Somebody has a recommendation for a tablet / software to use to control home-assistant?
Backlight must be adjustable via mqtt
Browser must be controllable via mqtt
webcam must be accessible (to use a motion detector)
cheap (~100USD)
ideally no rooting necessary
Those three points pretty much only depend on the software you have on the tablet. If you buy a farily recent tablet, most should work well for these use cases.
One thing I sadly stumbled upon are bloating batteries (don’t know if that’s the correct terminology. I chose to stick with a big brand to feel safe about the device being reliable. That however turned out to not help at all. I went with the Samsung SM-T280 Galaxy Tab A (2016) 2 times, and in both cases after a couple of months I have noticed the screen being curved to the outside. I have opened the devices, and indeed the battery was the reason. So apparently these devices pose a safety risk since bloating batteries can catch fire and burn down your hose. At least if you keep them connected to power all the time.
So even though I really liked them in terms of speed and software, the hardware has a critical issue in the long run. And because experiencing such issues takes a long time I haven’t yet found an alternative where I can say this problem does not exists. I hope there are others who can recommend which device to buy instead which device not to buy.
Thanks. I am using a fire 7 tablet and haven’t had the battery problem. It’s running since a year or so connected to power.
I can’t turn the backlight off however. Dimming works. But not turning it off. I guess rooting is needed for that but I haven’t found a guide that seems easy to follow and does not require a windows pc.
I tested a rpi with the 7” touch screen but the quality of the screen and the resolution is disappointing.
Check out this thread for help turning ON/OFF the screen.
Good to hear that the Fire7 is a good idea for a tablet.
I want to get one to replace my thermostat but didn’t like the idea of the adverts on the lockscreens (unless you pay) but seeing as I don’t currently own one I don’t know if this is still true.
Would be fantastic if someone wrote a start to finish how-to guide on how to set up a Kindle Fire to be a HA interface (with motion, no lockscreen, etc, etc). I imagine it would get a lot of views in the hardware section.