I would like to control my Home Assistant environment completely through a tablet (iPad). This Ipad will be mounted on a holder in the living room, so that it is always visible. In principle this is not a problem, but I would like to implement some functions, where I do not know yet whether this works.
For this it is necessary that some things run automatically
1.) HA should run in kiosk mode on the tablet.
2.) If after 2 minutes (or similar) no “events” occur (e.g. ringing at the door or camera detects something in the house area) should be switched to a photo slideshow (digital picture frame).
3.) If a new “HA event” occurs, the system switches back to HA (and after the event back to point 2)
4.) I would like to have the possibility to set a timer on call (Siri/iPad functionality). After that it should switch back to HA display.
Nice to have:
The original time and the local weather is displayed.
If someone rings the doorbell (doorbell is integrated in HA) it should switch to the HA Dashboard “Camera”, where only the outdoor cameras are stored.
If a motion sensor of a camera is triggered, it should also be switched to the dashboard “Camera”."
So it should “simply” become a HA control center with Echoshow functionality, because I don’t want to use both (Apple and Alexa).
What is possible at the moment?
Are there already solutions or approaches for this?
Or is it possible to achieve this the other way around?
For example, you would use a Fire Tablet HD 10 and then run HA in Kiosk Mode on it.
Would the aforementioned points then work, be more achievable?
Everything you ask is doable with a combination of
Homeassistant, FullyKiosk browser and the WallPanel integration from HACS.
The hardest thing is the hardware itself. I’m unsure what you can run to get a Kiosk on an Apple device. I will defer to others. On Android id get a cheap Android (not Fire) tablet and run Fully Kiosk.
Why not iPad or Fire. The iPad - im simply not an Apple person. But Android because Amazon os making it increasingly difficult to take over the UI on thier fire devices (because they want to sell you more things) and you will have to go through hoops to kiosk it without rooting it. For me it’s not worth the trouble to fight Amazon over device ownership. I have Fire 8s for my kiosk now but it will be replaced by a non Fire device on its next refresh
Currently I bought Android (Samsung) tablets off of eBay and am using FKB in 5 rooms. I just use a custom “tab” in lovelace (I still call it that) with permissions, and then setup the home page in FKB to that URL.
They work well overall. I bought mounts from Mounts by Mike.
I have been looking into changing my tablets as I want them able to charge, be pulled off by my guests and put back later and when put back resume their role as a HA wall controller. I have a few other projects I am working on right now, and will get to it over the winter hopefully.
I am still deciding what tablets to use. I was kind of pissed that Apple did not add MagSafe charging functionality this year to their iPads (there is a work around-not cosmetically awesome) as that is the direction I want to go. (I’m also waiting for the design above to come out with a 3 gang design as that is what I put in my walls already with POE behind it)
I guess I better start with an existing Samsung S6 tablet.
Kiosk Mode and WallPanel are installed under HA and are already running (basic config).
The Samsung is running the Fully Kiosk Browser.
The digital picture frame (pictures via Smaba on the HA) works as well… here it would be nice if the sidebars are filled with the blurred picture in portrait mode (like with Echo Show). So for now I only take images in landscape format
So the basic things are already installed (the fine tuning comes later).
Now it goes to integrate the doorbell (for tests I have this already in operation but not yet attached, that follows if everything works…)
become a HA control center with Echoshow functionality, because I don’t want to use both (Apple and Alexa).