Homeassistant permanent open in Echo Show 15

First of all: I do not write native English :slight_smile:

My story: Naive as I was, I ordered the Echo Show 15 to use as my home assistant dashboard. Unfortunately, no APPs, no Fully Kiosk browser and keeping the HA panel open only worked via a custom skill which was restarted every 5 minutes by an automation.

When I read more on the internet, I found out that the HA panel can be kept open by permanently playing a video.

But unfortunately the Echo Show 15 blocked the automatic playback of videos. After a lot of back and forth, I finally found a solution, also with the help of this forum, so that I have now managed to play a video in the loop and autoplay.

Ultimately, this post put me on the right track:

Thanks to tom-x1

For this I use the “index.html” now in a slightly modified form. It was important to somehow achieve that the loop function also takes effect.

<html>
	<head>
		<script src="https://vjs.zencdn.net/5.6.0/video.js"></script>
		<link href="https://vjs.zencdn.net/5.6.0/video-js.css" rel="stylesheet" /> 
		<script src="https://unpkg.com/videojs-abloop/dist/videojs-abloop.min.js"></script>		
	</head>
	<body>
		<video autoplay="" muted="true" id="vid" controls class="video-js" width='480' height='270' >
			<source src="http://XX.XX.XX.XX:8123/local/video/world.mp4" type='video/mp4'>
		</video>	
		<script>	
			var video = videojs("vid",{
				plugins: {
					abLoopPlugin: {}
				}
			});
			video.ready(function(){
				this.abLoopPlugin.setStart(1).setEnd(29).playLoop();
			});
		</script>
	</body>
</html>

To embed the video in Lovelance I use an iframe and set the size to 0%, so it is no longer visible. Probably you have to embed it for each room/tab.

type: iframe
url: http://XX.XX.XX.XX:8123/local/video/index.html
aspect_ratio: 0%

If someone finds a more elegant solution to this, or can improve it here, then happy to reply to this post :slight_smile:

2 Likes

How about playing a streaming video from your driveway or doorbell camera? Would that keep the Show open?

I have not researched much on this yet. But I found this video and app and it seems doable with this.

https://www.fully-kiosk.com/
Reddit post

1 Like

One more link for ya here Reddit post

1 Like

@smartmech - did you get Fully Kiosk on the Echo Show 15? I’ve got it on there, but @keyframe rotation isn’t working. My fans use this animation. Blink seems to not work either. Seems the echo show does not have @keyframe support

Anybody ?? Workaround ?

Cheers! Gonna order one and try this.

Does anyone know of a way to launch a sideloaded app on the Echo Show? Or even get one to launch at boot? I know HA companion supports it with notification actions but this doesn’t seem to work as it doesn’t have the draw over other apps permission required.

I launch fully kiosk manually Taotlus which seems to work ok, but Fully Kiosk does seem to close at least nightly and have to be opened again.

Anyone have a work around?

Thanks!

2 Likes

Does this still work? Trying to find a bit more of a guide on how to load HA onto a Echo Show 15 but can’t find much. Anyone able to post a few more pointers? I understand the index.html file, but how do I get that to display on Echo? Thanks in advance.

It worked for me, using Fully Kiosk, I’ve set mine to boot into FK as soon as the device is turned on, and then display my dashboard.
I use dakboard on a switch to stream photos from my curated google photos album also.

Not sure if Amazon have blocked sideloading apps since I bought mine, approx a month ago, but mine is still working fine.

2 Likes

is there any update on side loading?

for those of us that missed the boat for sideloading. this is how i keep my ha dah open on echo show 15 Keep ha dashboard open on newer echo show 15 without sideloading anything

HY wollte mal fragen ob die variante mit den echo show 15 noch immer so gut funktioniert.

Spiele mich auch mit den gedanken einen zu kaufen und da nicht gerade gĂĽnstig wollte ich mich mal erkundigen ob das in der form noch geht oder ob amazon da einen riegel vorgeschoben hat .
mfg