboard look like a consumer smart home app that your family actually wants to use. The cards support lights with color and brightness controls, climate devices with temperature adjustments, media players with artwork and playback controls, and dozens of other entity types. Here is how to install Mushroom, configure the most useful cards, and build a dashboard that looks like a professional designed it.
Installing Mushroom Cards Through HACS
Mushroom Cards install through HACS (Home Assistant Community Store), which is the standard method for adding custom frontend components to Home Assistant. If you do not have HACS installed yet, it requires a one-time setup through the Home Assistant interface.
To install HACS: go to Settings, Devices & Services, Add Integration, and search for HACS. Follow the setup wizard, which asks you to authorize HACS with your GitHub account. After HACS is installed and configured, it appears in the left sidebar.
To install Mushroom Cards: open HACS from the sidebar, go to Frontend, click the plus icon, search for “Mushroom,” and install “Mushroom” by Paul Bottein. After installation, HACS prompts you to reload your browser. Clear your browser cache if the cards do not appear immediately in the card picker. The entire process takes under 5 minutes.
After installation, every Mushroom card type appears in the standard card picker when editing your dashboard. Click “Add Card” on any dashboard view, search for “Mushroom,” and you will see the full list: Mushroom Alarm Control Panel Card, Mushroom Chips Card, Mushroom Climate Card, Mushroom Cover Card, Mushroom Entity Card, Mushroom Fan Card, Mushroom Light Card, Mushroom Lock Card, Mushroom Media Player Card, Mushroom Number Card, Mushroom Person Card, Mushroom Select Card, Mushroom Template Card, Mushroom Title Card, Mushroom Update Card, and Mushroom Vacuum Card.
Essential Mushroom Cards for Every Dashboard
Mushroom Title Card: Use this at the top of each dashboard view as a section header. It displays a title, subtitle, and optional icon. Create titles like “Living Room,” “Climate,” or “Security” to organize your dashboard into visual sections. The title card supports Jinja2 templates, so you can display dynamic text like “Good Morning, [name]” based on time of day.
Mushroom Chips Card: This card displays a row of small, rounded “chip” buttons that pack maximum information into minimum space. Each chip shows an icon and optional text. Common uses: a chip showing the number of lights currently on (tapping it turns them all off), a chip showing current outdoor temperature, a chip showing who is currently home (using person entities), and chips for quick scene activations. The Chips Card is the most space-efficient Mushroom component and belongs at the top of every dashboard view.
Mushroom Light Card: Replaces the default light toggle with a rounded card showing the light name, current brightness percentage, and a color indicator for RGB lights. Tapping the card toggles the light on/off. Holding (long-press) opens a detailed control popup with brightness slider, color temperature adjustment, and RGB color picker. The visual feedback (card color changes to match the light color) makes the current state immediately obvious.
Mushroom Climate Card: Displays your thermostat with current temperature, target temperature, and HVAC mode (heating, cooling, auto, off). The card’s color changes based on mode: orange for heating, blue for cooling, green for auto. Tapping opens a detailed popup with temperature adjustment controls and mode selection.
Mushroom Media Player Card: Shows album artwork, track title, artist name, and playback controls for any media player entity. The card dynamically colors itself based on the album artwork’s dominant color, creating a visually cohesive appearance. Volume control and source selection are available in the detailed popup.
Building a Complete Dashboard Layout
A well-designed Mushroom dashboard follows a consistent structure across all views: Title Card at the top identifying the room or category, Chips Card below the title with at-a-glance status information, then entity-specific Mushroom cards organized in a grid layout using Home Assistant’s grid or horizontal stack layout cards.
For the Home view, start with a Title Card displaying a time-based greeting using a template. Below it, a Chips Card showing: number of active lights, current outdoor temperature (weather entity), number of people home (person entities), door lock status, and an alert chip that only appears when something needs attention (water leak detected, door left open). Below the chips, add Mushroom Entity Cards for the most-used controls: living room light group, thermostat, media player, and an “All Lights Off” button using a Mushroom Template Card.
For room-specific views, use a Title Card with the room name, a Chips Card showing room-specific status (room temperature, humidity, motion sensor last triggered), followed by Mushroom cards for each device in the room. Organize lights, switches, and sensors in a consistent order across all room views so family members develop muscle memory for where controls are located.
Use Home Assistant’s section layout (introduced in 2024.6) for automatic responsive grid arrangement. Section layout automatically adjusts column count based on screen width, making your Mushroom dashboard look good on both wall-mounted tablets and phone screens without separate mobile and desktop configurations.
Customizing Mushroom Card Appearance
Mushroom Cards support extensive visual customization through their built-in options and through the card-mod custom component for CSS styling.
Built-in customization: every Mushroom card supports custom icons (any Material Design icon), custom icon colors (using CSS color values or Home Assistant theme colors), layout options (horizontal, vertical, default), and fill mode (which extends the card background color to fill the entire card area, creating bold colored blocks).
For advanced styling, install card-mod through HACS. Card-mod lets you apply CSS directly to individual cards, changing fonts, padding, borders, shadows, and animations. Common card-mod customizations for Mushroom Cards include: removing card backgrounds for a floating appearance, adding subtle shadows for depth, changing font sizes for wall-mounted tablet readability, and adding CSS animations that pulse a card when a sensor crosses a threshold (like a humidity card that glows red when humidity exceeds 70 percent).
Mushroom’s built-in themes support dark mode and light mode with automatic switching based on time of day or system preference. The default Mushroom theme uses a soft, muted color palette that avoids the harsh contrasts of the default Home Assistant theme. Install additional community themes through HACS for different visual styles.
Mushroom Template Card for Custom Functionality
The Mushroom Template Card is the most powerful and flexible card in the collection. It accepts Jinja2 templates for every visual element (icon, icon color, primary text, secondary text, badge icon, badge color), letting you create completely custom cards that display and control anything Home Assistant can access.
Practical examples: a card that shows your electricity consumption in real-time with a color-coded icon (green under 1kW, yellow under 3kW, red above 3kW). A card showing the last time your robot vacuum ran with a tap action to start a new cleaning cycle. A card displaying your next calendar event with the time remaining. A card that counts open windows and doors, showing “All Secure” in green when everything is closed and “3 Open” in orange when some are open.
Template Cards accept tap actions (toggle, navigate, call-service, URL), hold actions, and double-tap actions. A single template card can navigate to a room-specific dashboard view on tap, toggle all lights in that room on hold, and open a more-info dialog on double-tap. This multi-action capability packs significant functionality into each card.
Performance Tips for Large Mushroom Dashboards
Mushroom Cards are lightweight, but dashboards with 50+ cards on a single view can cause noticeable rendering delays, especially on wall-mounted tablets with limited processing power.
Split your dashboard into multiple views (tabs) rather than putting everything on one scrolling page. Each view loads independently, so a 5-tab dashboard with 15 cards per tab loads faster than a single tab with 75 cards. Use the navigation chips in a Chips Card to switch between views.
Avoid unnecessary Template Cards with complex Jinja2 expressions. Simple templates render instantly, but templates that iterate over large entity lists or perform complex calculations cause rendering delays. Move complex logic into Template Sensors (configured in YAML or the Helpers UI) and reference the resulting sensor value in your Template Card. The sensor updates in the background, and the card simply displays the pre-calculated value.
Is Mushroom Cards free for Home Assistant?
Yes. Mushroom Cards is completely free and open-source, developed by Paul Bottein and community contributors. Install through HACS at no cost. No premium features, no paid tiers, no subscriptions. It is the most popular free custom frontend component for Home Assistant.
Does Mushroom Cards work on mobile phones?
Yes. Mushroom Cards are designed with touch-first interaction and responsive layouts. Cards resize automatically on smaller screens. The large touch targets and swipe gestures work naturally on the Home Assistant Companion App for iOS and Android. Many users design their Mushroom dashboards specifically for phone use.
Can I use Mushroom Cards without HACS?
Technically yes, by manually downloading the JavaScript file from GitHub and placing it in your Home Assistant www folder. However, HACS is strongly recommended because it handles installation, updates, and dependency management automatically. HACS itself is free and takes 5 minutes to install.
Do Mushroom Cards replace the default Home Assistant cards?
Mushroom Cards add new card types alongside the default cards. You can mix Mushroom cards and default cards on the same dashboard. Most users transition gradually, replacing default cards with Mushroom equivalents as they customize each view. No default functionality is removed or affected.
What is the best Mushroom Card theme?
The default Mushroom theme works well for most setups. For alternative styles, the “Catppuccin” theme (pastel colors), “Noctis” theme (deep dark mode), and “iOS Dark Mode” theme are popular community options available through HACS. Each theme changes colors while keeping Mushroom card shapes and layouts intact.
