Old tablets / browsers / iOS

Configuration Frontend
1

Hi there,

Just tried to repurpose an old iPad mini as HA wall device and had to learn - no.

Why? I mean no app support for iOS 12, I get it but in the news which announced that it said browsers will continue to work.

But no matter if I use Safari or Chrome - bubble cards config error, energy dashboard 70% not working….why is that? Shouldn’t it be possible to run an browser that can run HA on an iPad mini?

I mesn this renders such a huge number of devices I collected useless….I even think of checking on HA alternatives (I know, crazy…).

2

That is not a core card, so you would have to ask for support for old browser versions with the 3rd party developer.

What exactly is not working, screen shot?

3

There’s a difference between accessing HA on an iPad and running HA on an iPad. It’s not clear on which you are trying to do.

HA should be installed on a device that is running 24/7.

4

They are not trying to host a home assistant server, just view it. As evidenced by their issues with using the recommended alternative of using a web browser for older devices.

2 Likes
5

Yeah I am also shocked that it wont work on iPod Touch 1G on iOS 3.1.3. :man_facepalming: :man_facepalming:

Technology moves on and I think some “legacy”-Support is unbearable for the developers. Where do you make the line?

Id rather blame Apple (in this specific case) that they are not unlocking these devices to let the community tweak their own stuff.

You can think about controlling Home assistant via The Home(kit) app maybe instead. A friend of mine uses his old iPad for this.

1 Like
6

Thanks for the insight.

7

Okay guys. Really. Of course I am not trying to RUN HA on an iPad. If in doubt, short click on my profile and seeing how long I am here should make that clear lol.

And no, I don’t think we can compare an iPod touch with an iPad mini, but you would be surprised what actually is possible on an iPod touch lol. Additionally, developers explicitely said that while the App will not be supported on iOS 12 any more, Browsers should continue to work. And no, I am using HA specifically to NOT use HomeKit or Google…

And yes I of course blame Apple for not even giving me a usable browser on that OS which really shouldn’t be a problem. However they won’t help me for sure, while here it might be possible that somebody knows a browser usable for that or has other tips.

Back to topic:

Bubble Card I have to go to their Git for support, fair enough and makes sense. Maybe I even have to get rid of it again but that would be a shame, a I just finished a complete redesign of my Dashboards utilizing that card 98% :smiley:

Energy dashboard: Ha, today it is working. Before it said data was not found (while working on other devices).

So the conclusion for this thread is: If somebody knows a way to make bubble card working or if there is a modern browser running on iOS12, I would be very thankful for a hint! Will of course also check the bubblecard git.

P.S.: I just learned that in the old versions Apple didnt even allow other browser engines than Safari, so there might be no solutions at all… except the one I read…running a brwoser with HA in a VM and accessing that through VNC :smiley:

8

My experiences with ANY old tablets are disastrous. No old tablet will run HA as dasboard viewer “decently”. Many of them are capable of showing HA dashboard, but they are painfully slow - like even up to half a minute to load, when you tap anything it can take seconds to respond…
I have old ipad (i believe it’s 4th generation) which is totally useless for HA dashboard.

Even new cheapest tablets aren’t (necessarily) ok. When i was buying tablets for my home some year ago i found out that old used Samsung tab s5 works better than, say, new cheapest lenovo tablet (price around 140€ at that time).

3 Likes
9

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Yeah many cheap tablets are so slow, they shouldn’t exist at all :smiley:

10

Another point is that unsupported operating systems don’t get root certificate updates so browsers can’t function securely anymore. I’ve seen a documentation link to the minimum browser requirements for the Frontend but can’t find it at the moment.

1 Like
11

Yeah but in a closed local environment I don’t care how secure a certificate is…

This is a great example what I don’t like about closed ecosystems. Hardware becomes bricks, usable resources end up in a drawer.

With a PC, where I have the control, I can install or program anything thats possible and there is no such limitation - beside the pure performance.

My father got a Parrot Drone, nothing wrong with it. However it is nearly impossible to use it without finding an old iPhone or Android device that can run the uncontinued app… But then that device is so slow with everything else that it is nearly unusable…

Anyways I thought using a web app should be possible with the most browsers :smiley:

12

Making security exceptions based on that kind of rationale is where breaches start, but I understand. We are all human.

Here’s the Frontend Github browserlist frontend/.browserslistrc at dev · home-assistant/frontend · GitHub

1 Like
13

I’m using an old Asus T100TA windows tablet from 2014 as a wall panel, it works suprisingly well, it takes a while to first load all the pages but then it is pretty fast, and on my main dashboard I have three live camera feeds. But I will be switching to linux (Zorin OS) beacuse it runs windows 10 and there will be no security updates. I hope that on linux it will run even better.

14

I think in many cases people who don’t really know what they are doing are imposing more risk to their environment by opening the router to the internet just to get a valid SSL certificate (for internal use!) than if they would use self signed certificates and leave their firewall / NAT closed.

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I don’t know about other systems but ACME/Let’s encrypt doesn’t require any special router configurations or inbound port configuration.

Not that I disagree about people not really knowing what they are doing adding risk.

1 Like
16

I still use an original iPad Air (iOS12) to control HA.
It mostly works but there are a few areas that it struggles with.
For example:
Selecting a tab at the top does not result in the tab being highlighted

HACS fails to display

Settings presentation of updates can end up with no access to the button to apply the update