I made it from zero to an up and running openHAB server on my ESXi server in 3 days. All devices are connected an my sitemap is also up and can be used at my families smartphones.
Now the question came up, if we could have a touch controller wall mounted at the central place at our house.
Do you guys use displays / old tablets / DIY solutions for use cases like that?
I don’t want to buy a 400 Dollar piece of hardware for that, but maybe there are low- to middle budget solutions out there?
HASP is more of a single-room controller (IMO). Habpanel on an older tablet is really ideal. There are some guys that do some really cool stuff with their panels. Mine is nothing special but here it is as an example anyway:
You can buy a weird-brand Android 10" tablet at Best Buy for around $100. I have used the DigiLand they have listed at $110 as a point-of-sale system and it’s a perfectly reasonable Android tablet. They had a couple that were cheaper, including some 7" ones.
Check with geeky friends and see if they have any unused 7" tablets around, or ebay, craigslist, what-have-you. I keep having the stupid USB power connector break off in “normal” use, but if you soldered power on they’d work on the wall just fine.
I know they keep turning up in the e-waste bins at my office, too, so if you can keep an eye on a place like that, do so…
Much more affordable than a new ipad! I am not comfortable with the vendor-requiring central home automation tools, so I didn’t even think about if the tablet would have Alexa or something like it installed.
I’m sure the inexpensive Amazon Fire tablets have Alexa, too, though. I’m less sure if they’ll run OH, but they should handle web pages perfectly.
