Have been searching high and lower on compatibility… Can’t find anything solid to go off of.
Have been using HA for a while now and its been SOLID!.. Loving it a lot.
I’m ready for the next level by running a long HDMI and USB 3.0 connection upstairs and installing a large touchscreen monitor on the wall. Would like to showcase HA in a command center setup and to have News available. When its not in use I would like a screensaver to activate that either runs a rotating photo slideshow and/or scraps a collection of artwork.
I plan to install a 22" and 27" iiyama touchscreen monitors in a new house. I’ve already purchased them and make some tests with windows+firefox. No problem so far.
how is the multitouch operations? the screen I am waiting on is a 10-point multitouch (unsure what that really means). I know I can’t use a touch pen on it, but a stylus is supposed to work.
Not used with HA, but we have a bunch of Iiyama touchscreen monitors at the office. They’re awesome. The touch is incredibly precise and 10 point multitouch actually means that it can track your 10 fingers all at once. Now that’s on Windows though. The driver does a lot, I haven’t tried any of them on a Linux based system.
good to know on the 10 point touch… sounds like playing twister.
hoping this will be something as easy as plug-n-play. I have a 50’ hdmi cable and usb3.0 cable… that and a local power outlet, things should just “work”? (knock on wood). or I might need a driver for debian/docker
I could run a quick test when I’m at the office tomorrow. I don’t think we have any Linux based desktops there, but I could bring a Pi, if that helps (running Raspbian, Debian derivative). Let me know.
As @HeyImAlex commented, these monitors are quite precise and responsive. About the USB, though they have usb 3.0, I’m using an USB 2.0 6 meters long without problem
I didn’t make any test on linux nor multitouch. Windows starts directly to Firefox so, I’m using this monitors like a tablet. To manage them when I need to configure something on the OS, I’m using a Logitech K400 keyboard
I’ll follow comments about linux/pi option as could simplify a lot my installation. Thanks @HeyImAlex
Looks like no drivers are required (as of yet). may have installed a few too many package because even with 1 screen connected, it somehow was sensing a laptop screen, which is odd because this was a headless server to begin with. So I installed gnome and went into the display settings and disabled the laptop screen.
Next I install firefox-esr and set it as a auto start application /usr/bin/firefox -kiosk and went into firefox and setup the home page to be a hardcoded url to my HA instance and to resume the last page on exit (I might need to remove that part in case someone figures out how to open new tabs)…
after login now, I get my firefox immediately with HA.
currently I have single touch, which is very accurate on this monitor…however I do not have the ability to long-press, right click… these may be referred to as gestures?? So a driver might still be needed. So far, its a good step forward. I’ll order a longer USB cable and get this on the wall next week.
UPDATE: Well it didn’t work out… at least not on debian for this monitor. Perhaps the liyama touchscreens will work? @HeyImAlex (will need to check the manufacturer of the screen)
The Planar Helium is made by “Weida Hi-Tech CoolTouchR System” (found this in the xorg log file)
This is very difficult to find anything on it… and for those that have tried before me, they were all unsuccessful making it work in linux.
Now for grins, I plugged this into my mac pro tower running windows 10 and it instantly installed all drivers and works flawlessly! So instead of trying to run this monitor directly from my HA server I might look at something like this:
…run a usb power cable over to it, then frame everything up, or inset it in the wall a little.
Alright, so I did some testing at the office today. Screen is an Iiyama 23 inch capacitive 10 point multitouch. Tested on the lastest Raspberry OS with LXDE (which is the default). The results are very disappointing. It kinda works on the most basic level. If I tap somewhere, the pointer goes there. But that’s about it.
When dragging the pointer around with your finger it flickers constantly. Very irritating. Doesn’t do that with a mouse obviously.
There’s a very noticeable lag between move/drag actions and the OS registering them. So for example when I tap somewhere on the desktop and drag the pointer around with my finger on the screen, the usual selection rectangle appears and is supposed to follow the pointer. It does, but with a lag of around 1 to 2 seconds. When using the mouse, there is no lag. Same when dragging an icon, scrolling or similar. Makes any tap’n’drag touch interaction feels very sluggish.
There is some weird behaviour when tapping and holding on the desktop. It seems to toggle between two modes at each tap. So when I tap and hold for the first time, the desktop selection rectangle appears. If I let go and tap and hold again, some kind of document create mode is enabled that I’ve never seen before. There’s a little document icon with a plus sign that is attached to the mouse pointer and follows it around as I drag it (of course with the usual 1 to 2 seconds delay) that doesn’t seem to be doing anything. If I let go and tap again, we’re back to the selection. Sometimes it randomly switches between these two modes while dragging. Very awkward.
I haven’t figured out how to right click. None of the usual touch gestures that work on Windows or Android seemed to work. Multitouch did not seem to work at all.
So whatever touch driver comes out of the box with Raspberry OS / Raspbian is pretty much unusable with this screen (and most likely others). I don’t know if / how you can install other drivers / kernel modules that would work any better. Honestly, good touch support is pretty much a fundamental requirement these days and should come out of the box.
Shame, as these Iiyama screens are really great to use on Windows.
So yeah, touch support on the Pi is probably just about usable on those small cheapo $10 resistive touch screens they sell as Pi accessories. But when using it with an actual good touch screen, it’s not even playing in the same league than on Windows.
Yeah it’s multi touch, depends on what you run though. On the Pi out of the box, just got an N2+ and touch works on Ubuntu but no multi touch (yet?) I haven’t looked at the config yet.
I am looking to do something similar, but I want to use smaller screens, maybe 1 per room and have those screens replace all switches and thermostats, I basically want one point of control for anything that would traditionally be mounted in or on a wall. I want something with a consistent bezel and a glass front. I will design and 3D print flush mounts that get plastered into the drywall and have the screen recessed flush with the wall.
Before I go through all this trouble, I need a way to control the backlight of the screen for bedrooms etc. Does anyone have pointers in how to accomplish that? Bonus if it could be combined with some sensor to wake up the screen when someone’s near. Would be amazing if a company would manufacture some sleek screens that just have a kiosk web browser and presence sensor. I do NOT want a camera in the screen, many people want their homes to remain private and cameras are a nonstarter.
Edit: These all look promising. Anyone have any ideas on if/how to make these work with Home Assistant?
How did you go?did you end up trying any of these screens out?
I really like the concept of removing switches from the wall and having some sort of recessed touch panel, definitely something i would be interested in.
