Few questions about wallmounted tablet

Hardware Home Automation
6

Just run your charging cable in the wall and into the tablet. The wall mounts hide it all nice and clean. Don’t use “wireless” charging as it will severely decrease your battery life and damage it as it is not a solid constant trickle charge. I also recommend against magnetic mounting for obvious reasons. Buy or make a proper mount as listed below and save yourself the headache in the long run.

For power over the cat five you can also use a 12v PSU like this to power all the tablets around the home like i do. Throw a meter on the end of the cat 5 and adjust the power output on the PSU for your device. Some managed POE switches also allow you to adjust the power output so that is an option as well but those are usually higher end.

1 Like
7

I don’t need 30Amps as power supply for tablets :slight_smile:

Solution with proper mount and connecting std charger is not inline with take it out from the wall. It will be not convenient.

8

It looks that even std Qi charger can keep Nexus on it:

Question is: Is it enough to keep it on the wall, even when we using it ?

Maybe it will be good to use such charge + extra small magnetic pad or add some plastic bar on bottom to block tablet vertically.

9

You do if you have a lot of devices running off of it :wink:

10

I think I have done it :slight_smile:

So I decided to go with used Nexus 7 2013, due to fact that it has build in wireless charger. In the beggining I was thinking to use OEM charger, which is magnetic and it should be able to keep tablet on it (attached video above), but I can not find such charger nearby, so I decided to go with cheap QI charger + magnets.

What I bought:

This charger is quite big, so it is fine for us, because there are plenty place to put our magnets in it :slight_smile:. I have put circle one 30mm diamiter, 5mm thin with hole inside to screw it + 40mm x10mm and 5mm thin.
It looks like follow:

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It is important to get magnets with hole to screw it, since this material is very sensitive to drill it. This holes also let me screw and keep charger on the wall. I have not used miniUSB port but use power cable which I had on this wall and put 2A charger in tech room nearby.

This charger is quite thin, ca 7mm, but I have remove few mm from wall surface, so it looks like build-in :slight_smile:

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Then I have used silicon cover from Nexus 7 (std one, also very cheap),
I have used electric mini polishing machine to prepare place for metal pads.
Those pads I have taken from magnetic holder which I bought. There were two pieces of pads, one ca 2cm x4cm and circle one ca 3cm. There ere 0.5mm thin, but then I polish internal surface of cover I had good place to put it inside. I have done it because such metal pad can make some scratches on tablet surface and I have feel thicker places when I take tablet with this cover. Then I used double adhesive tape to stick metal pads. Those pads was painted, so they are not such ugly when you will look inside cover :slight_smile:

How it looks on the wall:

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The biggest advantage is convenience, you just need to put it on the wall, putting more or less in the middle. That’s all. Also when I need tablet I can just remove it quickly :).
After fighting with iPad2 this Nexus 7 is much better device, it is smaller and much faster. Charging works very well, just after I put table on the wall, anyway I have must check my USB charger (Idont believe this 2A on it), since my rapsberry didn’t want to work with it. When I switch on motion detection, charger is not enought to charge it, probably due to battery drain from motion detector.
Second problem is that tablet is quite sensitive for magnets, it is better to test where to put magnets before, because there are some places that table switch off automatically just after switch on. This place which I used is free of this problem.

3 Likes
11

Looks great! I spent a while trying to buy a 2013 Nexus 7 but could not find one. I ended up with a LG GPad 7 mounted using velcro strips for now with an after market Qi receiver for wireless charging. Have you tried Rotini as an interface for openhab? It’s pretty cool!

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12

This is what I am missing :slight_smile:. Up to now when motion is detected I got main page of Openab’s app, but it is not nice and not easy to read just the most important parameters. I have tried with some remote controler app, and Today I have found Rotini. Looks very promising, even I have registered already and good an app. Now I must play with the config.

BTW. So do you need to install coil inside your LG ?

13

I tried to install the coil inside the LG but it wouldn’t charge, I think the coil is just too cheap :slight_smile:
So the coil is just stuck to the back of the tablet with tape and it’s working really well, even with the screen on full brightness it does not drain the battery at all while charging.

14

It could be the coil but I found the distance an issue.
I had the coil inside a Nexus 7 2012 with velcro on the wall. when it was stuck on you had to give it a little push to get it closer to start charging.

Josh

15

That’s why finally I decided to buy Nexus 7 2013 due to wireless charging. I had this silicon cover, it is 1-1.5mm thin + ca 2-3 mm distance inside charger and it works, even on charger for few Euros :slight_smile:

BTW. Do you use something like motion detection to wake up device ?
I have tried motion dep app but it drain my batter. I need to check if it is a problem with charger or app which use camera almost all the time.

16

@TommySharp do you know if Rotini app is still available for free or it cost?
I’ve spent awhile reading That long post and as far as I could understand right now you have to buy the app!
What about imperihab? Maybe this could be an alternative but I think you must make some modifications in all your items to work and it doesn’t work (tested) with IOS devices.
Thanks!

1 Like
17

It is still available as a private beta which you need to sign up to using Google+.
It looks like it is becoming a “paid for” product in the near future, hopefully Igor rethinks his pricing model which sounds like it will be an amount per phone/tablet rather than a one off purchase price.

Imperihab is okay but nowhere as nice looking.
There are a few more options coming out the wood work, HABPanel looks interesting but at first glace looks like you need to be a developer of sort to be able to make it work nicely.

18

Thanks for answer man, I think that for Rotinii also you have to have some knowledge to use it like css or so!
Reading Igor’s topic I found that Rotini app looks pretty cool and it is sad and frustrating for all contributors to face this situation meaning you have to pay for all devices you want the app and this is not something new on the market, I mean if you want to use whatever app which cost € you have to pay for all devices, at least I think so.
To try Rotini app I know I have to have an account on google but I saw that there’s no activity on his post since June, how do I have to get access? Shall I ask on his post or how!
Thanks man.
All the best!

19

Rotini config is all done in the sitemap and the nice thing is that one sitemap can be used for all devices. HABPanel appears to be a separate config for each device at the moment.
Find the Google+ group for Rotini and ask Igor from there for access to the beta.

20

Thanks man.

21

I still use Rotini full time on my tablet mounted in the kitchen so I’ll be sad if I need to find an alternative. Latest updates have been showing to travel time to my wife’s shop “Sugarcrafts” and also the most recent check of internet speed using “Speedtest”.

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22

You can always try HABPanel which is in constant development, is official, free and open-source.
People submit their own widgets, so there will be more awesome stuff coming, that some day - I believe - will outperform Rotini.

23

Your app looks verry nice :slight_smile:
I made a request on google groups to Igor but I saw it says alpha not beta…
could you please tell me if I need to do other modifications than to create a new sitemap called Rotini which will contain all my items?
Thanks.

24

Guys as I see you tested those few apps, have you compare power consumption / battery drain ?
I have Rotini + Motion detector and even during charging power can go down :frowning: I thought that it is due to Motion detector, but Battery mix shows that Rotini consumed most of power, even after night where is no motion.
Of course this what software suggested me I have not compare it with others.

25

Yeah I’m sure the open-source aspect will make it pretty cool.
To be honest I’ve been keeping an eye on it but haven’t investigated it very much at all. Might do when I eventually upgrade to OH2 but at the moment my initial investigation and reading makes me think HABPanel is more complicated to setup and maintain.