Home Assistant Automations - Show them off!!!

[awp0]

Would you send me or post pics of the mount? I'm curious about the magnets and wireless charging.

That's where a lot of the design time was spent on this project. The mount is a custom 3D printed face plate for an Arlington DVFR1W-1 recessed outlet box. The faceplate holds a magsafe charger (press fit, for now) and the top edge of the faceplate is a little "shelf" that helps provide vertical support and makes it super easy to put the tablet on the wall. The shelf is hidden and doesn't add any extra depth to the whole setup. Here's what it all looks like:

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[DevSecOps]

That's where a lot of the design time was spent on this project. The mount is a custom 3D printed face plate for an Arlington DVFR1W-1 recessed outlet box. The faceplate holds a magsafe charger (press fit, for now) and the top edge of the faceplate is a little "shelf" that helps provide vertical support and makes it super easy to put the tablet on the wall. The shelf is hidden and doesn't add any extra depth to the whole setup. Here's what it all looks like:

Very nice setup. I have the same thing throughout the house only I went the cheap route and used these:

Wall Mount Kit for Amazon Fire HD 10 Tablet with Charging Cable, White Frame https://a.co/d/b2nkhFc

I have mine setup to scroll through exterior security camera feeds as a screen saver, if you will, until the tablet detects movement. Then it switches back to the HA dashboard.

 

[awp0]

Very nice setup. I have the same thing throughout the house only I went the cheap route and used these:

Wall Mount Kit for Amazon Fire HD 10 Tablet with Charging Cable, White Frame https://a.co/d/b2nkhFc

I have mine setup to scroll through exterior security camera feeds as a screen saver, if you will, until the tablet detects movement. Then it switches back to the HA dashboard.

Awesome! These Fire tablets are pretty mediocre as tablets (IMHO), but they seem to work really well as dashboards.

Btw, in case it helps, I spent some time benchmarking the battery use between camera-based motion detection versus an external motion detector (cheap Zwave battery powered thing). With camera-based motion detection I found a run rate of about 1.8% per hour even with no motion detected. With the external motion detector, the tablet's run rate is closer to .5% (half) percent per hour. I have a smart outlet that keeps it between 40% and 80% SOC, but I still wanted to try to preserve the battery health so I'm using the external detector.

 

[DevSecOps]

Awesome! These Fire tablets are pretty mediocre as tablets (IMHO), but they seem to work really well as dashboards.

Btw, in case it helps, I spent some time benchmarking the battery use between camera-based motion detection versus an external motion detector (cheap Zwave battery powered thing). With camera-based motion detection I found a run rate of about 1.8% per hour even with no motion detected. With the external motion detector, the tablet's run rate is closer to .5% (half) percent per hour. I have a smart outlet that keeps it between 40% and 80% SOC, but I still wanted to try to preserve the battery health so I'm using the external detector.

I assume you use fully kiosk?

I've had mine on the wall for 4 years now and I've never done anything to adjust for charging. They still work great. I also purchased all of mine as refurbished fires. I didn't see a reason to pay full price for a wall tab.

 

[awp0]

I assume you use fully kiosk?

I've had mine on the wall for 4 years now and I've never done anything to adjust for charging. They still work great. I also purchased all of mine as refurbished fires. I didn't see a reason to pay full price for a wall tab.

Yeah, I'm running with Fully Kiosk, which is a really great piece of software and well worth the $9 (or whatever). I'm super impressed with it.

That's great to know about your experience with these batteries. Maybe modern tablets have this pretty well figured out. Thanks for the info. I agree about finding these as cheap as possible. I happened to notice the "plus" version on sale at Best Buy for $95, which started the gears spinning on this project. With the other parts it's probably closer to $150 all together, but to me it seemed like a reasonable budget for a fun project.

 

[mkhuffman]

I assume you use fully kiosk?

I've had mine on the wall for 4 years now and I've never done anything to adjust for charging. They still work great. I also purchased all of mine as refurbished fires. I didn't see a reason to pay full price for a wall tab.

Can Fully Kiosk run naively on the Fire tablet?

 

[DevSecOps]

Can Fully Kiosk run naively on the Fire tablet?

Yes, it is supported on fire os

 

[mkhuffman]

Yes, it is supported on fire os

I am running Fully Kiosk on a cheap Android tablet, but it keeps resetting and turning off the display. It stays on for a day or two, and then decides to reboot or something. Such a PIA. If I can install it on a Fire tablet, I may do that. I guess that means I have to log in to the tablet with an Amazon account, though. I hate that idea.

 

[awp0]

I am running Fully Kiosk on a cheap Android tablet, but it keeps resetting and turning off the display. It stays on for a day or two, and then decides to reboot or something. Such a PIA. If I can install it on a Fire tablet, I may do that. I guess that means I have to log in to the tablet with an Amazon account, though. I hate that idea.

Just an FYI, if memory serves correct you don't install it via the Amazon store. I believe you enable Developer Mode on the tablet and then install the APK from the Fully Kiosk website.

 

[DevSecOps]

Just an FYI, if memory serves correct you don't install it via the Amazon store. I believe you enable Developer Mode on the tablet and then install the APK from the Fully Kiosk website.

Yes, but I know that Amazon has been making it harder and harder to use a fire tablet without registering it with Amazon. I haven't messed with mine in years so I'm not sure how complex that whole situation is right now.

@mkhuffman can you describe what it's doing better? It doesn't sound like you need to buy a new tablet. It sounds like the config isn't right and maybe the tablet is taking over and timing out or killing the app. Most of the time this is resolved by setting the tablet to never go into screen saver mode, "always on", and then using the screen saver that is built into fully.

Also, if you have the paid version of fully they have good tech support from what I've heard.

 

[azerik]

I'm in the process of doing this. I've run Hubitat for 5+ years, it's ok. But not 'wow'. Once I get my vm's moved around on my nas and get the size down I'll be firing up a new HA and seeing what I can get going. Hoping that this doesn't end up being a time suck to 'just add one little thing' and the house of cards falls. (Hubitat has been that way a few times)

 

[awp0]

Yes, but I know that Amazon has been making it harder and harder to use a fire tablet without registering it with Amazon. I haven't messed with mine in years so I'm not sure how complex that whole situation is right now.

@mkhuffman can you describe what it's doing better? It doesn't sound like you need to buy a new tablet. It sounds like the config isn't right and maybe the tablet is taking over and timing out or killing the app. Most of the time this is resolved by setting the tablet to never go into screen saver mode, "always on", and then using the screen saver that is built into fully.

Also, if you have the paid version of fully they have good tech support from what I've heard.

Yeah, good point. I think I remember reading about a way to get into a fresh Fire tablet without signing into Amazon, but I'm not sure if it still works. Maybe also worth noting is a Windows tool called "Fire Tools" that offers some capabilities like removing unnecessary apps and also attempting to block Amazon OS updates, with the idea that one day maybe Amazon will try to lock this device down even further. For many dedicated dashboards, you could probably just shut off WAN access.

 

[mkhuffman]

Yes, but I know that Amazon has been making it harder and harder to use a fire tablet without registering it with Amazon. I haven't messed with mine in years so I'm not sure how complex that whole situation is right now.

@mkhuffman can you describe what it's doing better? It doesn't sound like you need to buy a new tablet. It sounds like the config isn't right and maybe the tablet is taking over and timing out or killing the app. Most of the time this is resolved by setting the tablet to never go into screen saver mode, "always on", and then using the screen saver that is built into fully.

Also, if you have the paid version of fully they have good tech support from what I've heard.

It must be some setting in the tablet but I cannot find it. It will go days without resetting and then randomly it resets. It seems like it is rebooting but I have never seen it happen, just heard it make a start up sound. It won't let me set FK to start on reboot, or that would probably solve it. FK says "kiosk mode is not available with Android Go devices with Android 10+", so I cannot set it to start FK when it reboots. Maybe instead of a Fire, I just need a tablet that is not running Android Go.

BTW - I am running a Hubitat dashboard on it, so really it is not related to HA or this thread. Sorry for hijacking!

 

[DevSecOps]

It must be some setting in the tablet but I cannot find it. It will go days without resetting and then randomly it resets. It seems like it is rebooting but I have never seen it happen, just heard it make a start up sound. It won't let me set FK to start on reboot, or that would probably solve it. FK says "kiosk mode is not available with Android Go devices with Android 10+", so I cannot set it to start FK when it reboots. Maybe instead of a Fire, I just need a tablet that is not running Android Go.

BTW - I am running a Hubitat dashboard on it, so really it is not related to HA or this thread. Sorry for hijacking!

HE/HA.... It's all good in this thread. I used to use HE as well.

I've never used Fully with Android go, that's where you lost me.

 

[hartmms]

FYI - for those running latest HA, which changed how template sensors are defined, alohaflyer's code should be changed to this:

template:
  - sensor:
    - name: "Charging Cable"
      unique_id: "mache_plug_state"
      state: >
        {% if state_attr('sensor.fordpass_elveh', 'Plug Status') == 1 %}
        Plugged in
        {% elif state_attr('sensor.fordpass_elveh', 'Plug Status') == 0 %}
        NOT Plugged in
        {% else %}
        error
        {% endif %}

  - sensor:
    - name: "Charging Status"
      unique_id: "mache_charging_status"
      state: >
        {% if state_attr('sensor.fordpass_elveh', 'Charging Status') == 'ChargingAC' %}
        Charging
        {% elif state_attr('sensor.fordpass_elveh', 'Charging Status') == 'ChargeTargetReached' %}
        Charging Complete
        {% else %}
        NOT Charging
        {% endif %}

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