Phones kind of suck for the 'at a glance' function.

• Widgets take up too much room on the home screen, so you have to swipe over to it to see it.
• once you're there, you're tempted to dive in to look at emails or tweets or whatever else. There's a whole smartphone detox market that's out there, focusing on dumb phones and escaping attention traps.
• Not everyone in the house (e.g., kids) should be looking at a phone regularly.
• I don't have my phone with me when I'm walking back and forth getting ready. A quick glance is faster than a grab, unlock, swipe, read pattern.

Smart home dashboards also seem like a perfect fit with this. A low power, regular refreshing, touch sensitive controlled? That could hang on a wall with a battery? Sounds great.