Digital family calendar display?

[Baboontyme 2808]

I have been contemplating some kind of setup to display the family Google calendar on a flat screen in the kitchen. Anyone do this? If so, app or setup recommendations? I was initially thinking touchscreen but that might be overkill. I think input from phones/laptop is fine but it would be nice to have something more in your face for the shithead kids and husband who forget to look at the calendar on the phone. 

[South Austin 52166]

Narrator: The shithead kids and husband will never look at the calendar display.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10150]

10 hours ago, Baboontyme said:

I have been contemplating some kind of setup to display the family Google calendar on a flat screen in the kitchen. Anyone do this? If so, app or setup recommendations? I was initially thinking touchscreen but that might be overkill. I think input from phones/laptop is fine but it would be nice to have something more in your face for the shithead kids and husband who forget to look at the calendar on the phone. 

DAKboard.  They have free subscription model for single calendar if you hook up to your own display.  For less-tech required approach they do everything up to ready to go wall displays. 

It acts as a photo display too which draws more eyes towards it as well.

 

adding... because DAKboard is really the software I noticed a bunch of people have started selling their own put together frames running it and selling them on Etsy

Edited January 19 by MonkeyDoughnut

[Updawg 2261]

I have this in the kitchen. Can watch yttv through it also among other things

[dcbc 14431]

Google/Nest Home Display

[MonkeyDoughnut 10150]

1 hour ago, Updawg said:

I have this in the kitchen. Can watch yttv through it also among other things

Have they added the ability to view a full month calendar like pulling up Google calender on phone? That was one thing that I didn't like about it as it's something I used a lot on a family calendar.

[Baboontyme 2808]

6 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

DAKboard.  They have free subscription model for single calendar if you hook up to your own display.  For less-tech required approach they do everything up to ready to go wall displays. 

It acts as a photo display too which draws more eyes towards it as well.

 

adding... because DAKboard is really the software I noticed a bunch of people have started selling their own put together frames running it and selling them on Etsy

So basically I buy the dakboard CPU and a smart TV and that's a wrap? Do I need to hang the TV vertically? Seems like it would be nice to use it as a TV if I were so inclined. 

[Lobwedgephil 1139]

I use Skylight, but was much cheaper then they are now. 

[MonkeyDoughnut 10150]

On 1/19/2024 at 3:38 PM, Baboontyme said:

So basically I buy the dakboard CPU and a smart TV and that's a wrap? Do I need to hang the TV vertically? Seems like it would be nice to use it as a TV if I were so inclined. 

Can be used/mounted horizontal or vertical.  With the CPU, the Dakboard would be just an HDMI input to the TV.

[thunderlounge 7759]

On 1/18/2024 at 9:42 PM, Baboontyme said:

I have been contemplating some kind of setup to display the family Google calendar on a flat screen in the kitchen. Anyone do this? If so, app or setup recommendations? I was initially thinking touchscreen but that might be overkill. I think input from phones/laptop is fine but it would be nice to have something more in your face for the shithead kids and husband who forget to look at the calendar on the phone. 

 

Just here to give you a heads up that I'm sending you a bill for my new network. I had a similar idea, and this thread was on the first page still a bit back. Well, saw this thread, and let me tell you about the rabbit hole it sent me down.

So I was kind of looking for the same thing. Maybe with some type of list displayed as well.

This lead me to Home Assistant, which lead me to control displays, and eventually to not just that, but creating whole dashboards with Home Assistant to easily control other things. I hadn't looked at that kind of stuff in a long, long time (by tech standards) and now there's a vast market of all kinds of shit. I don't mean lightbulbs or doorbells. I mean people getting some specific sensors they could put on their cats exercise device that can calculate how far their cat walked on its little cat treadmill thing or whatever. That feeds into Home Assistant, which can then be put on a dashboard. So many possibilities with all kinds of things.

So instead of a simple network upgrade of just a new router and access points, I need more PoE capability so I can run little wall displays (which run a local home assistant app to display a specific dashboard), and did you know you can have live video feeds on the dashboard too? Well, now PoE cams are on the list. So it pretty much tripled my PoE needs, plus added the need for more connections and coverage. But I'll be able to combine all of the current, and future, smart devices into one location for management instead of 15 different apps for things. So that part is alright.

Probably going to start a thread about it all in the next day or so. Not sure which board yet. Probably hobbies.

 

Now, if you haven't figured something out yet, I've found a few ways to do just the part you were after, and for fairly cheap overall, if you haven't solved it yet or someone else is curious.

Here's the short of it, two ways to go. One part will be the same for both, so I'll start with that, then the displays.

Base:

- RaspberryPi connected to your home network. This will be your Home Assistant server. (Home assistant sells pre-packaged RaspPi devices with Home Assistant installed and ready to configure if you don't want to mess with it.)

 

Option 1:

- You pick up a cheap tablet (need apple/google play stores for the Home Assistant app
- You get a flush mount like this: https://mbmounts.com/products/tablet-flush-mount
- Home assistant app installed

 

Option 2:
- Grab a touch display off somewhere like amazon
- Get a RaspberryPi (should have wifi and ethernet)
- Install Home Assistant app
- Can be hardwired or use Wifi, but still needs power


With either of the two options above, you'll be displaying a dashboard you create in Home Assistant. This can be as simple or intricate as you would like. For the use you described, you can make a dashboard that has a card (tile, whatever you want to call it) that displays a family google calendar. You could make it a 2 column display and the other column could show a list app. Oh, and you can add the Home Assistant app to your phone as well. So you could make a dashboard for your phone, your wife's phone, the kitchen wall display, another wall display, whatever.

Option 1 being just a tablet on the wall doesn't technically need the rest. You could just pull up the google calendar app and display just that. But you wouldn't be able to really lock it down, and it's just a tablet on the wall you turn on now and then.

Going through Home Assistant would let you set up the tablet (or device, but you get the idea) to act more like a kiosk, where the display can sleep or show a screensaver/slideshow and pop up the dashboard waking out of that. The good part here is it's "locked" to that dashboard, and can't be exited from without admin intervention. (So don't give out the key. ) This gives better control to access, and keeps random guests from doing stupid things either intentional or not.

 

I will warn you, this rabbit hole will suck you in and vacuum your wallet.

 

Here's a few dashboard examples of things people have done:

 

This one is a full tablet display.

 

 

Here's a phone dashboard example:

 

 

This is where the edibles start to kick in. Each area/display/tablet/user/device can have its own dashboard. So you can put what you want where you need it.

Granted this is going further down the hole and well past just a calendar on the wall. But it shows what's possible to combine with the calendar and maybe be even more helpful.

Is it trash day? There's a setup for that you can do. Trash and recycle on different days/schedules? No problem. When it's trash (and/or recycle day) it can pop up an alert on the tablet to remind you.

 

Anyway, enough for now. Will hopefully be more in the thread I'm starting on it all later on.

[Baboontyme 2808]

Holy shit dude. Yeah I was just reading the home theater thread and you are way more detail oriented than I am. I am happy to have my short throw sitting on top of a $40 floor stand I bought off of Amazon. In my case my wife doesn't really come down here so the setup is as nice as I care to make it, and after a year plus whole house remodel I'm pretty content with how it is.

Anyway I digress. I went with the raspberry pi box linked above and a $5/month sub to DAK board. Mounted the tv to the wall and the tiny box to the back of the tv using two sided tape. I'm pretty happy with how everything with the house turned out but this has to be one of my favorite things that we did. The calendar is invaluable, and the photo cycle is great. No one passes through the kitchen including the kids without looking up to see what random photo is being displayed. This also kind of forces them to look at the calendar. 

[thunderlounge 7759]

Oh fuck! That came out GREAT for what you wanted.

That’s what got me started digging too. Where I ended up is nuts, but looks like it will be a bit of fun. I can also start to play around with it at any time. I can run a vm on my desktop and move it to a new server when all that happens.

Yeah, that cabinet is giving me pause. I almost went with a low profile like what you have. Was a bit wider, but maybe 10”-12” high.

Love the cabinet, really don’t want to cut it. 

[Baboontyme 2808]

I wouldn't want to cut it, either. Beautiful piece of furniture.