Star Trek Fan Builds Real LCARS Control Panel for Smart Home

A tech-savvy Star Trek fan just brought science fiction into their living room, and the result looks straight out of the USS Enterprise bridge.

Ursa Wright, a video editor who discovered home automation during the pandemic, spent countless hours building a custom control panel inspired by LCARS, the iconic computer interface from Star Trek: The Next Generation. But this isn't just a pretty display. It actually controls their entire smart home.

Wright uses Home Assistant, an open-source home automation platform, to manage everything from doorbell cameras to laundry reminders. Living with ADHD, they found these automated systems genuinely helpful for daily tasks. Voice commands work great (yes, "Computer" is the wake word), but sometimes you want physical controls that look amazing.

The breakthrough came when Wright discovered LVGL, a graphics library that creates sophisticated custom interfaces. Combined with ESPHome firmware and a 7-inch touchscreen with a built-in ESP32 microcontroller, the pieces fell into place.

Wright studied screenshots from Star Trek: Voyager and recreated the interface panel by panel. First came the design in Adobe Illustrator, then the painstaking work of translating every button, color, and rounded corner into code. The two gauges at the top control lighting brightness. Every colorful button triggers real smart home functions.

The technical challenge was real. LVGL typically requires C programming, but ESPHome uses the simpler YAML language. Wright had to get creative for irregular shapes, since LCARS buttons have those distinctive rounded corners on only two sides. The solution? Stack multiple shapes on top of each other.

Why This Inspires

This project shows how passion projects can solve real problems while bringing joy. Wright didn't just make their home smarter. They made it delightfully nerdy and genuinely useful.

The LCARS interface was never designed to be practical. Its creator wanted something that "suggests well-organized" for TV viewers. But Wright found beauty in those colorful panels at age eight and never let go. Now their childhood dream sits on their living room wall, controlling real technology.

Home automation doesn't have to be boring beige boxes and generic apps. It can be colorful, joyful, and inspired by the futures we imagined as kids. Wright's creation proves that the best smart homes are the ones that make us smile every time we use them.

The project is entirely open-source, meaning other fans can build their own Enterprise-worthy control panels.