Wall mounted Node-RED touch screen device: Request for ideas and volunteers

Hardware
41

Haha, I sympathise. I put it off for ages. But once I managed to pick up an ElectroLama dongle and installed Zigbee2MQTT, the rest was realy easy. Ikea gave me a bunch of nice, low-cost devices to play with. I did hope that I might be able to at least see the output from the Wiser TRV's as well but you can only have one hub for a Zigbee network. The TRV's report back to their own controller. But that's OK because I grab the data from the controllers REST API anyway :slight_smile:

I now have a couple of bulbs, a couple of switches and a couple of PIR sensors and they all work really well. I'm slowly retiring my old LightwaveRF devices. Zigbee is so much more reliable. The Ikea bulbs also give me really reliable dimming which is nice. Not only to save powr but also to extend the life of the bulbs.

Yes, well, once you've decorated, you are only "the cable guy where we buried cables" guy!

Yes, it really does make more sense. But don't forget, it you have cupboards or shelves, you can often hide a USB powered Wi-Fi sensor platform and those are trivial and cheap to make.

I get it. I'm just an adopted Yorkshire-man and, as such, a penny-pincher :slight_smile:

Also, it was some years of working on her before my wife would even accept different lighting concepts. Screens in rooms is still a step too far!

Actually though, for some years, I have wanted to create a Pi-based "alarm clock" that would look nice in a bedroom and so gain SWIMBO acceptance.

Truth is though, that after a couple of years of having the Wiser heating system, she decided she wanted more control over the rooms she was in and so started actually using the phone app. So really I suspect that even for her, a phone app would be a more acceptable interface than screens around the house.

And that suits me because I don't want to pay a thousand pounds or more to equip the house with loads of fixed screens that have to be maintained & will hardly (if ever) get used. All of the occupants of the house always carry phones so that is a better path for us.

I'll keep working on you Bart, you'll come round to my way of thinking in the end - everyone does :rofl:

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42

Yes indeed. Especially if a 35 EUR Fire 7 tablet should be able to show a "simple" dashboard, then it would become unbeatable in price. Especially since most hardware (webcam, microphone, speaker..) is already available out of the box, without having to start soldering.. And in some rooms (e.g. kitchen) I can always install a bit more expensive tablet that has more resources.

I have also came across solutions with magnets. One magnet is screwed/glued on the wall, while the othet magnet is glued on the back of the tablet. That might be an alternative when I can't find an affordable case to mount the device...

Yes that is also something I came across. But not sure whether that works well: will the battery load fast enough, will the battery life of the tablet be reduced due to continious loading, ...
I also saw some folks who drill a little hole in the back of the tablet, and insert a power wire that is soldered inside to the pcb. Or they add a power connector to the back of the tablet, to make sure it can easily be detached. But it seems a bit desctructive to me...

43

In Germany you can get all fire tablets for 20€ less is you accept advertisements on your home screen. As i never registered my tablet and never see the home screen - That's fine. Installed google play store and installed "Wall Panel" - done. So you get a 7" outdated decent quality tablet for under 40€ occasionally. But it is under-powered for the quite heavy NR dashboard!
I would not recommend this model only if you like to do some experiments with a very small invest.

I use homematic thermostats (outdated) but the cheapest with open source support at that time. As a (only final assembly) kit for under 40€. Rund 2 years on 2 AA. The 868Mhz hub is a crab, you can use a open source solution or do the setup once place it somewhere and it simply works. Range is great (reaces a teperature sensor in my greenhouse at the other end of my garden without any issues). Directly communication with my window sensors (1x AAA > 2Years)!
But there are certainly more advanced models out there i.e. Zigbee models:

I can agree 100%. Not only because Zigbee already works on Mars :wink: , so future prove, mostly because you get reasonable priced hardware (like IKEA) and the great z2m support. With a few mains powered devices the mesh is absolutely stable and the low power consumption make battery powered devices (I own a 130 years old house so cables are a no go in most cases) reasonable even with always on sensors like the IR movement sensor from Ikea or window sensors.

I think if you take the human factor into account there is a need for many approaches. For some people siri is the place to talk to, for others they need a classic wheel on the radiator, others a phone app, others full control with presence detection and mutiple sensors and AI :slight_smile: and a room controler on the wall (always there, always on and can show and control more than the specific room if needed)

To make a long story short in my opinion if you have the need for a wall mounted touch screen interface:

  • Tablets are a good solutions: mostly all included, affordable, hardware build for purpose = human interaction, software side is 100% within the Node-RED ecosystem
  • MCU based devices: More suitable for mcu coders in c++ or micro python (?) and some hardware hacking
  • Of the shelf HMI devices without own coding. If you trust the source the "8ms" software looks promising. Or spend 1.500€+ for a professional "western" non hackable room controller i.e. KNX or what not.
  • Raspberry Pi: Too many elements (Screen, Raspberry, power supply, POE?, case) with little benefit and if you sum up everything you get a decent tablet for the same price tag and smaller form factor.
  • no need for a Node-RED instance on the device itself (but a separate instance per device type on your server if you use the standard Dashboard)
2 Likes
44

Bart,

I think your best bet is a Tablet to start with - rather than 3d printing what about a wooden frame for it to sit in and then be easily detached

You could use a wireless charging pad like this one

Which would stick on the back of the tablet and then have the charging pad mounted on the wall as part of the frame.

Craig

2 Likes
45

That's cool. I totally forgot these gadget ... so I will design a snap out tablet mount so the tablet can be used as an remote control too ... +1 for the Tablet solution.
Only have to get the family to put the tablet back after use in their holders and don't mix them :wink: My son is an expert in NOT charging gadget after use.

46

Ok. Suppose I order it here, do you think I can display - with normal response times - a dashboard that e.g. only displays a keypad (9 buttons to enter an alarm code). Or would that be too slow already? And connectivity is of course also important: when you need to disable your alarm within N seconds, you don't want to have a "connection lost" that takes a very long time ... If you have any practical experience of such things with the Fire 7 tablet, it would be nice if you could share it!

Hmm, that might indeed be something to think about. It will be thicker and more difficult to install a temperature sensor inside. If somebody has seen a nice and simple wooden design, please share it!

Is it allowed to turn something like that ON all the time? Or does it only need to run when the battery is below x %, in order to avoid to reduce the lifetime of the battery?

Nice! Thanks for sharing!
Although perhaps it is also possible to charge a tablet via its USB adapter, via an USB connector installed (fixed) on the frame? To avoid needing to have wireless loading...

47

Yes you can just mount the connector on the frame - but if you plan on taking the tablet in and out all time then it is a problem with getting correctly aligned without damaging.

Yes you can leave a wireless charger on all the time

If you go for a low end/old tablet then the response time will suffer - it is a trade off, but a browser on a modern tablet is plenty fast enough

Craig

1 Like
48

If going for a tablet you could use Tasker/Automate to monitor the charging, so the charger could be turned off when 100% and back on when falling below a certain level. This would prolong the battery life, and insure it is always at a good charge. I don't see the point in wireless charing as you still see a plug on display. The beauty of the android device is it gives more option like using Alexa or google now on the device, so you can start music or webpages by voice.
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2 Likes
49

You really don't need the heavyweight Dashboard to do that! A simple, static page connecting to a REST endpoint (sends the data once you've typed in your 4 digitis). Or add a simple websocket conncetion. uibuilder could do that for you of course. The coding of the page would be trivial. The resulting page would be tiny. You wouldn't need a front-end framework at all.

Micropython - I've had several goes at that but there doesn't seem to be a stable, up-to-date version that is supported on all devices. I gave up on it.

ESPhome will give you access to many displays, sensors and controls and they only need configuration not code. But it also still allows you to add custom code when needed. It is a really nice compromise and it works well across many devices. I have a bunch of template configs for different sensors, displays and controls and a master config for each device so I can build and change things really easily. By far the best approach I've come across so far and I have it running on various ESP32 and ESP8266 devices. If, like me, you are a reluctant and poor C++ coder, it does all the difficult bits for you - rather like Node-RED but without the wizzy graphical bits :grinning:

50

Any modern device already does that. I leave mine plugged in all the time.

I think that it is a good option actually and I hadn't thought about it because we don't currently use any wireless charging here in chez Knight. Makes a nice neat and tidy solution. It also makes mounting a lot easier as you haven't got to faff with the wires. It will also be more robust because those usb connectors are notoriously bad.

51

Yes, but the best charging for lithium ion is to not fully charge or discharge , I find the battery would preform better if discharge to no less than 40% and charge to 80-90% never the full 100%
How to Properly Charge a Phone Battery - Tech Advisor.

P.S. Wireless charger are less efficient, unless you plan to remove tablet from wall constantly wireless would be wasteful,

52

Manufaturers know this as well. All of the reputable manufacturers have smart charging profiles. Not really surprising since most of them use a very limited number of chipsets.

I am surrounded by 10 (8 laptops and 2 phones) computing and phone devices that I regularly use and leave on charge. I have at least as good a battery lifespan that some of my colleagues who try to manually manage charging in the way you suggest. That is especially true of my 2 phones which go onto charge every night - not because they need to but rather because I never know when I might need to go out for work and need a full charge.

The LiOn/LiPo battery charging issues are well understood and the theory is correct. It is just that the practice has moved on. Some devices from manufacturers such as Lenovo have been doing smart battery management for probably nearly a decade now.

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And you trust manufacturer? They often build in obsolescence or design flaws
Look at led lights, when first out they lasted forever, now the manufacturers drive them to the limit. With batteries built in these days, when they go most just buy a new phone, an opportunity that manufacturers would play on.

Charging manually is still fraught with errors. so unless they do it automatiicaly, they still often overcharge.I have devices that are 10 years old that still hold a good charge, as i always turn off automatically at 80%.
Advice from cadex

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I even never started to test micropython ( because I never wrote one line of python)

There is even a node.js version ported to esp32 … nice demo but I stay with the right language for the right platform.

What you get on that 7” screen with reasonable sizes (default settings) without scrolling will work in my experience. As on my picture)
The amount of tabs is irrelevant as they render on demand.

Yes with big tabs and a lot of groups and widgets you will run into that loop. Think it is a RAM problem and a too short timeout setting.

Perhaps better use uibuilder :star_struck:
Or wait until Black Friday and keep your invest low.

55

What a coincidence...
Today it was on the news that currently most home fires are caused by burning batteries of smartphones and tablets. So they advice not to load those batteries when you are sleeping.
So that is again an extra issue...

56

I've been following this thread and just tried installing Wall-Panel on a very old Fire-7 (7-inch tablet).
As you can see it works really well rendering various dashboards.
A cheap and cheerful way of creating a wall panel.

fire_7_A
fire_7_A1274×956 232 KB

fire_7_B
fire_7_B1274×956 143 KB

fire_7_C
fire_7_C1274×956 312 KB

6 Likes
57

Interesting but I have my doubts and did some research. The most trusted sources (insurances) list around 30% caused by electrical faults.
Main cause mains shortcuts or bad wiring, cables, sockets, switchboard (I had a nearly hazardous incident with a bad wired socket where one dishwasher was connected)
Second electrical devices

  1. Laundry dryer
  2. Fridge
  3. Dishwasher
  4. Washing machine
  5. Kitchen
  6. TV sets
  7. Other equipment …

No specific mention of lion batteries phones or tablets.

There was the hoverboard problem with all the crappy high power battery packs … some time ago

But I can’t find no evidence for Germany to prove that claim. Definitely not “most”.

But it is a problem as all the others and it is good that in Germany every room has to be equipped with smoke detectors.

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I'd like to see the evidence for that.

LiON batteries are made very robustly and in normal use fires are very rare indeed. You need to really abuse a battery to damage it enough to being a runaway reaction. (with the notable exception of that notorious Samsung device which was badly designed and made the battery all too easy to damage).

Last time I spoke to a UK fireman about fire risks, the leading cause was Driers. I believe since then, it is old dishwashers (the white-goods local repair company that we use will not repair dishwashers over 6 years old for that reason).

So if your household is populated by careless people who abuse electronics maybe you might worry a bit. But otherwise I think the risk is very low. One thing I probably would check would be to do a test with a device mounted and a sensor platform with a temp sensor on it - mount the device and run a game on it or something else to really get it heated up (down/up-loading data over the network can be quite a good test) - see what temperature it gets up to.

OK, interesting - not sure how old these stats are. I think around 2018. UK leading causes of houshold fires:

  • Cooking appliances: 48.3%
  • Other electrical devices: 12.8%
  • Electrical distribution faults: 11.9%
  • Materials used by smokers: 7%

Ah, here we go, figures updated this year:

What are the most common causes of house fires in the UK?

Cooking appliances account for almost half (48%) of all accidental house fires.

The most common causes of accidental house fires in the UK in 2019/20 were as follows:

  • Cooking appliances: 12,295
  • Smokers’ materials: 1,796
  • Other electrical appliances: 3,145
  • Electrical distribution: 3,081
  • Candles: 799
  • Space heating appliances: 778
  • Central and water heating appliances: 256
  • Cigarette lighters: 192
  • Matches: 169
  • Blowlamps, welding and cutting equipment: 116
  • Other / Unspecified: 2,857

image

UK house fire statistics & common causes of fires | Morgan Clark

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That looks like an excellent solution @dynamicdave.
Do you have the display permanently on, or does it wake up with a touch?

I wonder if my Tesco Hudl (Android 4.2) and Google Nexus 4 (4.4) can be rescued from the shed and persuaded to run Wall-Panel.
I've tried using them for dashboards before but when the screen goes off you have to press a tiny button (and wait an extraordinarily long time) to get it back.

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Allways an inspiration: