Domoticz

Hi all,

I've read with interest numerous posts on here about wall mount touchscreens. I'm looking for a similar 'permanently on' fixed solution but run the cables through the back of the wall into a cupboard behind. The drawback of all the 'tablet on the wall' solutions I have seen is that they tend to have side mounted power sockets, so inevitably you see a cable. Covering the tablet with a custom wooden frame means there's a large gap behind the frame and embedding the tablet into the wall is a significant amount of work (particularly if like me your walls are flint cob!). The Pi official touchscreen looks good and a nice low profile, but it's £60 just for the screen and the supplied lead isn't long enough to go through our cavity wall.

Has anyone managed to find an affordable 'low profile' solution for a wall mounted controller where the cables are fully hidden and that doesn't require half the wall to be knocked out to get a nice low profile finish!? I'd be interested to see any designs that anyone has! For me I'd like the screen to be 'always on' (albeit dimmed when not in use) - so powering from USB is a must (which is a problem for some tablets, as the chargers are unable to charge the battery quick enough to maintain the screen and wifi). I'll be using it with the fantastic frontpage.html.

My setup, no frame, just a tablet

If you are going to use a dedicated tablet for the job you could remove the back cover, solder wires directly to the USB connector and feed them tru a hole that you drill in the cover. You won't see any wires

Nice! Can you recommend an android tablet which allows the back cover to be removed?

If you still have a nexus 7 2012 laying around, that one is very easy. But almost all other tablet have removable backs. They need to be repaired

In a totally different application (flight computer in a glider plane) I use a Nexus 7 tablet.
This tablet (and several others) can be charged with a with a wireless charger (also called QI charger).
I have bought such a charger from dealextreme.com for about $10. Search for "QI Charger".
When you remove the plastic housing you are left small coil and a small printed circuit board.
This coil and pcb, I've crafted in the tablet holder in my plane. They need only a few mm's space behind the tablet.
In this way you can mount a tablet against a wall, and make the wiring competely invisible, because the tablet's USB connector is no longer used.

By the way, i.e. the coil and pcb can also be found as a set of separate components.

peterk wrote: By the way, i.e. the coil and pcb can also be found as a set of separate components.

For a friend I did something similar.
You can buy general QI stickers with a micro USB plug on one end.
(Look on ebay for 'usb qi charging sticker').
So you just stick it to the rear of the tablet and connect the UB plug.
Then you position a 4 Euro QI charger pad from Ebay behind it on the wall mount and this way you can remove the tablet at wish and there are no wires visible (as long as you can hide the charger cable).

Mine is a HPtouchpad and Touchstone charger, running Domoticz on Linux Déploy + Rflink Wifi

Front end is Vil1driver custom page, with personal mod.

1bigwink wrote:Hi all,

I've read with interest numerous posts on here about wall mount touchscreens. I'm looking for a similar 'permanently on' fixed solution but run the cables through the back of the wall into a cupboard behind. The drawback of all the 'tablet on the wall' solutions I have seen is that they tend to have side mounted power sockets, so inevitably you see a cable. Covering the tablet with a custom wooden frame means there's a large gap behind the frame and embedding the tablet into the wall is a significant amount of work (particularly if like me your walls are flint cob!). The Pi official touchscreen looks good and a nice low profile, but it's £60 just for the screen and the supplied lead isn't long enough to go through our cavity wall.

Has anyone managed to find an affordable 'low profile' solution for a wall mounted controller where the cables are fully hidden and that doesn't require half the wall to be knocked out to get a nice low profile finish!? I'd be interested to see any designs that anyone has! For me I'd like the screen to be 'always on' (albeit dimmed when not in use) - so powering from USB is a must (which is a problem for some tablets, as the chargers are unable to charge the battery quick enough to maintain the screen and wifi). I'll be using it with the fantastic frontpage.html.

I'm trying to do the same thing. and I agree, power is the pain. At the moment I'm trying to find the most discrete way of adding in the power without an ugly connector hanging out of the side. The only thing I can think of at the moment is to make my own cable that only sticks out a reaaallllly short distance. Let us know what you come up with!

The biggest issue I'm having is finding a suitable interface!

What have you tried?

Original, flatz, dashticz, myphpdomo so far. Mostly ok but none quite right. Can't put my finger on why.

What about imperihome? From what I can tell so far it looks great.

I'll give it a try. I liked the others but the fact that they don't use all the available screen space bugs me.

Try vil1driver custom page, works like a charme, and fully customable.

To get it on full screen with Android, go on chrome, menu, add to desktop.

bizziebis wrote:If you are going to use a dedicated tablet for the job you could remove the back cover, solder wires directly to the USB connector and feed them tru a hole that you drill in the cover. You won't see any wires

A great kick for this topic
The solution for the power is clear, but I was curious how you mounted the tablet itself to the wall?

I bought one of these cheap square qi chargers and put two stripes of velcro (klittenband) on the qi charger and the tablet. Drill a hole in the cheap qi charger to hide the cables. Big advantage of this approach is that you don't see any wires and you could take of the tablet to program it on the couch.