Suggestions for a mounted tablet with Home Assistant

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ebendl

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Hi all,

The most amazing thing has happened - the SO has asked for some additional Home Automation in my house. She wants something like a "mounted screen" to show the family calendar - it's a big year for our three boys and they have a ton of school stuff and extra curricular activities. She wants something that everybody in the household can quickly check to see what's upcoming and what we're busy with.

I figured it is the perfect opportunity to set up a screen to show HA dashboards, camera feeds, calendars etc.

Does anybody have something like this currently set up?
Did you use an Android tablet with Kiosk Mode? Or a PC with a touch screen? What's available locally that works well?
Are you able to show cameras too?
How did you mount it?

There's plenty of resources online - the most common idea I see is an Android tablet, usually mounted in a 3D printed frame, with a motion sensor close by to turn it on/off automatically when somebody comes near, and a smart-plug to turn on/off charging so that the battery doesn't stay at 100% the whole time (or some people use tablets which has smart control to prevent the battery from being fully charged permanently).

(I did do a quick search on MyBB but found only old posts).
 
I have a similar situation so will be following this thread. First hurdle for me is that the tablet I intended to use has Android 4.4.4 KitKat.
 
ebendl said:
Hi all,

The most amazing thing has happened - the SO has asked for some additional Home Automation in my house. She wants something like a "mounted screen" to show the family calendar - it's a big year for our three boys and they have a ton of school stuff and extra curricular activities. She wants something that everybody in the household can quickly check to see what's upcoming and what we're busy with.

I figured it is the perfect opportunity to set up a screen to show HA dashboards, camera feeds, calendars etc.

Does anybody have something like this currently set up?
Did you use an Android tablet with Kiosk Mode? Or a PC with a touch screen? What's available locally that works well?
Are you able to show cameras too?
How did you mount it?

There's plenty of resources online - the most common idea I see is an Android tablet, usually mounted in a 3D printed frame, with a motion sensor close by to turn it on/off automatically when somebody comes near, and a smart-plug to turn on/off charging so that the battery doesn't stay at 100% the whole time (or some people use tablets which has smart control to prevent the battery from being fully charged permanently).

(I did do a quick search on MyBB but found only old posts).
Click to expand...
I use an Android Tablet (Blackview something that I bought at Incredible Connection to replace the old iPad that died). Prior to that it was running on an old touchscreen all-in-one that was mounted on the wall (prior to inverter, loadshedding killed that old workhouse).

- It's simply mounted using 3d printed slide in brackets;
- it's plugged in permanently (the tablet has a function to prevent overcharging);
- running HA android app

I don't use the calendar function any longer since the kids are old enough now not to bother, but iirc I used a Google Calendar integration so everything could be updated on shared family calendar via phone or pc.
 
Would you mind sharing a Pic?

Anything fancy to turn it on when you're close to it?
Any automations to change what the tablet is doing or showing, or do you just use it as needed with the HA app?
 
ebendl said:
Would you mind sharing a Pic?

Anything fancy to turn it on when you're close to it?
Any automations to change what the tablet is doing or showing, or do you just use it as needed with the HA app?
Click to expand...
Happy to share a pic

Nothing fancy to turn it on - it's always on since it doubles as the kitchen clock as well. When we had loadshedding, it would also show LS predicted times etc and ran automations to switch off geysers and things.

The HA app runs all the time

1737646647546.png
 
Last edited:
I recommend using the Fully Kiosk app on an Android tablet. It's very customisable. You can set up a custom dashboard for the tablet, and you can lock it down so no other apps can be accessed. The tablet's own camera can detect motion and turn the screen on.
I use this setup on an old Android phone mounted in the kitchen on the wall. It shows basics like the weather, temperatures inside and outside, a to-do list showing groceries from the Our Groceries integration, and some lights.
 
I mounted the phone cover with a flathead screw to the wall, then the phone just clips into the cover.
 
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