[HA TABLET] Dedicated Display for Home Assistant — Custom OS, PoE Power, Plug & Play Integration

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Hi everyone!

For quite some time now — mostly in the evenings — I’ve been developing a dedicated display for Home Assistant. The idea was born from the need for a stable, convenient, and visually appealing device to serve as a central control panel at home. I now have a working prototype that fully meets my expectations — and it’s already mounted on my wall :blush:

What makes this device different?

:small_blue_diamond: Custom Android (AOSP) system optimized for Home Assistant:

  • Home Assistant Companion used as the system launcher,
  • Custom HA boot animation,
  • Tweaked system navigation (Home button always returns to HA),
  • No standard Android UI — no accidental exits or system interruptions,
  • Added native SIP client for intercom support,
  • Lightweight OS with no bloat or background services — 100% HA-focused,
  • OTA updates supported.

:small_blue_diamond: Truly Plug & Play experience:

  • No kiosk mode, no rooting, no third-party hacks,
  • Just connect to power and network — it boots directly into Home Assistant,
  • Hardware designed for wall mounting,
  • Powered via PoE.

:small_blue_diamond: Available in multiple screen sizes:

  • 5.5", 7", 8", 10.1", 14" (HD or FullHD, 4GB RAM, 32GB ROM),

:small_blue_diamond: Experimental feature: running Home Assistant in Docker directly on Android — technically possible, but currently more of a testing than a production-ready setup.

Why not just use a modified tablet?

:white_check_mark: No unnecessary background apps or services,
:white_check_mark: No forced firmware updates that may break your setup,
:white_check_mark: No fiddling with kiosk tools, custom launchers, or system overlays,
:white_check_mark: No manufacturer limitations — full control over hardware and software,
:white_check_mark: Custom-built for wall integration, SIP support,
:white_check_mark: Fully prepared out of the box — just plug in and go.

I’m currently working on optimizing system and app performance, especially after prolonged standby periods — the goal is to prevent unnecessary full reloads after unlocking.
Log analysis (Android & HA server) shows just a disconnect()/connect() cycle on the socket layer, but I plan to dig into Wireshark traffic to better understand what triggers this. If anyone has experienced this or knows the cause — I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What’s next?

  • More performance and UX improvements :rocket:,
  • A larger 15-inch+ screen model,
  • I’m considering commercializing the project, but that depends on demand and how much time I can dedicate (for now, it’s a side project).

I’d love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, questions, or any constructive feedback. If this project interests you — I’ll be happy to share more updates and behind-the-scenes content.

:link: Learn more about the project and checkout the video: www.emel.tech

Best regards,
Patryk Czarnota

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So many questions:

  1. Does it support portrait mode?
  2. Is cable ethernet required or can it connect to WiFi?
  3. Is there a motion sensor to activate the display as soon as a person approaches / go to sleep if there’s no motion?
  4. Can it go to sleep / wake up based on a pre-programmed schedule?
  5. is there a desktop stand available?
    and most importantly
  6. can I have one? :slight_smile:
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I mean, with the latest update, the companion app can be used as launcher.
That makes almost all old androids available as panels.

But powering them is always sketchy, cable ethernet hookup is kludgy at best and there’s never a decent solution for my #3, #4 and #5.

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Very nice! What are the costs of this project?

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  1. Yes, it is.
  2. It can connect to WiFi.
  3. Display activate on touch screen at the moment.
  4. Not right now. There is just classic time delay after that screen goes to sleep.
  5. Not right now but I’ll consider to include it to offer. Example:
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  6. Not selling yet. I is just a prototype and I’ve got a lot of work with it to be ready for sell :upside_down_face:
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Shut up and take my money!!!

1 Like
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I love this idea, but, can you reduce the bezel size?

When are you bringing this to market.

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New system optimizations in my HA Tablet project

While working on the next version of my custom AOSP build for wall-mounted PoE-powered tablets, I focused on improving the responsiveness of the Home Assistant interface and adding Vulkan support to Android.

📱 What’s new:

  • The HA dashboard no longer reloads after unlocking the screen — the WebSocket connection now stays active.

  • I built a custom WebView engine, disabling timer throttling and background WebSocket termination.

  • Added experimental Vulkan rendering support (ro.hwui.use_vulkan=true, debug.renderengine.backend=skiavk).

  • Required a fix in SkiaVkRenderEngine.cpp since Rockchip/Mali drivers falsely report support for vkGetDeviceQueue2.

🔍 For debugging, I used Chromium DevTools and Wireshark, which helped me trace WebSocket behavior and identify why connections were being dropped.

🎥 See the demo:
👉 https://youtu.be/5lrfiL0fdJc – standard WebView
👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htmmh0ISuRU – modified WebView engine after my optimizations

More technical details and code snippets are available on my blog (link in the comments).

💬 Question to the community:
Has anyone experimented with a fully online version of the HA UI?
I mean a configuration where the dashboard runs independently from a local HA instance or specific hardware setup.
I’d love to exchange ideas and compare performance results with other setups and devices.

🚧 Next steps:

  • Further WebView and AOSP service optimizations

  • Testing Vulkan/Skia performance within the HA interface

  • 🆕 Trying out a 8-inch model with an new 8-core CPU for more demanding use cases

1 Like
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Watching your project eagerly. This is an area where I think the community is clearly interested in a solution but no one has brought it to market. All the current options are “android tablets” of varrying quality, or “go heavy”.

Personally I don’t need 100 different add-on features. My core desire is “responsive enough” and POE. Larger display options are nice for central locations. Spouse approval factor is important

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🔧 New performance tests – 8-inch PoE tablet with an 8-core CPU

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After implementing the latest improvements in my HA Tablet with personal AOSP system, it was time to run tests on the new 8-inch model with an 8-core processor and PoE power.

📱 What’s shown in the video:

I prepared a short demo where you can see:

  • lightning-fast switching between tabs and panels,

  • smooth overall performance,

  • stable live view from 4 cameras,

  • a full-screen windy.com iframe test — even though it’s one of the heaviest resources you can embed inside a WebView.

🎞️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1SP8AiYZIU

🌪 Why is windy.com such a “heavy” view?

It’s not a typical page with a simple animated graphic. Windy uses:

  • complex WebGL rendering with multi-layer shaders,

  • dynamic maps that continuously fetch large datasets (wind, pressure, radar, forecast models),

  • high-resolution animated textures rendered in real time.

On weaker devices — and sometimes even on desktop PCs — this can cause CPU/GPU spikes and frame-rate drops. Inside Android WebView it’s often even more demanding due to throttling and system-level restrictions.

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Looking very nice!

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I’d be very interested in a 14" 8-core PoE version of this!

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Interesting project! From what I see online, it’s exactly what everyone is looking for in their smart homes, but there’s no way anyone is putting this up for sale on the market.

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Is it usable as a media player in HA to become a doorbell for exemple or tts player ?

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I would encourage you to look at “View Assist” project. I’m using it on my Echo Show 5 and 8 and it’s awesome. Optimizing your displays for that project would be amazing.

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I’ve taken a quick look at the project, and so far I don’t see any reasons why View Assist and the View Assist Companion App wouldn’t work on my device. I’d just need to test it to be sure.

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The device runs Android, and you can install your own applications on it — nothing in the system blocks that functionality. By default, it also includes a dedicated app for handling a door intercom using the SIP protocol, so this functionality works independently of Home Assistant. It runs in the background, and when someone presses the doorbell, the screen automatically shows the camera feed and you can answer the intercom call directly on the device.

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