2022-01-05, 02:34 PM
Happy New Year fellow Plotters
I was browsing Amazon for a small (5") touch screen to display OpenPlotter/Signal-K sensor data in the saloon on my boat and then I remembered I already had one ... in my desk draw
It is an old unused Samsung mobile phone.
Ive now "re-tasked" the phone to be my chart table sensor display
It was easy once I hit on the idea. Here's how.
1) Install a free Android app (on Google Play Store) called "Fully Kiosk Browser" on the phone.
2) Connect the phone to the boat WLAN
3) Point the FK browser at the Node-Red dashboard on the RPi and set it as the default/home URL in the browser
(This app allows the phone to run in kiosk mode ie full screen with no address bar and no screen timeout
There are loads of useful additional features in the paid version but the free one is adequate to start with)
3) Configure Node-Red dashboard with display pages to suit the phone screen size.
4) Enable Swipe between pages in the dashboard
5) Disable security on SignalK on the Openplotter RPi so that the display boots straight into the NR dashboard on power-up
6) Stick on a little piece of vinyl sheet to cover the camera, microphone and unnecessary buttons and make it look less like a phone
7) I mounted the display in a plastic frame salvaged from an old picture but if I had a 3D printer I'd print a suitable housing.
Works great, looks good and the best bit is that it cost me £,€,$ 0.0
Next steps ...
1) Working on how to power it without an ugly USB cable coming in from the side
2) I'm going to retire my Vodafone MiFi and set this device up as a Hotspot to act as the boats wireless router/ DHCP server
3) Work on my wife to allow me to buy a decent 3D printer
[attachment=1653]
[attachment=1652]
I was browsing Amazon for a small (5") touch screen to display OpenPlotter/Signal-K sensor data in the saloon on my boat and then I remembered I already had one ... in my desk draw
It is an old unused Samsung mobile phone.
Ive now "re-tasked" the phone to be my chart table sensor display
It was easy once I hit on the idea. Here's how.
1) Install a free Android app (on Google Play Store) called "Fully Kiosk Browser" on the phone.
2) Connect the phone to the boat WLAN
3) Point the FK browser at the Node-Red dashboard on the RPi and set it as the default/home URL in the browser
(This app allows the phone to run in kiosk mode ie full screen with no address bar and no screen timeout
There are loads of useful additional features in the paid version but the free one is adequate to start with)
3) Configure Node-Red dashboard with display pages to suit the phone screen size.
4) Enable Swipe between pages in the dashboard
5) Disable security on SignalK on the Openplotter RPi so that the display boots straight into the NR dashboard on power-up
6) Stick on a little piece of vinyl sheet to cover the camera, microphone and unnecessary buttons and make it look less like a phone
7) I mounted the display in a plastic frame salvaged from an old picture but if I had a 3D printer I'd print a suitable housing.
Works great, looks good and the best bit is that it cost me £,€,$ 0.0
Next steps ...
1) Working on how to power it without an ugly USB cable coming in from the side
2) I'm going to retire my Vodafone MiFi and set this device up as a Hotspot to act as the boats wireless router/ DHCP server
3) Work on my wife to allow me to buy a decent 3D printer
[attachment=1653]
[attachment=1652]