Just a heads up because I just discovered this, and I’ve not read about it here. It is called “cuckoo-nest”. I post here because everyone benefits if more people develop on this platform.
By now we have all read about the “No Longer Evil” (NLE) project to resurrect the Google Nest thermostats that Google abandoned. This is great if you have one of these, because now you can make it smart again. (These were $250 devices back in 2012, when $250 was a lot of money, and Google turned them into dumb devices by turning off the cloud server.). This project uses the same root exploit as the NLE project. It is a GUI point-and-click root kit. very easy to use.
I own a few of these Thermostats, and I can say their physical design has very high “Wife Approval Factor.” They look nice, not at all like the junky white Chinese plastic most smart home products are made from. These are made from heavy, curved glass and stainless steel with no visible plastic showing. With a very high build quality. The user interface is a metal ring that you turn and then push the glass face to click. There is a PIR sensor to turn on the screen only when a person is there.
Inside the device is a complete Linux system. Not an ESP32-like microcontroller but a system very much like the Home Assistant server itself. You can log in using SSH and run any normal Linux command. The Linux system has built-in WiFi and a USB port and a small LCD screen.
Now my point: Someone figured out how to run arbitrary apps on this device, and he has a couple of examples and instructions. So the device need not remain a thermostat. What about a light dimmer for your smart lights or a scene controller where you spin the ring until the display reads “movie-night,” then tap the glass to select that scene. Or for a joke, turn your thermostat into an oversized 4” diameter wrist watch. (There is a backup battery-powdered power supply inside that can be recharged with USB.) The device normally runs on wired power but has enough battery to run for a few hours if the power blacks out.
It is a full Linux system in a postmodern steel and glass enclosure with battery power and Wi-Fi for nearly free (because Google abandoned them).
What would you do with one of these? I think a light dimmer is an easy answer. But maybe also a media player controller. A window cover control would be fun too. The blinds open or close as you turn the ring left or right. Then you tap and the ring makes them go up and down. It is a heavy ring with a smooth feel with some drag.
Below is a random photo of the thermostat showing a random diagnostic screen. I think the diagnostic shows what the screen can do better than the normal screen does. The LCD monitor screen is square, but you only see a round part of it; the corners are masked. The glass is not flat but shaped like a magnifying lens to make the screen look bigger and brighter. It is not a touch screen but you can “click” by pushing the glass and “select” by turning the steel ring. The screen could show a photo or any kind of “mini dishboard” or menu system. Documentation says you can run LVGL graphics on this device, but I have not yet tried.
Finally, the GitHub with the programming instructions and examples