Towards best flipin' dashboard expierience 🤤 (part 1)
Towards best flipin' dashboard expierience 🤤 (part 1)
Yes, yes, there are big shoes to fill, I know...
Basically when I started to get into Home automation and other, let's call it smart things, I was hooked. It's fun (at least for me that is. 😂), it's cheap if you do a lot of stuff yourself and most importantly it makes your day wayyyyyy better when you have something to be proud of.
So, when I started my home lab rack (maybe I will tell about it more on other blog entries), I saw potential that was untamed, and I really wanted to tame it with great functioning, but at the same time visually beautiful dashboard. My wife is a goddess when it comes to these things, I simply said that I will invest around 300€ to basically monitor on the wall, she immediately agreed. (she knows I will make it count.). So I started to look for a good touch enabled monitor that is at least 15" (yes, size does matter and I want at least 15"). No resistive touchscreen for me boys. I looked for a lot of models, but few did peak my interest:
15.6 Inch Touch Screen Portable Monitor Link (affiliated)
What made it my numero uno choise was really thin bezzels (except that bottom one 🙄), monitor itself is very thin too! Great refresh rate (3ms from white to black). Type C power delivery/video interface, HDMI, powers from 12v and has lots of additional "thingies" that comes with it. There is no ugly logo on front too!
Now about drawbacks:
To be honest, my colleague bought this exact model I showed him and he was very impressed with build quality, I saw it myself. For the price you cant go wrong, but...
I want my dashboard to be mounted vertically, and if someone whose reading this didn't nocied elephant in the room is that this monitor has a noticeable chin... But that wasn't last deal breaker for me. Touch screen is capacitance touch, but there is no glass in front of LCD. In my head coming home from welding something or changing oil on your car and have no ability to touch your dash is a big no no... Cleanup would be nightmare/might damage LCD itself.
If those are non of your concerns, this screen is best one I found for the price range, and during super deals can be had for under 99€. simply cannot beat that. SHIPPING INCLUDED, at least in my case.
To say I was doubting would be understatement
So there was another option... Great build quality, better construction, full and sturdy VESA mount, relatively thin screen, only 8mm (without PSU and control box, I will tell you why that doesn't count in my case), it has remote and I messaged the seller to ask if bezels are really the same size, he confirmed the case and sent me pictures with a ruler measuring each size.
This is the monitor:
UPERFECT Touchscreen Portable Monitor 15.6' Link (affiliated)
Price at the purchase was 219€... Yes for a monitor, and I didn't even start to talk about PC that will be attached to it, but it has some great features, so in the end I chose to buy this one. It even includes VESA mount that I will need...
About that VESA mount and VESA wall holder...
I spend considerable amount of time thinking about mounting this screen to the wall. at first I was simply use off the shelf LCD monitor, but that would be ugly and we don't want that don't we? 😏
To save your time I will say that there were about 6 prototypes in my head starting off with magnets and ending up with rotatable 3D printed hinges. Anyway, I chose one of the best (in my head) method of mounting it, making it look good, and hide all things related to the dashboard. My plan was as follows:
Make a rectangular hole in drywall and mount plate to the wall inside, then place monitor on that holder making sure that all electronics is hidden by monitor itself:
Lets hope this illustration makes it as clear as I saw it in my head:
There are two things I did not mentioned yet:
- Mini PC
- TOF200C distance sensor
Mini pc is Minix Z83-4 that I got second hand for 50€ no questions asked. for 50€ I think it's a steal since it has no moving parts, is quiet and uses low power. but You can write a comment bellow why this was bad purchase if you think otherwise.
I simply installed windows, activation key was already there, score! By the way, I will be removing that wireless antenna and using copper for communication with it.
Another thing is TOF200C that I got as a test piece, but was impressed with the size and accuracy. I will be adding this to my wall as presence detector to wake up the screen or turn off screensaver. (This is still in progress and has to be confirmed if it works or is needed in a first place.)
As of writing this blog, my screen is in post office, waiting for it's savior. Mini PC is ready and my plan of installing everything in the wall was passed to renovators to keep that place of wall without any wiring/ piping and so on.
There are few things that has to happen till full install:
- I would like to 3D print box with all necessaryholder (mini PC, wires, PSU's and so on)
- TOF200C has to be connected to mini PC via i2c and FT232H interface.
- Script for controlling screen brightness/power has to be created.
- Automation to turn off Dashboard durring the night and wake on LAN it at 5:00 in the mourning
There will be part 2 coming soon
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