I just use the openbox window manager. It has built-in support for putting the screen to sleep when not in use. In ~/.config/openbox/autostart, I put my script to launch chromium in kiosk mode. And then ~/.xinitrc launches openbox-session. And logging in triggers startx in my ~/.bashprofile. Systemd uses agetty to automatically log in the kioskuser on tty1 on boot.
I built a head unit out of pi 4 a few years back. I used a time delayed relay to control the power to the pi. When the pi is turned off it still consumes a small amount of power, like a a few hindered miliamps. That was enough to kill the car battery in 2-3 days. For sound, I used an external amp, the amp was fed audio through a usb sound card, some pulseaudio changes needed to be made to stop it from popping all the time. Amplifing from usb will feed ALL electrical noise from your car into speakers, it's truly awful, so you'll need a usb power conditioner between the port and the sound card. I think it was 5 - 10 bucks on amazon, and the best solution I had tried.
same, I used the aux to a 25w amp and a ground loop isolator. Quality wasn't great.. but not bad. I didn't run it off the constant power line tbh but yeah, there's only one earth in a car which makes things tricky. I used the constant power line to run a a 12->5v bucky so I could have phone charging
A few hundred milliamps while turned off? And it killed your battery in 2-3 days? An idle Pi while turned ON draws 540 mA. That still should kill a battery in over a week, most likely two weeks. Not to mention it's IMPOSSIBLE that it draws HUNDREDS of milliamps while OFF. It should've been fine for a few months. You must've done something wrong or had a bad battery. Besides, if you were concerned about power, why not power Pi from the lighter socket? It gets turned off along with ignition (at least in all cars I've ever seen).
@xshadow-0 yup yup. This is why I was incredibly fortunate - I lived next door to a guy who did car audio and he made sure I didn't destroy my car and pi just for Waze and Spotify.
@@xshadow-0 sounds like something else is drawing power through the RPi, if one get that much drawn when turned off. Maybe through USB or something like that. But yes, a relay will definitely turn the Pi and auxiliaries off when the car is not running. But there are other sources which will turn of when the key isn't on, that is better suited. It can be turned of by the Pi, with a self holding circuit, and then when turn of, the Pi can release the self holding relay. So it get started after the key has turned on, and turns of when ready when the key has turned off. One should probably think about the lower voltage when the car is starting.
5:45 Don't throw own service files to /lib/systemd/system/, there they belong to /etc/systemd/system/. But that is only for services that don't belong to some specific user. On a raspberry pi you have the default user that is automatically logged in. This user has its own systemd running, it is controlled with "systemctl --user ..." and has its service files in ~/.config/systemd/user/ That said, depending on your desktop environment (I assume raspberry pi defaults), there is another place to automatically start the script: ~/.config/autostart/ where you can put *.desktop files.
@@JeffGeerling there are not a definite line where some things are users define and system defined. I would say that in the case of controlling the car or home assisten controller, it is system defined, but added by the local administrator. Like one add local administrators programs and scripts used by all users or system in /usr/local/{bin,sbin,lib} etc. There is where they are supposed to be put in Debian based Linux distributions. I strongly recommend reading A Debian Administrators Handbook", which are available as a package in Debian, as an eBook, Web pages at their site or can be bought as a ordinary book printed on processed dead trees (paper that is). There this differences are pointed out between package files and local administration files and user local files.
There is a way to rotate the screen using kernel cmd params - it's very poorly documented and not well known you can add `video=DSI-1:panel_orientation=right_side_up` you might need to replace DSI-1 with something different, but you get the point
Our college capstone project was actually building out a custom car infotainment system (although we didn't have carplay) But for the hardware, we used a raspberry pi with touchscreen and a hifiberry dac to get composite audio then a car stereo amp to actually push it out to the speakers. Honestly unless you want a lot of software control in a pi I would consider a standard double din stereo. You don't have to worry about temperature issues and after costs are considered (crutchfield has stereos for ~$250-300) it's roughly the same
I went searching and found this video. Was hoping it was a few years old and things had improved, but 7 days ago? Man, you worked on this at the perfect time!
I used the original screen to make a bedside smart screen, I wrote scripts to start UA-cam in chrome, to stream my favourite radio station then turn the volume down and turn off the screen, and a few other night time things. Each script also had a shutdown command on a timer so after 2 hours it would shut the pi down. This didn’t turn it off-off (Pi 3, and later 4 problems) but I had a foot switch on an extension cable that I would hit every morning to turn it off properly. That same switch turned it back on when I wanted to use it. Paired with some USB speakers it worked fine but was bulky and eventually the footswitch technique got tedious so I replaced it with a cheap android tablet - although now I have to control the volume and turn off the screen manually. I also have to charge it every 5-7 days which is also annoying. One day I’ll build a perfect setup!
This is very cool. I want to say though that if you're specifically interested in Home Assistant, then an old Android tablet and the "Fully Kiosk" app is a much more useful - and useable option. You can have it run from boot, and it gives Home Assistant access to a load of the sensors on the tablet, meaning the front camera can be used to detect motion and automatically turn the screen on when someone stands in front of it. It's very powerful and given it's really just a wrapper for a web browser, it runs well even on old & low power tablets.
Any recommendations for what are good choices? I’ve been thinking of a home assistant powered home inventory for a while but a display and connecting it to a barcode scanner are the two big hurdles.
@@U1TR4F0RCE Not really, the tablet I use was a budget model when it came out in 2016. The only things I'd look out for is getting one with the Google Play store (or an easy way to add it), and not an absolute bottom of the line model, as that's going to be a bit unresponsive, which can get annoying.
@@U1TR4F0RCE I have a couple of de-amazoned fire hd10 tablets, a Fire HD8, a Samsung Galaxy Tab A, an old Acer tablet and a couple of android phones running as HA touchscreens Running the HA android app. They all do a fine job. Since most android devices expose things like battery level the charger can be connected via a smart socket set to turn on at 10% battery and off at 90%. This reduces the problem of bloating batteries due to constant charging that some badly designed devices seem to suffer from. The HA server itself runs on an old Wyse thin client I had laying around.
In Linux, anything is possible. When ever someone uses the word can't, it means he can't, but Linux does not have any restrictions. Re-compile the kernel.
@@JeffGeerling why isn't it possible? at the boot log stage, it's just a framebuffer, after all using grub, on desktop, it'd be something like `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="fbcon=rotate:1"` or `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="video=efifb fbcon=rotate:1"` according to raspberry forums you would use `/boot/cmdline.txt` and put `fbcon=rotate:1` in it which is even more likely to work (since afaik pi doesn't use grub) of course, other numbers will rotate it other multiples of 90°
@@JeffGeerling i think you could use an option in the linux kernel's cmdline, if the raspberry pi is using u-boot/systemd-boot, then it should be a standalone file in /etc
I think you can do this with "fbcon=rotate:1" in the grub config (boot/cmdline.txt) or in the config.txt "lcd_rotate=1" and "display_hdmi_rotate=1". I have a weird custom cyberdeck/pizero laptop I built that correctly shows portrait shell on boot--though it only shows in the middle of the 480x1920 widescreen display.
Home Assistant dashboard is a perfect use case (especially with dimming). I have a future project to build out a Hi-Fi music control interface (maybe piCorePlayer project) that pulls in my entire local (legal!) music collection from the NAS and outputs the audio through some fancy DACs and speakers, so I'm very happy there's a newer Pi display out.
I have the original display and paired with a rp3 the two projects i did were: 1) an insulin calculator (software i wrote) for a type 1 diabetic family member. And then when that wasn't needed anymore (they got better tech), i converted it to run crankshaft in my old 2008 car with a custom 3d printed mount to run android auto. These screens can be used for all sorts of projects, think i might try your home assistant project next. Thanks for the review, home assistant idea and walk through!
Great video! I’ve been working on repairing my magic mirror I built 6 years ago but screen failed a couple years ago. Got it working last night. Also fixed my OSMC Kodi Pi and have been using it to stream music. Both on Pi 3B’s. Helps when watching you talk about challenges and solutions. Appreciate all your work and sharing.
The early rotation option is tricky but possible, as I'm pretty sure the driver used on this board uses the same kernel entrypoint that the old screen used, Kernel Mode Setting. It's just a kernel command line change (`video=DSI-1:800x480@60,rotate=90` for the original display, adjust resolution for display 2), which can be put into cmdline.txt on the boot partition. I believe even the config.txt can be set to rotate the pre-kernel boot screen (`display_lcd_rotate=1`), but only when used on a SD Card, and only for pre-kernel environment. NVME, USB, and Net boot all start after the bootloader starts rendering, only the SD Card is read before the GPU finishes starting up.
This project could be what I need with one twist…my wife uses speech assist devices and takes over CarPlay while we’re in the van….which becomes a problem when I’m driving and navigation choices present themselves while she is “talking” or using a communications app on her phone.
I've got one of those EDA tec hmis, I want to make a kiosk to launch an industrial SCADA Ignition. Super keen to give it a try using your method. (I'm planning on having the PI host both Ignition via docker, and then run the web browser for the HMI part) A replacement is currently sitting on my desk because there were a few booting issues with the first one that was sent. This video got me excited again!
Nice display, I use the touch display for a Software defined radio project and use LVGL library to have a responsive touch GUI. Have to try it with this new display
this is actually pretty helpful for a kiosk project I am working on, ever since porteous kiosk got scummy and decided to rugpull everyone using the software I have been looking to build something myself to replace it when the systems I am using ultimately need to be replaced
The carplay dongle is interesting, hadn't heard of that before! But I would probably avoid using a screen with flaky touch response for my car, trying to wrestle with inconsistent touch input is not ideal at 60mph.
you are correct. Even a car stereo with a cheap display is a bad idea at 60 mph. Been there, done that. I got to where I rarely used the stereo because i had to fuddle around with it and don't want to mess with it while driving.
To be fair the UI of Android Auto and Car Play and OpenAuto/Dash are large and chunky and kind of built around super simple touch controls so even the old screen worked well and from my limited testing in an old build (15) of open auto the new one worked fine there too. Only thing of note I could figure out was there was no multitouch support in Android auto back then, but then again the 9" screen in my 5th gen RAM doesn't do that either so I think that's more of a platform limit than a screen issue (or it could be entirely supported now and I just don't have a new enough vehicle to test that against lol)
Except most Tesla owners continuously tell me it’s fine to interact with a touchscreen at 60mph, and I’m an old man for telling them it’s only a matter of time before they kill someone. As a Tesla driver myself I just can’t understand them.
OMG. You are SO right about those cheap Amazon screens. I have two - both people were trying to give a thoughtful gift. I saw your first video about the new screen and realized that I still had them. I considered getting them out. I immediately got a headache. I'm going to send them to a thrift shop and get this screen. Maybe someone else will have better luck.
Yes, integrating home-brewn solutions like yours into a new car can be next to impossible. I've been fighting with an issue on my 1987 Oldsmobile (which is already stuffed with fancy electronics) whose radio broke down: A Raspberry Pi, a DAB+ / FM tuner board, a (wide-range!) power supply HAT, an amp, and a (non-touch) VF display were the solution…well…at least, in theory. Integrating the display took me months (partially because it expects little-endian data, thereas the Pi is big-endian!), and now a very smart guy from the hackspace in the nearest city is helping me to complete my project.
I've got a Home Assistant dashboard on a Pi Touch Screen 1 with a Pi 3B(?) and love it. Something I've added that's been helpful are buttons on the HA dashboard to make the screen brighter/dimmer and shutdown the pi over SSH. That, plus a cron job to make the display brighter in the morning/dimmer at night have helped tremendously.
Years ago I got the original Pi Touch Screen, a Raspberry Pi 3, a audio hat (forget the specific model) that I could wire the speakers up to, and one of the USB power switches from Mausberry Circuits to build a car computer. I did a similar thing as you, where it would launch Chrome into kiosk mode, and then I built a node.js custom touch interface that would switch between bluetooth audio, MPD, and rtl_fm. But it was always a little bit flakey (mostly the bluetooth) and didn't have CarPlay support (I don't think that dongle you mentioned was available then). So in the end, I ended up just buying one of those cheap Android dual-DIN car stereos on Amazon a couple years ago. It's not the greatest thing ever but it's a lot more reliable (and it spends most of it's time in CarPlay mode anyway). I do miss tinkering on the Pi car computer, though.
If you want a good on screen keyboard, I've used onboard in the past with my Pi 5 and a display. Its much smaller and you can move it around, configure it etc.
Honestly if RPi made the keyboard at least transparent a little, that'd help. Or make it detachable... but onscreen keyboards are very tricky for Linux, which is not like iOS where it's touchscreen-first.
Ive just recently ordered one of them as a proof of concept project for work, planning to use them for meeting room displays to show who has it booked, when, etc. Already have a web based frontend ive been testing and got a custom image build going that i setup with pi-gen that boots to an empty X session and launches chromium in kiosk mode
It might be advisible to use a DC/DC converter in the car that has proper 12/24V UVLO limits which prevents accidental deep discharge. Also it needs to fully control power to the Pi (with it's power mgmt signals factored in) to avoid trickle current drain when it's powered down and goes to a simple halt() state (just like /w old AT PSUs) or get power from IGN as an alternative and loose the ability to to run it from the battery as a compromise and risk SD corruption (tmpfs/ssd/run with fs mounted ro?). An input circuit that has noise filtering and at least transient suppression ensures a long life for the Pi.
I would like to suggest making an edit to your comment on WaveShare displays. I have the 10.1" DSI display for a project and it works almost out of the box, only 2 lines need to be added to the config.txt file once you write the SD card (not uncommon for DSI displays). Ask me this 2 months ago and I would agree that it had setup issues, but it appears to be more supported today! It is a great alternative to consider given the size and price. I was trying to use this display for a drone ground control station until I realized no GCS software works well on a Pi, so it has been sitting around since summer... Now I am making a Home Assistant dash like yours! I have done similar setup to your kiosk mode for a work project. I had it auto-load Firefox to a pre-defined page and automatically go into fullscreen mode (aka F11).
Jeff:"Need a stand for your new Pi display? I got chu! Me: my man. Lol and I havent even picked one up yet. They look super useful for some scenarios I have planned though!
You could take the Pi/Pi-display out of the car with you when you aren't in it, similar to 1990's when people would take their stereo faces off to prevent theft. 😂😂😂
Ha! I had one of those head units. I'd pop off the little front display and toss it in my glove box. Thought I was pretty cool with a CD player in my Olds lol
@@JeffGeerling And probably worth more than the car right? ... First car for me was a babe magnet... 1986 Dodge Caravan, beige with gold trim and tan interior. 4 Cylinder 90hp of raw power. Used to blow blue smoke on start-up and a bit taking off from a light... But the JVC removable face CD & MP3 radio was awesome! Hahahaha ... Those were the days!
I built a digital picture frame system w RPi, cloud service, and iOS app to manage it all. I also have a RPi 7 in touchscreen for my home dashboard to view my cameras,system status, etc from home assistant. I even use the picture frame sw as a screen saver for the home dashboard when it’s not in use. Works great for several years now.
I do not mean this as a bad thing by any means, love the vids, love what you do, started my home lab journey from your pihole and speed test monitor. Just a funny thought when you kicked on the screen and booted into home assistant. You made a stream deck >< if you had home assistant have 32 buttons in a grid, you just recreated the wheel on this one. Obviously there's much more you can do than the simple things a deck can do, but you could use this for both
Just thought I would add that I have been using the older Pi touch screen in my RV for Venus OS to control my Victron devices. I have not had any issues with temperature in about 4 years of use. I have used it well outside of the temperature ranges stated on the instructions. Honestly it was in there two years before I noticed the temperature range.
I'm waiting for that 15" Pi display. It's fine that's not touch. Seeing that a few months ago I need it. It looks nice. Please Pi release it before Christmas
Those running computer systems without access to our iPhones, having a desk setup with CarPlay is kinda a nice idea. A mic and a nice speaker setup you could talk all day and listen to your favorite playlist.
I was quite surprised how little I cared about the tesla not having car play. maps / apps, playing music from the phone. It's all really surprisingly good and usefull. First I wanted to buy one of the many CarPlay-extra screen options which exist for Teslas, but after a month I didn't see it bring me any benefits at all. Also, its as with Home Assistant. The best Smarthome is the one which doesn't need buttons, doesn't need voice control. Over the past two years I got so much stuff automated that I really don't need to control that much anymore. Same in a Tesla. Automation to a large degree is just so good, you just miss the buttons almost never. In your case I would get one of those car-play screens for your own car. There are many outthere which cost little and have the bluetooth/wifi connection right built in. And do the temperatures and 12v etc. just without the hassle of setting up a pi and probably more efficient. Cause pis use quite a lot of power, btw everything above 2W in standby is a lot imho.
For the mouse cursor, maybe try wayfire-plugins-extra it hides the cursor even for when the touchscreen is actively being used in wayland, so you dont see a tiny bit of cursor when touching the screen (Because this is a prerequisite for me and pickieness) Hope this is useful!
Definitely interested in the carplay project, ive been wanting to add carplay to my old car (25 years old this year) but the cheapo ones on amazon dont have the best reviews
So we moved in about a year ago to a house that had a luxury smart home system put in circa 2003. Everything is wired up, but it's all dead tech now. Each room has a panel with a Cat 5e cable running to it that ran the panel off of PoE. Looking at a Pi/Home Assistant combo that can be ran off of POE- this video is a great start! The local company that did the initial install's get out of bed price is $10k, so quickly came to the conclusion that I'd rather try my hand at the DIY route first...
I'm using my OG display for a home assistant dashboard and it hasn't been great. However your setup looks interesting. Looks like I'll be setting that up as a weekend project😅
@@JeffGeerling the way mine is running is with pios lite I have no touch keyboard it's getting old having to plug one in ever few days. I'm really excited to have a working touch keyboard 😂
For my home assistant dashboard I used a way too old tablet that is struggling with web browsing. But as a HA dashboard device it's enough. This plus the wallpanel app and the tablet is now able to register faces In front of the screen and then turning on. Love it and I circumvented throwing it away.
It is unbelievable how car manufacturers invoke safety measures when their proprietary solutions are only good for collecting data and generating unnecessary stress on the road. I wish you the best of success for this new project, Jeff! 😃
I've been thinking about a similar display for a home assistant dashboard, and was leaning toward "the display polls its brightness setting from a helper entity via home assistant's API" Then I can just use automation in home assistant to change the brightness.
I've honestly been thinking about that - also tying boot to Home Assistant status like away/home... have to keep noodling on that, because I don't want to overcomplicate it either!
Got an ElecLab wide touchscreen for RPi 4B a while back, it was the first time I actually needed to use a 3 or more amp rated power supply to power the thing but allows the screen's USB-C port as the power source for the whole shebang through some right-angled passthrough cable trickery and the Pi's remaining ports are still exposed enough to allow plugging in USB devices like keyboard and mouse. The screen was somewhere in the US$40-70 range depending on whether you get the 480 or the 720 pixel tall version (both are 1280 wide), hooks up to the Pi via MiniHDMI, and can hook up to regular-sized HDMI as an output as well (I haven't used it that way yet, so don't know off the top of my head if it needs to be externally powered for that or not).
In my experience, when it gets super cold, like -40c. Electronics still work. Batteries are very compromised although lead acid batteries only loose 60% or so. Screens are also very affected but this mostly revolves around a single screen refresh taking 5-10 seconds. While driving, the cabin temperature increases and the devices own heat warms it up it gets faster and faster. The touch screen has several problems but it depends on the type. Again, it warms up in 1 - 10 minutes. I don't know the tech type in the screens I've used but this has been common among all the screens I've used outside. Personally I wouldn't be scared to try your specific screen, I don't think it would break, Just function like an old e-ink display trying to play a movie until it warms up to -20 or so. That being said, I've not tried your specific screen.
And if you also add and use a motor and cabin heater, you get more comfortable and save petrol. That is something like this: Calix se experts-in-vehicle-heating-and-power-solutions That type of heaters are really useful even before the temperature goes below +10°C.
My kid cracked his Chromebook touch screen. That gave the Chromebook a second life as an always-on browser that shows the current temperature from the various temp sensors in Home Assistant.
Always nice to find a good use for an old slightly-broken laptop! Like my old MacBook Air with a row of dead pixels. Still good enough to tote around for quick remote access/Terminal in the studio.
I used to buy "for parts" ipad 2s on ebay and take the screen out and then grab a hdmi controller board for that lcd. The result was most of my pi projects have an Ipad lcd as a display. They dont make the controller board anymore, so the ones for sale are far too expensive now. However when I did this like 5 years back you got a really nice apple lcd compared to similar screens on amazon and hdmi + VGA + audio out for like $20. It was big compared to other options offered by retailers for pi projects. The caveat is you need to make a housing for it which I 3d printed so no biggie. I don't think I saved any money time and effort considered, but it was fun and felt good, giving part of the tablets a second life. I even resold the rest of the ipad back on ebay in big lots to people who needed other components which reduced the cost.
One thing I would recommend is an FM antenna plug interrupt. Tons of types out there but you plug it in, in line of the FM antenna and can then hardware or have Bluetooth connected so that it kills the antenna signal and only plays your audio on FM like an fm transmitter but better
I have one of these displays myself, it uses a Rasperry pi zero 2W that plugs straight into the display, making it a nice and sleek look. [still have to change the case so its more flat/portable]
I built a dashboard using your stuff to control and monitor my Bambu Lab P1S. Added a humidity and temperature sensor and a camera to stream video from the P1S. The Kiosk mode works great, but as you noted, sometimes it is a pain to try to get out of that mode. 😢
Thanks for this great review and answering the question of the compatibility with the case for the old one. I'm using the old original 7" Touchscreen with the case which looks very nice. The Case covers the whole pi4 and Screen. The only point is the low pixel density and the view angle. I'm also using this setup as HA Dashboard. Autostart lxde with chromium in fullscreem w/o kiosk mode and some energy settings to turn the Screen of after 30s. My ikea zigbee PIR is Switching it on via nodered flow and sending an xset -dpms and +dpms command.😅 In my setup i dont have this scrolling issue. The mouse cursor is not visible during Touch Operation and it is very smooth and easy to scroll up and down. I can move the Finger somewhere on the Screen up and down without using the scrollbar. It was working out of the box, i guess (raspi os, an older Version😮). It seems that not everything was improved in the meantime😂. Thanks for your channel and work. Cheers from germany
No too shocked that RPi is heading to larger LCDs. I've been seeing similar sized units on AliExpress the last few months for like $15! I picked one up last time I was buying a few things there and it's coming in next week (in theory). It even has 75mm VESA mount holes, and of course a reasonable stand cost more than the display hahaha
having android auto setup at my desk or in house to play music would be cool. almost kinda like the carthing that spotify had when people started using it on their desk for media controls.
This is great! I think for my needs I'd really love to use an e-ink display to act as a "good things to know" dashboard for next to the front door. Do you have any suggestions (or follow up videos) about that kind of thing? I've considered using ESPHome for that purpose, but it feels clunkier and I like the flexibility of a linux native development environment.
Nice video! You should also try using Ubuntu server or Ubuntu core with snap packages like Ubuntu Frame for kiosk and other for vnc, etc. I find it very nice as it is super easy, fast, and really simple to setup! Compared to raspberry pi OS, when the pi boots, it will open the kiosk directly and not display a desktop (although you could also do this with raspberry pi os).
I use an original Pi touch screen with an application called RoPieee as an end point for a Roon music server. It’s a cool implementation where the screen (optional) shows now playing info and basic music navigation buttons. I like your home automation controller. Going to take a closer look!
Here in Phoenix the inside of your car will get over 140 160. The outside temperatures are 120 plus. This last summer we beat the number of days of over 110° and that was even all the way in October we were still hitting 110. And it was also the first time ever we'd ever hit over 100° in October. But yeah, that touch screen would not survive a single summer day in Phoenix. It might survive a winter day but the winter is up to about mid '70s during the day, so inside the car should be maybe in the '90s or even close to 100
If you want to use carplay/aa with close to zero delay on linux I have a fork of node-carplay which has some fixes :D Audio has some alsa mixers too since I wanted different volume levels for media and navigation and proper (as per apple spec) audio hedging. I had it running on a PI2 for some years now, have to update the repo though since gstreamer is blazing fast compared to mpv. A reimplementation in rust would be better, it could even be made native since the only thing needed for carplay is an mfi chip (which i have) on i2c and a usb host&device capable usb port. Since openauto got apparently sold and is unavailable rn I think a community project would be awesome. My Idea was to use gstreamer for playback and UI and code in the background that handles background stuff like ui logic, canbus messages and buttons in the car - needs more people than a single person though.
I got some second hand fire 7 tablets and have them around the house and garden office. This with the kiosk broswer app and they allow us to control HA and the media players we have around the house.
I considered using an old iPad like that, the one downside is managing a LiIon battery, I hate having so many devices around with those batteries and either managing charge, or risking keeping the battery 100% over long periods, which can lead to expansion more quickly.
My other hobby is woodworking, so my 7" Pi weather display has a nice walnut case. For the UI I write directly to the video memory buffer and catch touch events at a low level. But the cursor is always blinking in the corner despite my efforts to get rid of it. I'm gonna have to try that unclutter package. Thanks!
8:20 its not fun. we should get rid of Fahrenheit at all. Also inches and foot. Celsius is the most logical thing. 0C° water freezes. 100C° water boils. as simple as that.
Scrolling and touch keyboard didn't work properly in Chromium because Chromium doesn't enable Wayland support by default. You will have to go to the flags page and enable it there (and another flag) for scrolling and text input to work properly. Alternatively you can enable this from the command line using the arguments `--ozone-platform=auto --enable-wayland-ime` which also works for Electron applications.
Since Raspberry Pi OS now runs on Wayland, forcing your web browser to use Wayland should improve touchscreen support (and laptop trackpad gesture support). Chromium has (imperfect but functional) Wayland support, but it defaults to X11. Alternatively, you could try using Firefox, which has it on by default.
I know you are hesitant to get a new car, but my Tesla has been bullet proof and it's super easy to add features and games. You just add them via the browser. Jellyfin works great, emulatorJS even works while driving (although you this is something I'd recommend for passengers only), Home assistant is hosted locally but controlled via the browser can be super useful and integrated into voice controls in the car! Thats not even mentioning BT support is very wide spread and the modding community and open-source nature of Tesla CAN bus and Ether-loop make things like track and drift mode possible with plug and play adapters from sexy-button to diy raspberry pi solutions! Host things on your phone, export things from your car to track it's use locally is also super cool and shockingly easy. My favorite thing is, because the camera feed is exported by the car via the Tesla app. Every hour or on-demand I can have it take a snapshot to add to my existing home security system and even export events from sentry mode to my home security system!
For what it's worth, I can rotate the terminal on my Lenovo IdeaPad with this command: echo 1 > /sys/class/graphics/fbcon/rotate (Value can be one of: 0=Normal; 1=Clockwise; 2=upside-down; 3=CCW) It might be possible to add something like that into early userspace to force the boot messages into landscape but I doubt if it would be worth the trouble.
To set up a dashboard there are many ways, but one popular one is a cheapo Android tablet (there's a plethora to choose from) and then getting Fully Kiosk for them, an app. That lets you run a dashboard on them fullscreen.
I am with you about modern vehicles taking away audio interface options. I would be interested in your pursuits in this field. I tried using a rp5 headless, with my phone as an interface with Moode. I live in south Texas and could not keep the rp5 in the vehicle and expect it to function - way to hot.
it even controlled my attention span for almost nine minutes wow
sorry about that!
Amazing! You're adulting now...
Linux news is quite good at that.
Fantastic! Surely the definitive Pi touchscreen video. :)
I was imagining you could do something fun with it too. Maybe find a way to integrate the touchscreen with your custom Pi 500!
@@JeffGeerling On behalf of @Chris_Barnatt - "Challenge Accepted" .... we await his output ...
I read the comment in your voice
Chris and Jeff together, what a day!
@@ahmad-murery It's not the first day, but it's always a fantastic day!
You could add a button in the dashboard that sends the kill kiosk command using the Shell Command integration. I use that a lot for various things.
Oh, haven't even thought of doing that! A lot you could do tying the display to Home Assistant more directly!
I thought that was where he was going with it. Seemed like a fairly obvious solution.
I came here to say the same thing
I just use the openbox window manager. It has built-in support for putting the screen to sleep when not in use. In ~/.config/openbox/autostart, I put my script to launch chromium in kiosk mode. And then ~/.xinitrc launches openbox-session. And logging in triggers startx in my ~/.bashprofile. Systemd uses agetty to automatically log in the kioskuser on tty1 on boot.
Not only that, you could likely rig up a slider control to send screen brightness adjustment commands to the tablet via scripting too.
I built a head unit out of pi 4 a few years back. I used a time delayed relay to control the power to the pi. When the pi is turned off it still consumes a small amount of power, like a a few hindered miliamps. That was enough to kill the car battery in 2-3 days. For sound, I used an external amp, the amp was fed audio through a usb sound card, some pulseaudio changes needed to be made to stop it from popping all the time. Amplifing from usb will feed ALL electrical noise from your car into speakers, it's truly awful, so you'll need a usb power conditioner between the port and the sound card. I think it was 5 - 10 bucks on amazon, and the best solution I had tried.
same, I used the aux to a 25w amp and a ground loop isolator. Quality wasn't great.. but not bad. I didn't run it off the constant power line tbh but yeah, there's only one earth in a car which makes things tricky. I used the constant power line to run a a 12->5v bucky so I could have phone charging
A few hundred milliamps while turned off? And it killed your battery in 2-3 days? An idle Pi while turned ON draws 540 mA. That still should kill a battery in over a week, most likely two weeks. Not to mention it's IMPOSSIBLE that it draws HUNDREDS of milliamps while OFF. It should've been fine for a few months. You must've done something wrong or had a bad battery. Besides, if you were concerned about power, why not power Pi from the lighter socket? It gets turned off along with ignition (at least in all cars I've ever seen).
@xshadow-0 yup yup. This is why I was incredibly fortunate - I lived next door to a guy who did car audio and he made sure I didn't destroy my car and pi just for Waze and Spotify.
@@xshadow-0 sounds like something else is drawing power through the RPi, if one get that much drawn when turned off. Maybe through USB or something like that.
But yes, a relay will definitely turn the Pi and auxiliaries off when the car is not running. But there are other sources which will turn of when the key isn't on, that is better suited.
It can be turned of by the Pi, with a self holding circuit, and then when turn of, the Pi can release the self holding relay. So it get started after the key has turned on, and turns of when ready when the key has turned off. One should probably think about the lower voltage when the car is starting.
5:45 Don't throw own service files to /lib/systemd/system/, there they belong to /etc/systemd/system/. But that is only for services that don't belong to some specific user. On a raspberry pi you have the default user that is automatically logged in. This user has its own systemd running, it is controlled with "systemctl --user ..." and has its service files in ~/.config/systemd/user/
That said, depending on your desktop environment (I assume raspberry pi defaults), there is another place to automatically start the script: ~/.config/autostart/ where you can put *.desktop files.
Good points! Could you raise an issue about that on GitHub, would be nice to keep things user-specific since they're not system-wide.
@@JeffGeerling rGunti was faster ;)
@@JeffGeerling there are not a definite line where some things are users define and system defined. I would say that in the case of controlling the car or home assisten controller, it is system defined, but added by the local administrator.
Like one add local administrators programs and scripts used by all users or system in /usr/local/{bin,sbin,lib} etc. There is where they are supposed to be put in Debian based Linux distributions.
I strongly recommend reading A Debian Administrators Handbook", which are available as a package in Debian, as an eBook, Web pages at their site or can be bought as a ordinary book printed on processed dead trees (paper that is). There this differences are pointed out between package files and local administration files and user local files.
Oooh, tasty! I was wondering about this, and *.desktop
There is a way to rotate the screen using kernel cmd params - it's very poorly documented and not well known
you can add `video=DSI-1:panel_orientation=right_side_up`
you might need to replace DSI-1 with something different, but you get the point
Came here to say that :D
Thanks! Opened an issue in my pi-kiosk project and will see if it works! github.com/geerlingguy/pi-kiosk/issues/3
Thanks for the comment. This also works with the reTerminal. I just tested it.
@@goldfingerdash It worked!!! Thank you :)
On which pis/ pi oses does this work? Only Pi 5?
As someone with a car old enough to drink.. i'd love to follow this car play project if you want to expand on it.
So a 16 year old car? A German here...
@@technikchaot*14 if its owners allow it and are present
my car is 22
@@primalaspid7197 I know. And in small Bavarian villages from day 1.
My car is old enough for Medicare.
Our college capstone project was actually building out a custom car infotainment system (although we didn't have carplay)
But for the hardware, we used a raspberry pi with touchscreen and a hifiberry dac to get composite audio then a car stereo amp to actually push it out to the speakers. Honestly unless you want a lot of software control in a pi I would consider a standard double din stereo. You don't have to worry about temperature issues and after costs are considered (crutchfield has stereos for ~$250-300) it's roughly the same
I went searching and found this video. Was hoping it was a few years old and things had improved, but 7 days ago? Man, you worked on this at the perfect time!
Thanks!
I used the original screen to make a bedside smart screen, I wrote scripts to start UA-cam in chrome, to stream my favourite radio station then turn the volume down and turn off the screen, and a few other night time things. Each script also had a shutdown command on a timer so after 2 hours it would shut the pi down. This didn’t turn it off-off (Pi 3, and later 4 problems) but I had a foot switch on an extension cable that I would hit every morning to turn it off properly. That same switch turned it back on when I wanted to use it.
Paired with some USB speakers it worked fine but was bulky and eventually the footswitch technique got tedious so I replaced it with a cheap android tablet - although now I have to control the volume and turn off the screen manually. I also have to charge it every 5-7 days which is also annoying.
One day I’ll build a perfect setup!
This is very cool. I want to say though that if you're specifically interested in Home Assistant, then an old Android tablet and the "Fully Kiosk" app is a much more useful - and useable option. You can have it run from boot, and it gives Home Assistant access to a load of the sensors on the tablet, meaning the front camera can be used to detect motion and automatically turn the screen on when someone stands in front of it. It's very powerful and given it's really just a wrapper for a web browser, it runs well even on old & low power tablets.
Any recommendations for what are good choices? I’ve been thinking of a home assistant powered home inventory for a while but a display and connecting it to a barcode scanner are the two big hurdles.
@@U1TR4F0RCE Not really, the tablet I use was a budget model when it came out in 2016. The only things I'd look out for is getting one with the Google Play store (or an easy way to add it), and not an absolute bottom of the line model, as that's going to be a bit unresponsive, which can get annoying.
@@U1TR4F0RCE I have a couple of de-amazoned fire hd10 tablets, a Fire HD8, a Samsung Galaxy Tab A, an old Acer tablet and a couple of android phones running as HA touchscreens Running the HA android app. They all do a fine job. Since most android devices expose things like battery level the charger can be connected via a smart socket set to turn on at 10% battery and off at 90%. This reduces the problem of bloating batteries due to constant charging that some badly designed devices seem to suffer from. The HA server itself runs on an old Wyse thin client I had laying around.
8:45 No, 7 inches is enough for me Jeff.
😂
Don't buy into screen size shaming, they're all sufficient for their tasks
Portrait can be set from grub so the terminal outputs in landscape I believe.
AFAICT this isn't possible on the Pi... would love to find a way to do it though.
In Linux, anything is possible. When ever someone uses the word can't, it means he can't, but Linux does not have any restrictions. Re-compile the kernel.
@@JeffGeerling why isn't it possible? at the boot log stage, it's just a framebuffer, after all
using grub, on desktop, it'd be something like `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="fbcon=rotate:1"` or `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="video=efifb fbcon=rotate:1"`
according to raspberry forums you would use `/boot/cmdline.txt` and put `fbcon=rotate:1` in it which is even more likely to work (since afaik pi doesn't use grub)
of course, other numbers will rotate it other multiples of 90°
@@JeffGeerling i think you could use an option in the linux kernel's cmdline, if the raspberry pi is using u-boot/systemd-boot, then it should be a standalone file in /etc
I think you can do this with "fbcon=rotate:1" in the grub config (boot/cmdline.txt) or in the config.txt "lcd_rotate=1" and "display_hdmi_rotate=1". I have a weird custom cyberdeck/pizero laptop I built that correctly shows portrait shell on boot--though it only shows in the middle of the 480x1920 widescreen display.
I control EVERYTHING with my Raspberry Pi and use it to watch Jeff Geerling and hit the notification :P
Home Assistant dashboard is a perfect use case (especially with dimming). I have a future project to build out a Hi-Fi music control interface (maybe piCorePlayer project) that pulls in my entire local (legal!) music collection from the NAS and outputs the audio through some fancy DACs and speakers, so I'm very happy there's a newer Pi display out.
I’m glad the display has equal bezels. Helps my ocd
Hm, you don't mean CDO, if you want to go all the way there. 🙂
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Sorry.
I have the original display and paired with a rp3 the two projects i did were: 1) an insulin calculator (software i wrote) for a type 1 diabetic family member. And then when that wasn't needed anymore (they got better tech), i converted it to run crankshaft in my old 2008 car with a custom 3d printed mount to run android auto. These screens can be used for all sorts of projects, think i might try your home assistant project next. Thanks for the review, home assistant idea and walk through!
Great video! I’ve been working on repairing my magic mirror I built 6 years ago but screen failed a couple years ago. Got it working last night. Also fixed my OSMC Kodi Pi and have been using it to stream music. Both on Pi 3B’s. Helps when watching you talk about challenges and solutions. Appreciate all your work and sharing.
The early rotation option is tricky but possible, as I'm pretty sure the driver used on this board uses the same kernel entrypoint that the old screen used, Kernel Mode Setting. It's just a kernel command line change (`video=DSI-1:800x480@60,rotate=90` for the original display, adjust resolution for display 2), which can be put into cmdline.txt on the boot partition. I believe even the config.txt can be set to rotate the pre-kernel boot screen (`display_lcd_rotate=1`), but only when used on a SD Card, and only for pre-kernel environment. NVME, USB, and Net boot all start after the bootloader starts rendering, only the SD Card is read before the GPU finishes starting up.
This project could be what I need with one twist…my wife uses speech assist devices and takes over CarPlay while we’re in the van….which becomes a problem when I’m driving and navigation choices present themselves while she is “talking” or using a communications app on her phone.
You're always the best of Pi product!
I've got one of those EDA tec hmis, I want to make a kiosk to launch an industrial SCADA Ignition. Super keen to give it a try using your method.
(I'm planning on having the PI host both Ignition via docker, and then run the web browser for the HMI part)
A replacement is currently sitting on my desk because there were a few booting issues with the first one that was sent. This video got me excited again!
Their gear is certainly robust! I may end up using one of their displays in my car instead of my homebrew solution.
Ran a pi 4 and the original screen for about 2 years in my old car with open auto. Never had any issues with temperature and that was in Australia!
Nice display, I use the touch display for a Software defined radio project and use LVGL library to have a responsive touch GUI. Have to try it with this new display
this is actually pretty helpful for a kiosk project I am working on, ever since porteous kiosk got scummy and decided to rugpull everyone using the software I have been looking to build something myself to replace it when the systems I am using ultimately need to be replaced
The carplay dongle is interesting, hadn't heard of that before! But I would probably avoid using a screen with flaky touch response for my car, trying to wrestle with inconsistent touch input is not ideal at 60mph.
you are correct. Even a car stereo with a cheap display is a bad idea at 60 mph. Been there, done that. I got to where I rarely used the stereo because i had to fuddle around with it and don't want to mess with it while driving.
To be fair the UI of Android Auto and Car Play and OpenAuto/Dash are large and chunky and kind of built around super simple touch controls so even the old screen worked well and from my limited testing in an old build (15) of open auto the new one worked fine there too. Only thing of note I could figure out was there was no multitouch support in Android auto back then, but then again the 9" screen in my 5th gen RAM doesn't do that either so I think that's more of a platform limit than a screen issue (or it could be entirely supported now and I just don't have a new enough vehicle to test that against lol)
Except most Tesla owners continuously tell me it’s fine to interact with a touchscreen at 60mph, and I’m an old man for telling them it’s only a matter of time before they kill someone. As a Tesla driver myself I just can’t understand them.
Home Assistant is just amazing Jeff!
This looks pretty nice, I might set one up for my living room to control home assistant.
2:00 For one second there I thought I was looking at the code-animation from The Matrix lol.
OMG. You are SO right about those cheap Amazon screens. I have two - both people were trying to give a thoughtful gift. I saw your first video about the new screen and realized that I still had them. I considered getting them out. I immediately got a headache. I'm going to send them to a thrift shop and get this screen. Maybe someone else will have better luck.
Yes, integrating home-brewn solutions like yours into a new car can be next to impossible. I've been fighting with an issue on my 1987 Oldsmobile (which is already stuffed with fancy electronics) whose radio broke down: A Raspberry Pi, a DAB+ / FM tuner board, a (wide-range!) power supply HAT, an amp, and a (non-touch) VF display were the solution…well…at least, in theory. Integrating the display took me months (partially because it expects little-endian data, thereas the Pi is big-endian!), and now a very smart guy from the hackspace in the nearest city is helping me to complete my project.
"If 7in is not enough for you" -Jeff that is plenty. You always leave me satisfied. LOL
Jeff bro, i am using your internet speed monitoring tool from last 1 yrs and its awesome
I've got a Home Assistant dashboard on a Pi Touch Screen 1 with a Pi 3B(?) and love it. Something I've added that's been helpful are buttons on the HA dashboard to make the screen brighter/dimmer and shutdown the pi over SSH. That, plus a cron job to make the display brighter in the morning/dimmer at night have helped tremendously.
Great video. I am now inspired to start learning Raspberry Pi. Following the Apple CarPlay.
Years ago I got the original Pi Touch Screen, a Raspberry Pi 3, a audio hat (forget the specific model) that I could wire the speakers up to, and one of the USB power switches from Mausberry Circuits to build a car computer. I did a similar thing as you, where it would launch Chrome into kiosk mode, and then I built a node.js custom touch interface that would switch between bluetooth audio, MPD, and rtl_fm. But it was always a little bit flakey (mostly the bluetooth) and didn't have CarPlay support (I don't think that dongle you mentioned was available then). So in the end, I ended up just buying one of those cheap Android dual-DIN car stereos on Amazon a couple years ago. It's not the greatest thing ever but it's a lot more reliable (and it spends most of it's time in CarPlay mode anyway). I do miss tinkering on the Pi car computer, though.
If you want a good on screen keyboard, I've used onboard in the past with my Pi 5 and a display. Its much smaller and you can move it around, configure it etc.
Honestly if RPi made the keyboard at least transparent a little, that'd help. Or make it detachable... but onscreen keyboards are very tricky for Linux, which is not like iOS where it's touchscreen-first.
Ive just recently ordered one of them as a proof of concept project for work, planning to use them for meeting room displays to show who has it booked, when, etc. Already have a web based frontend ive been testing and got a custom image build going that i setup with pi-gen that boots to an empty X session and launches chromium in kiosk mode
It might be advisible to use a DC/DC converter in the car that has proper 12/24V UVLO limits which prevents accidental deep discharge. Also it needs to fully control power to the Pi (with it's power mgmt signals factored in) to avoid trickle current drain when it's powered down and goes to a simple halt() state (just like /w old AT PSUs) or get power from IGN as an alternative and loose the ability to to run it from the battery as a compromise and risk SD corruption (tmpfs/ssd/run with fs mounted ro?). An input circuit that has noise filtering and at least transient suppression ensures a long life for the Pi.
I would like to suggest making an edit to your comment on WaveShare displays. I have the 10.1" DSI display for a project and it works almost out of the box, only 2 lines need to be added to the config.txt file once you write the SD card (not uncommon for DSI displays). Ask me this 2 months ago and I would agree that it had setup issues, but it appears to be more supported today! It is a great alternative to consider given the size and price.
I was trying to use this display for a drone ground control station until I realized no GCS software works well on a Pi, so it has been sitting around since summer... Now I am making a Home Assistant dash like yours! I have done similar setup to your kiosk mode for a work project. I had it auto-load Firefox to a pre-defined page and automatically go into fullscreen mode (aka F11).
Jeff:"Need a stand for your new Pi display? I got chu!
Me: my man. Lol and I havent even picked one up yet. They look super useful for some scenarios I have planned though!
You could take the Pi/Pi-display out of the car with you when you aren't in it, similar to 1990's when people would take their stereo faces off to prevent theft. 😂😂😂
Ha! I had one of those head units. I'd pop off the little front display and toss it in my glove box. Thought I was pretty cool with a CD player in my Olds lol
@@JeffGeerling And probably worth more than the car right? ... First car for me was a babe magnet... 1986 Dodge Caravan, beige with gold trim and tan interior. 4 Cylinder 90hp of raw power. Used to blow blue smoke on start-up and a bit taking off from a light... But the JVC removable face CD & MP3 radio was awesome! Hahahaha ... Those were the days!
@@CedroCron About the same price, heh.
I built a digital picture frame system w RPi, cloud service, and iOS app to manage it all. I also have a RPi 7 in touchscreen for my home dashboard to view my cameras,system status, etc from home assistant. I even use the picture frame sw as a screen saver for the home dashboard when it’s not in use. Works great for several years now.
Great shirt you're wearing!
Greetings from the Netherlands
Old enough to vote but didn’t vote in the last election. Typical car.
Haha
That's a 10/10 comment.
Cars vote by breaking down (or not) on the last minute trip to the polling station…
@@musiqtee they have more agency than the world on choosing a guy or girl that controls the foremost military power on the planet. Sad.
"Cars 3" a study of a generation.
As always Jeff, great job!
I do not mean this as a bad thing by any means, love the vids, love what you do, started my home lab journey from your pihole and speed test monitor. Just a funny thought when you kicked on the screen and booted into home assistant. You made a stream deck >< if you had home assistant have 32 buttons in a grid, you just recreated the wheel on this one. Obviously there's much more you can do than the simple things a deck can do, but you could use this for both
Just thought I would add that I have been using the older Pi touch screen in my RV for Venus OS to control my Victron devices. I have not had any issues with temperature in about 4 years of use. I have used it well outside of the temperature ranges stated on the instructions. Honestly it was in there two years before I noticed the temperature range.
I'm waiting for that 15" Pi display. It's fine that's not touch. Seeing that a few months ago I need it. It looks nice. Please Pi release it before Christmas
you could get a cheap driver board for any old laptop panel off of ebay. Its basically that
Man am I glad I found this channel! I've been dying to ditch the idiotic Alexa's in my home, and this is heading in the right direction!
this is awesome Jeff
Those running computer systems without access to our iPhones, having a desk setup with CarPlay is kinda a nice idea. A mic and a nice speaker setup you could talk all day and listen to your favorite playlist.
I was quite surprised how little I cared about the tesla not having car play. maps / apps, playing music from the phone. It's all really surprisingly good and usefull. First I wanted to buy one of the many CarPlay-extra screen options which exist for Teslas, but after a month I didn't see it bring me any benefits at all. Also, its as with Home Assistant. The best Smarthome is the one which doesn't need buttons, doesn't need voice control. Over the past two years I got so much stuff automated that I really don't need to control that much anymore. Same in a Tesla. Automation to a large degree is just so good, you just miss the buttons almost never.
In your case I would get one of those car-play screens for your own car. There are many outthere which cost little and have the bluetooth/wifi connection right built in. And do the temperatures and 12v etc. just without the hassle of setting up a pi and probably more efficient. Cause pis use quite a lot of power, btw everything above 2W in standby is a lot imho.
0:30 Your sponsorship policies are missing segue policies. ;)
Oh hey, Linus Tech Tips!
Look Mum No Computer mentioned. Nice.
Love his channel, love his vibe!
@@JeffGeerling See him live, you wont regret it.
(btw thanks for your work.)
For the mouse cursor, maybe try wayfire-plugins-extra it hides the cursor even for when the touchscreen is actively being used in wayland, so you dont see a tiny bit of cursor when touching the screen (Because this is a prerequisite for me and pickieness) Hope this is useful!
Definitely interested in the carplay project, ive been wanting to add carplay to my old car (25 years old this year) but the cheapo ones on amazon dont have the best reviews
So we moved in about a year ago to a house that had a luxury smart home system put in circa 2003.
Everything is wired up, but it's all dead tech now. Each room has a panel with a Cat 5e cable running to it that ran the panel off of PoE.
Looking at a Pi/Home Assistant combo that can be ran off of POE- this video is a great start!
The local company that did the initial install's get out of bed price is $10k, so quickly came to the conclusion that I'd rather try my hand at the DIY route first...
Useful for making a DIY "Stream Deck"
I'm using my OG display for a home assistant dashboard and it hasn't been great. However your setup looks interesting. Looks like I'll be setting that up as a weekend project😅
Certainly worth seeing if it's any better with the higher resolution!
@@JeffGeerling the way mine is running is with pios lite I have no touch keyboard it's getting old having to plug one in ever few days. I'm really excited to have a working touch keyboard 😂
For my home assistant dashboard I used a way too old tablet that is struggling with web browsing. But as a HA dashboard device it's enough. This plus the wallpanel app and the tablet is now able to register faces In front of the screen and then turning on.
Love it and I circumvented throwing it away.
It is unbelievable how car manufacturers invoke safety measures when their proprietary solutions are only good for collecting data and generating unnecessary stress on the road. I wish you the best of success for this new project, Jeff! 😃
I've been thinking about a similar display for a home assistant dashboard, and was leaning toward "the display polls its brightness setting from a helper entity via home assistant's API"
Then I can just use automation in home assistant to change the brightness.
I've honestly been thinking about that - also tying boot to Home Assistant status like away/home... have to keep noodling on that, because I don't want to overcomplicate it either!
Got an ElecLab wide touchscreen for RPi 4B a while back, it was the first time I actually needed to use a 3 or more amp rated power supply to power the thing but allows the screen's USB-C port as the power source for the whole shebang through some right-angled passthrough cable trickery and the Pi's remaining ports are still exposed enough to allow plugging in USB devices like keyboard and mouse. The screen was somewhere in the US$40-70 range depending on whether you get the 480 or the 720 pixel tall version (both are 1280 wide), hooks up to the Pi via MiniHDMI, and can hook up to regular-sized HDMI as an output as well (I haven't used it that way yet, so don't know off the top of my head if it needs to be externally powered for that or not).
In my experience, when it gets super cold, like -40c. Electronics still work. Batteries are very compromised although lead acid batteries only loose 60% or so. Screens are also very affected but this mostly revolves around a single screen refresh taking 5-10 seconds. While driving, the cabin temperature increases and the devices own heat warms it up it gets faster and faster. The touch screen has several problems but it depends on the type. Again, it warms up in 1 - 10 minutes.
I don't know the tech type in the screens I've used but this has been common among all the screens I've used outside. Personally I wouldn't be scared to try your specific screen, I don't think it would break, Just function like an old e-ink display trying to play a movie until it warms up to -20 or so. That being said, I've not tried your specific screen.
And if you also add and use a motor and cabin heater, you get more comfortable and save petrol.
That is something like this: Calix se experts-in-vehicle-heating-and-power-solutions
That type of heaters are really useful even before the temperature goes below +10°C.
This approach to CarPlay on RaspberryPi reminds me of the "olden" days of CarPC. I almost built one...
Love your work. Thanks for your wisdom and help
My kid cracked his Chromebook touch screen. That gave the Chromebook a second life as an always-on browser that shows the current temperature from the various temp sensors in Home Assistant.
Always nice to find a good use for an old slightly-broken laptop! Like my old MacBook Air with a row of dead pixels. Still good enough to tote around for quick remote access/Terminal in the studio.
I used to buy "for parts" ipad 2s on ebay and take the screen out and then grab a hdmi controller board for that lcd. The result was most of my pi projects have an Ipad lcd as a display. They dont make the controller board anymore, so the ones for sale are far too expensive now. However when I did this like 5 years back you got a really nice apple lcd compared to similar screens on amazon and hdmi + VGA + audio out for like $20. It was big compared to other options offered by retailers for pi projects.
The caveat is you need to make a housing for it which I 3d printed so no biggie.
I don't think I saved any money time and effort considered, but it was fun and felt good, giving part of the tablets a second life. I even resold the rest of the ipad back on ebay in big lots to people who needed other components which reduced the cost.
I like the fact you're doing avata and neo drones now Ian. I was getting bored of my mini personally. Phil
One thing I would recommend is an FM antenna plug interrupt. Tons of types out there but you plug it in, in line of the FM antenna and can then hardware or have Bluetooth connected so that it kills the antenna signal and only plays your audio on FM like an fm transmitter but better
I have one of these displays myself, it uses a Rasperry pi zero 2W that plugs straight into the display, making it a nice and sleek look. [still have to change the case so its more flat/portable]
Many thanks for the content and sharing you knowledge and experiences .
I built a dashboard using your stuff to control and monitor my Bambu Lab P1S. Added a humidity and temperature sensor and a camera to stream video from the P1S. The Kiosk mode works great, but as you noted, sometimes it is a pain to try to get out of that mode. 😢
Thanks for this great review and answering the question of the compatibility with the case for the old one.
I'm using the old original 7" Touchscreen with the case which looks very nice. The Case covers the whole pi4 and Screen. The only point is the low pixel density and the view angle. I'm also using this setup as HA Dashboard. Autostart lxde with chromium in fullscreem w/o kiosk mode and some energy settings to turn the Screen of after 30s. My ikea zigbee PIR is Switching it on via nodered flow and sending an xset -dpms and +dpms command.😅
In my setup i dont have this scrolling issue. The mouse cursor is not visible during Touch Operation and it is very smooth and easy to scroll up and down. I can move the Finger somewhere on the Screen up and down without using the scrollbar. It was working out of the box, i guess (raspi os, an older Version😮). It seems that not everything was improved in the meantime😂. Thanks for your channel and work. Cheers from germany
No too shocked that RPi is heading to larger LCDs. I've been seeing similar sized units on AliExpress the last few months for like $15! I picked one up last time I was buying a few things there and it's coming in next week (in theory). It even has 75mm VESA mount holes, and of course a reasonable stand cost more than the display hahaha
having android auto setup at my desk or in house to play music would be cool.
almost kinda like the carthing that spotify had when people started using it on their desk for media controls.
Time for you to get another shirt, Jeff. This shirt has seen better days. As always, greetings from the Netherlands!
This is great! I think for my needs I'd really love to use an e-ink display to act as a "good things to know" dashboard for next to the front door. Do you have any suggestions (or follow up videos) about that kind of thing? I've considered using ESPHome for that purpose, but it feels clunkier and I like the flexibility of a linux native development environment.
I've looked into eInk here and there, may do a project with it at some point. It's great for status display!
00:00 Introduction
00:00:51 Display Upgrade Challenges
00:01:30 Assembling the Pi Display
00:02:14 Exploring Touchscreen Alternatives
00:02:50 Customizing 3D Printer Enclosures
00:03:38 Touchscreen Challenges on Pi
00:04:17 Configuring Display Settings
00:04:47 Smart Home Setup Journey
00:05:22 Automating Kiosk Mode
00:05:55 Remote Management Solutions
00:06:36 Smart Car Integration Frustrations
00:07:17 DIY CarPlay Installation
00:07:55 Display Durability Concerns
00:08:35 Exploring Pi Touch Displays
Nice video! You should also try using Ubuntu server or Ubuntu core with snap packages like Ubuntu Frame for kiosk and other for vnc, etc.
I find it very nice as it is super easy, fast, and really simple to setup! Compared to raspberry pi OS, when the pi boots, it will open the kiosk directly and not display a desktop (although you could also do this with raspberry pi os).
How does it work with QT apps?, maybe custom apps.
I didn't have one handy to test, but it should be good for that, as most of those HMI devices I showed are meant for custom QT apps.
For Android Auto you can flash CrankShaft on the sd-card. With this you don't need a dongle.
Just ordered one of these screens to give this a go. With the Spotify car thing dying I fancy an upgrade
I use an original Pi touch screen with an application called RoPieee as an end point for a Roon music server. It’s a cool implementation where the screen (optional) shows now playing info and basic music navigation buttons. I like your home automation controller. Going to take a closer look!
Here in Phoenix the inside of your car will get over 140 160. The outside temperatures are 120 plus. This last summer we beat the number of days of over 110° and that was even all the way in October we were still hitting 110. And it was also the first time ever we'd ever hit over 100° in October. But yeah, that touch screen would not survive a single summer day in Phoenix. It might survive a winter day but the winter is up to about mid '70s during the day, so inside the car should be maybe in the '90s or even close to 100
If you want to use carplay/aa with close to zero delay on linux I have a fork of node-carplay which has some fixes :D
Audio has some alsa mixers too since I wanted different volume levels for media and navigation and proper (as per apple spec) audio hedging.
I had it running on a PI2 for some years now, have to update the repo though since gstreamer is blazing fast compared to mpv.
A reimplementation in rust would be better, it could even be made native since the only thing needed for carplay is an mfi chip (which i have) on i2c and a usb host&device capable usb port.
Since openauto got apparently sold and is unavailable rn I think a community project would be awesome.
My Idea was to use gstreamer for playback and UI and code in the background that handles background stuff like ui logic, canbus messages and buttons in the car - needs more people than a single person though.
I got some second hand fire 7 tablets and have them around the house and garden office.
This with the kiosk broswer app and they allow us to control HA and the media players we have around the house.
I considered using an old iPad like that, the one downside is managing a LiIon battery, I hate having so many devices around with those batteries and either managing charge, or risking keeping the battery 100% over long periods, which can lead to expansion more quickly.
This is super cool! Thank you!
My other hobby is woodworking, so my 7" Pi weather display has a nice walnut case. For the UI I write directly to the video memory buffer and catch touch events at a low level. But the cursor is always blinking in the corner despite my efforts to get rid of it. I'm gonna have to try that unclutter package. Thanks!
8:20 its not fun. we should get rid of Fahrenheit at all. Also inches and foot. Celsius is the most logical thing. 0C° water freezes. 100C° water boils. as simple as that.
I am human not water. How temperature feels to me is more relevant
Scrolling and touch keyboard didn't work properly in Chromium because Chromium doesn't enable Wayland support by default. You will have to go to the flags page and enable it there (and another flag) for scrolling and text input to work properly. Alternatively you can enable this from the command line using the arguments `--ozone-platform=auto --enable-wayland-ime` which also works for Electron applications.
For the keyboard covering screen issue you can install Yakuake drop down terminal and adjust the size so that terminal isn't obscured
Since Raspberry Pi OS now runs on Wayland, forcing your web browser to use Wayland should improve touchscreen support (and laptop trackpad gesture support). Chromium has (imperfect but functional) Wayland support, but it defaults to X11. Alternatively, you could try using Firefox, which has it on by default.
I know you are hesitant to get a new car, but my Tesla has been bullet proof and it's super easy to add features and games.
You just add them via the browser. Jellyfin works great, emulatorJS even works while driving (although you this is something I'd recommend for passengers only), Home assistant is hosted locally but controlled via the browser can be super useful and integrated into voice controls in the car! Thats not even mentioning BT support is very wide spread and the modding community and open-source nature of Tesla CAN bus and Ether-loop make things like track and drift mode possible with plug and play adapters from sexy-button to diy raspberry pi solutions! Host things on your phone, export things from your car to track it's use locally is also super cool and shockingly easy.
My favorite thing is, because the camera feed is exported by the car via the Tesla app. Every hour or on-demand I can have it take a snapshot to add to my existing home security system and even export events from sentry mode to my home security system!
For what it's worth, I can rotate the terminal on my Lenovo IdeaPad with this command:
echo 1 > /sys/class/graphics/fbcon/rotate
(Value can be one of: 0=Normal; 1=Clockwise; 2=upside-down; 3=CCW)
It might be possible to add something like that into early userspace to force the boot messages into landscape but I doubt if it would be worth the trouble.
We figured it out over on GitHub! (Thanks especially to one of the YT comments, too!).
It has been 0 days since I recompiled the Linux kernel
Seeed has done some pretty cool shit. Love their RePhone.
To set up a dashboard there are many ways, but one popular one is a cheapo Android tablet (there's a plethora to choose from) and then getting Fully Kiosk for them, an app. That lets you run a dashboard on them fullscreen.
Would it be possible to use 5 finger touch to exit the service or application? Perhaps show desktop on 5 finger touch?
Possibly! So far I haven't seen anything in Pi OS take advantage of more than one finger at a time.
KDE has a lot of 3 finger touch screen gestures that could do this, and you can also configure actions when swiping in from each edge of the screen
Jeff please. I need a full video guide to install (kiosk/ha). I fail on the second of code.
I am with you about modern vehicles taking away audio interface options. I would be interested in your pursuits in this field. I tried using a rp5 headless, with my phone as an interface with Moode. I live in south Texas and could not keep the rp5 in the vehicle and expect it to function - way to hot.