Hello everybody completely brand new hear and brand new to all of this.
I’ve been reading that I can turn my Amazon fire tablet into a hub for my smart home, utilizing home assistant and fully kiosk.
Does anyone by chance have a complete full tutorial anywhere that I can read to get me started? I really don’t know anything at all about this. I did Reed utilizing both of these programs I can utilize the already installed apps, which is the easiest method to configure, which is my preferred method or create things from scratch
I’m basically wanting to use this with my alarm system that controls, cameras, sensors door locks, shades a couple switches and my Phillips hue setup that controls the rest with addition to my smart sprinkler system
Need a bit more info. Have you installed/setup Home Assistant yet (on a different device)? To be clear, you’d just be using your tablet to connect to HA; it wouldn’t be acting as a ‘hub’, but rather just a screen to interact with HA (same as your phone, computer, etc.).
I’ve been down this road and it’s not for the faint of heart, honestly. I have two Fire HD’s as wall control panels and in short it goes something like this:
Hack install Google app store
Go through a somewhat painful process of installing a ton of libraries on the tablet to get things like Fully Kiosk to work
Install Fully Kiosk
Spend a while farting with FK settings to get it the way you want it
Deal with Amazon updates causing issues now and then
Honestly, next time, I won’t do a Fire HD, I will go a different route. I don’t like Android stuff but bit the bullet to get what I needed, I would rather do an iPad but wanted to have camera activated screen wakes so that wasn’t really an option without jailbreaking it, but the Fire’s do slow down after a while and need reset or they just hang up and need reset on a regular basis.
I haven’t done a thing yet. I wasn’t for sure where to start. I watched so many YouTube videos showing people utilizing the Amazon fire tablet, using home assistant and fully kiosk to control all of their home automations.
My goal is installed this tablet by the back door to have access to all of these automations instead of using my phone and I’m guessing the purpose of the home assistant so everything is in one place instead of so many different apps.
I do know I have to create an account with home assistant. Also, I need to create an account with fully kiosk, but I’m not 100% for sure what steps I need to take in order.
The YouTube videos I found usually cover one and not the other or a set up is on a different device, etc.
So what I’m trying to find is a tutorial somewhere that would basically walk me through the steps from beginning to end to get the tablet to work as I would like
Like I said in original post, I read an article where a guy was talking about using home assistant somehow with the apps it’s already installed or if you’re concerned about privacy and you can set it up on your own, etc. I would rather go the easy route at least until I get my feet, wet and have a better understanding of what I’m doing
I do have a couple older iPad minis. Are you thinking that this would be easier? The problem I have is my alarm system that controls everything that I mentioned earlier is not compatible at the moment with HomeKit.
I’m pretty diehard Apple here, and am heavily into their entire ecosystem and if I could get it to work the way I want I would have gone that route. The problem is that I couldn’t and after years of vacillating I just went Fire HD.
I haven’t revisited it in a while, but I don’t think much has changed. For me I needed the tablet to wake on motion, I didn’t want to have to tap the screen to wake it and that was the sticking point with iPad. Using their Kiosk mode or an App Store app this was not really there - maybe it is now. The rest is fine, I used to use iPads as wall panels all the time under Indigo. I think it depends on what you need from it. HomeKit does have a nice alarm feature that works with HA, and HA has an “ok” alarm interface you can do on the dash.
Mostly what I’m Needing it for is to control my frontpoint.com Alarm system, which is an essence alarm.com it’s all wireless Z wave and zig B stuff I believe, and all of my Phillips hue stuff. But I am with you also on wanting the camera as a motion sensing device For the wake screen. The YouTube videos made it seem relatively easy however it seemed like it was missing a bunch of steps
If you have old mini’s sitting around, you should absolutely try it and see. Even if it costs you $5 to test it, it’s worth it. I hate these Fire HD’s. You can find mounts for every model of iPad pretty easily, there’s a guy on Etsy that 3D prints for most tablets (who I used for my Fire HD’s) and they are really nice prints.
And home assistant will work directly with HomeKit? So I wouldn’t have to fool with fully kiosk or any of that other stuff? I haven’t even created a home assistant account yet. I’m just trying to figure out what I need to do to even attempt to get started.
The integration with HomeKit is quite excellent. Truth be told, HomeKit is the backbone of my entire home automation, it’s how I voice activate everything, it’s how I control via a dashboard from my phone or iPad, it’s how I interface with my watch, how I geolocate - everything, HA is just the brains that makes it happen.
I wrote the entire HomeKit system for Indigo because I like the platform so much - and that was when HomeKit would corrupt it’s database every week or two, before they tuned it up.
I’m an Apple fan as well. I had a couple HomePods. I finally got rid of them. I have a MacBook I desktop is Mac. I have a couple iPad mini‘s one new one old. I have an iPad Pro two iPhones, my watch, etc. I end up going with the Amazon Alexa route Because that’s what works with my alarm system and I hate it. I hate not having everything in one spot.
So I will Google steps on getting home assistant to work with HomeKit on an iPad. I appreciate your help.
Oh, that’s too bad, I find them to be outstanding devices! That and they are the central nervous system of my voice activated automation (HomeKit) and entertainment (Apple Music) and text-to-speech (Airfoil). I have a dozen in my house and four in my RV. I love those things. Not an Echo to be found in my life anywhere, and Google - um, hard pass.
I can hard pass on google if you have step my step instructions for me lol. I would have kept my HomePods if I was able to use HomeKit for more than my Phillips hue devices. Noe if HA works well I might have to purchase some more.
One day I’ll do a write up on my entire Apple centric and highly integrated system. But I will tell you this: they work well. Once you have HA creating HomeKit servers for you and expose everything you want to HomeKit you won’t need wall tablets. My tablets are for my wife and to put something in places where having an alarm interface or control of a lot of devices makes sense. Big bold buttons, clean interface, it works for that but 99% of everything is either totally automated or voice activated in my house and it’s mostly because of HomePods and HomeKit.
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding that has been missed in the exchange above. It was already mentioned by @brooksben11 above but then it was lost in the mix.
AFAIK there is no way to install Home Assistant on an Android tablet (at least not easily or supported if there is).
You have to install and run Home Assistant on some other device like a RaspberryPi, a Mini PC, a laptop etc.
Then you install the Home Assistant Companion App (which IS NOT Home Assistant) onto the Android tablet. That will then interface with the Home Assistant instance that is running on the other device.
There are only a few supported install methods for Home Assistant. Here is the list:
Don’t follow any Youtube video’s - at least until you have an idea of what you are doing.
I believe what @CO_4X4 is describing is how they use HA on a Fire Tablet AFTER it’s installed on another device.
im a die hart rotting fruit (decades ago half eaten apple) enemy and therefore went all in on android.
consecutively I have used fire hd 10 in all my rooms and do have my fires chargers kind of on smart plugs (well im in Germany so i have an in wall below mud box in the wall, dumped a tasmota device and a nice “UP” charger in it and hid all of that behind the fire hd), in true Amazon spy ware fashion the device turns on when plugged into a charger.
(all my links are cleaned from all tracking BS and do NOT contain any affiliate stuff… im just a product user, and a critical at that.
so much for hardware, next upgrade will be a self printed case and wall mount with neodym magnets and automatic contacts so one can take the tablet off the wall in one grab and go easily. it also will contain a foot in the case to use it on say a dask or bed while not on the wall. if someone knows a read source for thah i would appreciate a hint. im so sick of having a painfully pinky from supporting a tablet in my hand…
for the software side:
I run android wall panel (currently maintained by time walker as off dec 2024) in combination with fully kiosk mode on HA, so i have actually way more than fully kiosk, and for free.
no need for google play store hack and stuff, just garant silk browser permission to install non playstore apk and grab it from the release section. done.
i do take all rights away from all pre-installed software, thats a real pita, and only lasts to the next update, that i prevent therefore by jail.
what i get is this:
a video stream from one of the cams of the tablet (the one you choose) in frigate video surveillance. thanks to my coral edge tpu that only records motion.
display wake up
barcode scanner
motion to trigger stuff via mqtt
text to speach on the tablets
atop almost all functions of fully kiosk but for free. i dont miss anything from fk
i also get mqtt stats so i switch off my charger for the always on fire to die around 3 am. then switch the charger back on when the mqtt device doesn’t report anything anymore, it starts up automatically. thats battery jogging and hardware reset in one go.
to deal with adds and the frigging annoying Amazon updates, the fires are jailed to offline, more precisely thea are in my IoT wifi that is all together blocked from WAN access. if i need updates for say the wall panel, i utilize an old Fritzbox as a download location. so i dont need to give the frigging jungle a friggin chance of running an update on the fire.
i currently use the 2017 version, as they really come cheap like 30 - 40 bucks on Kleinanzeigen (germans version of Craigslist).
usually brand new as most former owners getting annoyed by Amazons policies and dont use em after the thrill of cheap hardware has worn off.
no way to get the same bang for the buck any place else, and thanks to WAN jail, it wont bug me in my use case.
the one thing i now want to figure out is how to add voice assistant to them.
Thanks for this post Manny, this is exactly what i was looking for, and it allowed me to set up a new Fire 10 in just a few hours. Great app you recommended, works perfectly for me and easy to install.
Only thing i would add for others is to look up the latest version of Fire Toolbox, this made removing the rubbish from the tablet easy. To keep it clean of rubbish you have to block it from the internet, which i did quickly and easily just with my router (blocked internet with parental controls, but it can still talk to LAN). I plan to sort out a better solution with my pihole to whitelist certain domains to restore functions of one of my dashboards.
You can strip a lot of the Amazon out of the tablet with XDA-Developers Fire Toolbox.
It’s still Amazon android, but it disables their launcher and store and enables google playstore and adds a different launcher.
After that it installs HA as per a “normal” tablet .
The Fire 8 I did this to is by far the most power efficient tablet in our home. Can last literally weeks on standby before it calls for a recharge. Worth the effort of converting if you get one in an annual sale (ours was £40)
