People & access

One home, many people, and not everyone should be able to unlock the front door from the hallway tablet. Settings > People & Devices is where you decide who sees what and who can touch what. Everything below applies in GlassHome, in every widget, on every signed-in device.

Who can do what

Every person in your home has a role. Roles are about running the home; access (rooms, controls, dashboards) is set per person on top.

Role	Can
Owner	Everything. Cannot be locked out, not even by themselves.
Admin	Manage people and devices, household settings, theme and background, install and remove widgets, pair devices and approve codes, turn Developer Mode on. Always edits dashboards.
Member	Use the dashboards they were given, change their own preferences (like dark mode), see their own row in People & Devices.

A few guardrails so nobody paints themselves into a corner: nobody edits their own access, admins cannot change other admins, and the owner’s row is read-only for everyone else.

Give someone their own access

Open a person in People & Devices and adjust. Changes apply within about a second, no sign-out needed.

Rooms

Whole home, or pick rooms. Devices in rooms they were not given simply do not exist for them.

Control

Can control devices, or look only. Door locks, alarm, cameras, and garage stay off unless you switch them on, even inside their rooms.

Dashboards

All dashboards, or pick which ones. Can edit dashboards lets them rearrange and configure the ones they see.

Access ends

Never, in a day, in a week, or a date you pick. Same switch for people and for shared screens.

When you add a person you pick a starting point first, then adjust: Everything (whole home, all controls), Chosen rooms (rooms you pick, sensitive devices off), or Look, don’t touch (view only). Starting points are only a prefill; nothing is stored about them afterwards.

People who sign in with Home Assistant

Someone with their own Home Assistant account can be restricted like anyone else, and it holds everywhere in GlassHome. They still have their Home Assistant login though, so they can open Home Assistant’s own app and see everything there. Their detail page says so. Restriction with real teeth belongs to people you invite by link and to shared screens, because those never hold a Home Assistant key.

Not everyone in a home wants, or should have, a Home Assistant account. Add person > Invite link creates a local GlassHome account for them instead.

Choose Local account, pick a starting point, then name them and adjust what they can reach. Share the link or let them scan the QR code.
They open the link, pick a password, and land on the dashboards you gave them.
At the end they see their sign-in name, once. It is the name they type from then on, together with their password, from Local sign in on the welcome screen. It also shows on their row in People & Devices, so you can remind them.

The link is the key

Whoever holds the link can join as that person until it is used. It works once and expires after 7 days. Share it like a house key, not like a party invite. Pending invites show in People & Devices with Resend (makes a fresh link) and Cancel.

There is no password reset for invited people. If one of them forgets, remove them and invite them again; their access settings take a minute to redo, their password a second.

Shared screens and devices

Connect device asks one question first: who is this device for?

This device follows your own access, and shows up under your sessions.
Someone else follows that person’s access, and shows up under theirs.
Shared device (the kitchen tablet, the wall panel by the door) gets its own profile: a name, its own access, the dashboard it shows on start, and its own theme (or “Same as home”). Shared devices start with nothing ticked; pairing never copies your access onto a screen.

Set it up first, then pair last by scanning the code on the screen or typing it in. Everything you set applies the moment it connects. Only admins can pair devices and approve Quick connect codes.

Shared devices sit in the Devices group in People & Devices, with the same Access ends and Unpair controls. Unpair signs the screen out on the spot and it shows the connect screen again; pair it later with a new code. A change to a shared screen’s start dashboard or theme shows up the next time that screen reloads.

Upgraded from 1.1?

Screens paired before this release became their own members, with access copied from whoever paired them. Admins see a one-time note asking to review them. Check each one and tighten what it can see and do. If one turns out to be your own phone, unpair it and connect it again as you.

When access ends

On a date. Set Access ends on a person or a shared screen. When the date passes, their access ends just like removing them: they are signed out everywhere and see one clear screen, “Access ended”, with Sign in again and Sign out. To bring them back, add them again (people with a Home Assistant login sign in again and you set their access anew; people you invited need a new invite link).
Remove. Removing someone signs them out of every device right away. Dashboards and widgets they set up stay; only their access goes.
Sign out one device. Each person’s detail page lists where they are signed in. Sign out a single session without touching the rest.

Good to know

Honest limits in this release, so you are not surprised:

Home Assistant’s own app is a side door for people who sign in with Home Assistant. GlassHome cannot close it; Home Assistant has no per-device permissions.
Home Assistant’s logbook names the linking user for everything done through GlassHome, because GlassHome talks to Home Assistant with one household login. GlassHome’s own audit line (“Emma turned on the lights”) is the accurate record.
Limited to some dashboards means edit, not create. Someone given a few dashboards and Can edit can rearrange those, but cannot create new ones. Renaming a dashboard’s address is admin only.
Names are visible, states are not. Restricted people can still see the names of rooms and devices that exist in the home. The state and controls of anything outside their access never reach them.
No password reset for invited people. Remove and re-invite.
Removed Home Assistant people come back with full access. Someone who signs in with Home Assistant and was removed (by you, or because their access date passed) gets back in with full access on their next Home Assistant sign-in, until you set their access again. Set it right away, or take away their Home Assistant account.
Developer Mode and the assistant are admin only. They read and write every dashboard, so only admins can switch them on.
A hidden dock shortcut does not come back by itself. Widen someone’s dashboards later and they may need to re-add that dashboard to their dock.

Everything else (rooms, controls, dashboards, expiry) is enforced on the GlassHome server, not in the browser. The app hides what you cannot use, and the server refuses it even if a browser asks.