On Amzn, there are nicely framed, wall-mounted control panels for proprietary home automation systems. What are people using for HA? Iβm leaning toward trying to wall mount tablets, but Iβd need 3, and cost starts to factor in. Mounts are a problem; I want it to look as built in as possible, but most mounts arenβt picture-frame style. The ones that Iβve found that are, are designed for specific tablets, and not the low end cheap ones. I donβt have a 3D printer, so Iβm limited to mounts I can buy.
I like some projects here Iβve seen using eInk - thatβs the ideal solution! Is there a source for pre-fab Android eInk wall mounted control panels, or are what Iβve seen bespoke projects?
Iβm not opposed to gross wiring, and am not afraid of cutting holes in dry-wallβ¦ itβs really the mounting that Iβm stuck at. Android 7-10" tablets sufficient to run the UI would probably work, and I can probably even figure out wiring the charger, if I could just get some nice picture-frame style mounts.
What are your solutions that you think is pretty neat? Or products that I may have missed?
How are you with embedded programming?
These are great displays, IPS panel, capacitive touch, they have an ESP32-S3 built in with wifi and bluetooth and the display is attached to its native RGB interface so it can pretty easily run LVGL and other UIs at 30+ fps without breaking a sweat.
https://www.makerfabs.com/sunton-esp32-s3-5-inch-ips-with-touch.html
You mention you like picture frame mounts, so why donβt you use picture frames? You can get some used stuff for very cheap at Goodwill. Or get wood trim at home depot and cut to size.
Anything thatβs not visible gets the glue gun treatment.
Believe me, Iβve thought about redneck-engineering something myself. I may get there; Iβm just checking for more clever, more attractive, turnkey solutions.
Iβm certainly not the only HA user whoβs approached this! I do seem to be the only one without a 3D printer, tho.
This is not redneck engineering, itβs how evening is attached to walls in the US as far as I can see. An ugly hole in drywall, and cover the rough edges with trim. Iβm not sure what else you are looking for.
Something outside the wall could use minimal wood working and nails or command strips.
I currently have an unlocked NSPanel Pro running Fully Kiosk browser for a HA dashboard in one room, but itβs not perfect and its a bit overpriced for what it is, also it;'s wifi only which is a bit of a let down for a permanent control device.
I did see on aliexpress today some new 7-8" android tablets with integrated wall mounts, POE power and data, a basic camera for presence detection etc but minimal sensors otherwise, for somewhat reasonable money, but theyβre 3x to 4x what a basic equivalent tablet costs.
Iβve also dabbled with E-Ink displays but they are expensive and most of the hobbyist grade displays you can control with an ESP or PI donβt have any lighting so they cant be used in the dark. and they would require a lot more DIYing than an android tablet running a kiosk browser. Iβve not seen any off the shelf android e-paper devices designed for home control, look at the pricing of devices like the Onyx Boox tablets (I have an Onyx Boox note3 and love it, but it cost me more than an ipad at the time), you will see itβs a pricy tech to the begin with and low volume niche products also drive up prices a lot. the cheaper e-reader devices are less hackable for DIY.
Was the NSPanel hard to unlock? Did you have to register it first with the corporate servers, or did you unlock it off-WAN? These are the perfect form factor, but I think youβre talking about a different product, because those are only $80, which seems reasonable.
I havenβt looked on Aliexpress β what a great idea, thanks!
E-ink would be great, even with the unlit limitation, but yeah: it seems like a lot of work and money at the moment. The Kobos run a proprietary version of Linux (thatβs the e-reader I have and love), I think, and I may troll ebay looking for used ones. That might work β the mount is still an issue.
Great ideas β thanks again!
NSPanel Pro is easy to unlock, debug mode is enabled by first setting it to a cloud account but you can just use a dummy account for it. it is just android so enable ADB then load a lightweight launcher, change some defaults, remove some fluff and go from there.
The regular NSPanel is not android but can still be modified as it is ESP32 based.
if you really want e-ink, an older e-reader with hackable firmware could be a good way to go, but without a printer youβd have to pay for a printing service to make the mount, which would likely take a few iterations to get right so it wouldnβt be particularly cheap. I want to see something about the size of the Boox Palma or Hisense A5 but with a wallmount, POE and some basic sensors.
You can jailbreak many older Kindle models, some require soldering to an internal serial port but then you can load a custom browser with a fullscreen mode, I even had a VNC client on mine to access a VM for a full PC interface.
Personally I purchased some cheap 10" Lenovo tabs for my new place. Havenβt moved in quite yet, but some PoE to USB-C adapters and 3D printed wall mount cases outta get me out for ~$150/unit. Not the cheapest, but far from the most expensive. Should work well enough for what I need.
This is the direction I am moving; you must have a 3D printer at your disposal? Thatβs the blocking component, for me.
Whatβs your plan on tablet going to sleep? Just force it to stay on 24/7 or is there some kiosk-manager or something which actually works and doesnβt break the whole experience every now and then?
Not the one you replied to, but I installed lineageos on a old Samsung tab I had laying around and thereβs the android native option to βpin appsβ which puts the app before the lockscreen basically until you exit the mode manually, meaning you only need to turn on the screen and itβs still protected by password so canβt be used for anything else.
For waking, itβs in the hallway where I have a hue motion sensor. Whenever the sensor notices movement, itβll send a notification to the tablet with the command to wake the screen and the screen turns on. Pretty easy and straightforward
Personally, I have a very old Kindle Fire mounted to the wall that I set to never go to sleep. Its still powerful enough to run a web browser to access the HA interface, so itβs a good use of tech that would otherwise be sitting in the obsolete pile. However, it is just powered with a USB cable hanging across the wall, so not super elegant.
I wanted to do this with an old, first-gen Motorola Xoom! Itβs not supported by any of the Android forks or Linuxes, and Lovelace is too much for its browser. Iβd have an issue hiding the proprietary power plug, and then thereβs the mountβ¦ so many hurdles!
Did you consider running power to yours through the wall?
