I have a PoE wall-mounted tablet for quite a while and I find this to be the best option as the Ethernet cable can be tucked away behind the tablet in the wall, no outlet required, etc.
The real problem is performance, it’s powered by RK3288, a chip from 2014. As dashboards become more complex, this chip struggles a lot just to render. The final stick which broke the camel’s back was the inline feature position - rendering a few of these cards makes the tablet totally unresponsive.
Some time ago I ordered a similar tablet with RK3566 but for whatever reason this one has even worse performance than the old one (170 geekbench score, yes, that bad).
Are there good ones? I suppose I can live with an PoE to USB power adapter, but that’s less ideal. How do you mount these things without VESA holes?
Why POE required?
WiFi not OK?
What about Ethernet?
Are you using app or web?
There are some poe to 12vdc and 5vdc + ethernet adaptors I like to use. Extremely reliable devices.
Poe may be hard to find but maybe DC in with Ethernet or DC in with WiFi.
What about an Ethernet monitor connected to remote PC? I don’t know if small sizes are available but 23” and above there is likely a way. Look at hdbaset
To get power, it’s a bit pain in the neck to supply 110V mains to where I have a dashboard. Wifi is fine, it’s mainly for power.
Are you using app or web?
I’m using Fully Kiosk, the app does not have a kiosk mode as far as I know
There are some poe to 12vdc and 5vdc + ethernet adaptors I like to use. Extremely reliable devices.
Well, that’s option for sure, but it requires an additional device on the wall, which maybe fine, but again I need to design a bracket to mount the tablet and the adapter.
Poe may be hard to find but maybe DC in with Ethernet or DC in with WiFi.
I don’t think this will work, supplying 2A 5V over ethernet is not a great idea, copper is too thin.
What about an Ethernet monitor connected to remote PC? I don’t know if small sizes are available but 23” and above there is likely a way. Look at hdbaset
Hm, but even if I supply HDMI signal to the panel, I also need to supply touchscreen back (over USB?). And also power. And need some PC with a graphics card to plug this into. IDK, seems like an overkill.
Not sure this makes sense. What do you think a POE cam or AP is using?
I would have single gang wall box in wall. This would house any minor devices and provide fixed point so I can keep wire from falling back in wall. sometimes I will just put a 3/4" hole.
I am looking at ipads. they sell mounts for ipads everwhere. Really you could also get a cheap TPU cover and literally screw that onto wall adding washer to ensure cover is not easily pulled off screw. the tablet would flush mount into that. The issue I have in mose of these is power plug but you may also look at wireless charger mounted behind it. Single gang or double gang box can fit a big one but ipad have some pretty small units.
even old ipads have good processing power for simple HA UI
It does - in hacs install kiosk mode addon. But, i prefer to use fully kiosk over app, too.
Regarding tablet: i think tablets with poe are pretty rare, and if you find one it will be expensive and perhaps not as powerful as you’d wish. I found out that for good HA presentation tablet must be quite decent one, definitely not some cheap model. Better to buy used premium tablet (like old samsung s series) than some cheap new one. I bought samsung s5e a while ago pretty cheap, and it works perferctly.
I use a 120V AC to 5V DC adapter plugged into an outlet down in my basement and ran the low voltage cable to my wall mounted tablet in the wall and connected it to the tablet with a 90 degree flat usb c connector which fits perfectly behind the wall mount.
i got a 2014 ipad air 2 yesterday used
less than 99USD with stand
CONS
-old OS version
-stand is light weight so you feel wabble when press at high point of screen. low points OK
-very slight lag (under 1/4 second)…more noticable due to stand wabble
PROS
works amazing better than I expected
-HA widgets on home screen for direct connect to Frigate, HA main view, voice assist and other
-IOS widget for netflix, appleTV, etc. This is in kitchen so easy to put on show
-facetime. I realized that since this has its own account I can facetime to it. Good for when I cannot get person at home on phone or if I want to call out to family. theres a widget for this
-15minute timeout. I use when I use and want off when not. also dont want visitors looking at cameras so kiosk is not my thing – I realized this during setup that I wanted pin –
-works well overall and everyone knows instantly how to use it.
-voice worked well. mic picked up without issue and responses are LOUD
I plan to use Ipad in key areas. one in kitchen and ipad or iphone in theatre
Other locations I will use Voice PE or one of the other esp voice devices.
I tried fire tablets in past and they were very laggy. that was 1st and 2nd gen units so not sure what latest gen holds.
For the ipad there was some pain-in-arsery arond Apple account setup. I couldnt get an account setup due to password issue and main account I cant use due to security and OS conflict so I used a child account (the account created for one of my kids). ultimately you should use a dedicated device account for this and not your main apple account or an account used for more than playing games.
If you use apple products, I recommend ipad. Really due to facetime support but ultimatly using a matched ecosystem works better long term
If you use Android, premium android devices – Samsung, Huawei, Pixel – will be the way. Apple would work but you might get limited by inability to install some custom thing.
I think it will be even more pain in the neck to find a (suitable) tablet with PoE…
I am not suggesting to run (mains) power (necessarily) but rather agree with people who said to run Ethernet (if you want to do that) and then use a PoE adapter which would break out the power (and then just use Wi-Fi).
I don’t know where in the house this is but you could also run power (even an extension cord) through the attic (or crawlspace, adjacent room, etc.) and then to a power supply and then USB cable (low voltage) to the tablet itself.[0] There are many ways.
I came here to say this as well. The main problem here is finding a performant tablet without spending too much money (IMO).
This is one way (I definitely do this with smart phones for instance). And I know yet another way.
Over the last few years we have been buying these Walmart Onn tablets and been pretty happy with them. First some 7-8" and more recently a couple 11" models. The Onn Tablet Pro 11" latest (“2024”) model is currently selling for only about $125 and is a quite large and decent tablet. So far only used for reading and streaming media, but plan on trying one of the big ones for a dashboard soon. They are very nearly vanilla Android and come with an unlocked bootloader.
No GPS but that’s not needed for a dashboard (the “2023” model did have GPS and that’s what I used it for when driving a lot for work).
Many people report same. They can be had inexpensively but then you are also fighting against Amazon who are subsidizing them and therefore like to lock them down. Which is why people who have gone down this road recommend other things (as I mentioned above).
More good advice. It’s almost as if I’m seeing a theme here.
[0] Many people do this in concert with some sort of a switch, so they can keep the battery within a certain range to prolong its life.
Raspberry Pi with touchscreen is the only POe solution I can think of.
Havent use a Pi since 3b so I can’t speak on lag with a pi5. I think this would be expensive and less functional when compared to most tablet solutions but it would be POE
In the meantime I stumbled across some mentions of PoE industrial tablets on AliExpress.[0] I don’t know anything about these, but if anyone has experience with them I would like to hear about it.
[0] Was that in this thread, or elsewhere? Serendipity and all that (I no longer think there are accidents in the universe, where just a few years ago I would have thought that some kind of kooky talk ).
no experience but they look like the standard underpowered android tablets.
EDIT POE Texas has a POE tablet but I think its just an Ipad with POE. Not sure what software but POE Texas actually has some decent product
says it has playstore installed and on amazon it shows CPU maker is APPLE so maybe they use old apple processors but put into an Android tablet?
EDIT2
And sorry
Some of the units on Ali are abysmal but some show promise. Pretty sure that POE Texas unit is on Ali somewhere to be found. Some of the units run ubuntu.
It’s almost as if I’m seeing a theme here. 