My "Frameless" Wall Mounted Tablet Dashboard

[nickw444 (Nick Whyte)]

Cross-posting from my Reddit Post

I’ve been running this mounting method for about 3 years now and it’s been absolutely rock solid. It’s fully universal for any tablet as long as it has a flat rear back. I thought it’s probably about time I upload and share the 3D model so others can enjoy it! At the time I couldn’t find any design I liked aesthetically, and I think this is still true today based on a quick search I did.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/1693448-super-minimal-frameless-tablet-ipad-wall-mount#profileId-1795300

I originally had an iPad mounted for the last 3 years, but have recently swapped it out for an Android based tablet with an OLED display that I picked up for a bargain price of $100AUD (slight screen burn in).

I recently modified the design to support routing a second cable through for a concealed IR blaster to control air conditioning in the hallway.

The mounting design uses a sliding vertical cleat design to allow the tablet to be easily removed from the wall when needed. Simply slide the tablet upward and out to use it elsewhere. The cleat attaches to the rear of any tablet with a secure mounting tape. But don’t cheap out on the tape, it’s the only thing holding the tablet to the mount!!

The dashboard itself follows an “information oriented” design, and tries to give the user high density information at a glance, but enables digging in if necessary. It features train times to the city from our local train station, household calendar, energy statistics, quick access for some select entities, as well as listing of lock/fan/light entities considered “on”/“unlocked” for quick control if necessary and glancing at the current home state. I’ll be sure to make a separate post another day about my dashboard design…

[IOT7712]

Is that a strong magnet glued to the back of the tablet?

All you need is a right angle power cable to tidy up that flying power charger lead that is poking out, implement wireless charging with smart shutoff when the battery is charged, or print a frame cover shroud to hide it, and give a belt and braces approach to prevent it falling down.

Now that we can 3D print it, why are we never satisfied with what we have done?

V2.1 coming up…

Best wishes and thanks for sharing. Would be interested in getting ideas from your code as well.

[dufacc]

Hi everyone, I recently discovered this forum and I’m rushing to understand some things because I’ll be in the USA next week and I’d like to buy a Home Assistant Green. But I realized I’ll also need a display and I thought about using a tablet, exactly like you did. My question is whether Home Assistant is installed on the tablet, or if you have a HA Green somewhere. If it’s directly on the tablet, the disadvantage would be the updates and ease of installing add-ons.

[IOT7712]

You need to run your HomeAssistant Operating System ecosystem on a hardware platform. The Green is specifically designed to do this. A tablet is not.

Most people access their HomeAssistant hardware via an Internet browser screen or app on their phone (or tablet) across their home network. This is what the other person in this thread has done, repurposing an iPad, and later an Android tablet in web browser kiosk mode, mounted on the wall with a neat 3D printed custom mount.

Most tablets run some form of Android or Apple operating system, a distant cousin of Linux that HomeAssistant Operating System thrives on, but unfortunately cannot host. You won’t be able to use the tablet -instead- of the Green to actually run the HomeAssistant Operating system, which is what I think you are asking.

Suggestion: buy your Green and connect it to your home network, and access it -over the network- from your other devices is how most people do it, and what the other person has done.

Yes, buy the Black Friday special tablet, but not for -hosting- HomeAssistant (that is what the Green is for), but accessing the dashboards through the browser and for all the other convenient options it offers. Please also consider extending the life of an unwanted older tablet, pressing it into service as a remotely connected display, rather than forking out for a brand new one. Cheaper and saves on landfill.

[dufacc]

First of all, thank you very much for such a clear answer, it was extremely helpful.

Now, you’ve convinced me to buy the HA Green, but just for understanding. If I decide to buy only a display (not a tablet), the difference would be that instead of Wi-Fi I would need a cable to connect? Would a display with Wi-Fi be an alternative? Another question, I saw in some topics here that the Amazon tablet doesn’t work very well with HA, so some generic ones I saw that are very cheap will probably also cause me problems, right?

[IOT7712]

A display for your Green (think of the Green as a small computer on your home network solely dedicated to running HomeAssistant) and a display for your HomeAssistant dashboards are two different things.

Example: You already have another small computer running on your network - your router, and that has no display monitor screen connected - you always connect to it over your network, either with an Ethernet cable (reliable and consistent), or WiFi (depends and can be flaky, but convenient). The Green is the same, connected to the network, doing its thing running HomeAssistant, and you access it from another device. The difference is the Green DOES have the capability to be used as a small computer by connecting it to a monitor display, keyboard and mouse, however it is not often done.

You do not necessarily need a computer monitor for your Green as you usually operate it as a black box (no display screen, no keyboard, no mouse, just two cables for the power supply and an Ethernet cable to your router) and instead you connect to the Green over your network, with a device (or multiple devices) that has a modern web browser such as a computer, tablet, cell phone, and that web browser displays your dashboard display, etc.

Get the Green. Skip buying the computer monitor. Set the Green up to connect to your local network, and access it from whatever you normally use to access the internet from the same network.

An optional tablet that can also access the web over the same network over WiFi will most likely work with HomeAssistant too. There are apps you can install on your smartwatch, your cell phone, and tablet that also access your Green to give you added functionality.

In the case of Nick Whyte, the original poster in this thread, he probably is running his tablet with the included web browser in kiosk mode (full screen) and dedicated to displaying a default dashboard screen all the time on his custom built mount on the wall, connected to his HomeAssistant box (could be a Green - he doesn’t say and it doesn’t matter - it could be a lot of other types of hardware), over the network using WiFi. He says he used an old iPad, and also an old Android tablet that he got for cheap. The flexibility of having it wall mounted, however easily slid out to be used for other tablet functionality is what makes it a great idea.

I’m not conversant with particular Amazon tablets and what browsers they run, and whether they will be able to display HomeAssistant dashboards in kiosk mode. If you have an old one lying around, try it and see.