In-Wall Touchscreens for the Home?

Black Perl asks: "I am planning a home automation (HA) system for a new yet-to-be-built house, and would like to have in-wall touchscreens in key areas around the house. However, the touchscreens in current HA products have ugly interfaces. Being a web developer, I know I could do a much better job if these ran web browsers in kiosk mode. Problem is, how can I accomplish that? Embed a PC in the wall next to the screen? Are there ways to extend video+input cables down to a rack in the basement? Any other ideas?" Interesting idea, and more aesthetically pleasing than the more traditional alternatives. Maybe some of the solutions, mentioned in this earlier question on LCD screens, may be a step in the right direction.

Comments

I've been planning this too...

[ecloud]

So far the best I've come up with is one of these. I've bought several touchscreen machines - this, plus two of this seller's 386-based ones, and several IBM RoadRiders (no longer available AFAIK... LCD, 386-25, 2 megs RAM (!) and 5 megs FLASH), and two CRT touchscreens with Macintosh ADB controllers. But I think this latest aquisition is the most promising; it's fast enough to run X, I can expand the RAM, it has a nice amount of FLASH, ISA slots so I can install a soundcard, ethernet built-in, and the display is very cool EL amber, so I can make a UI that looks like LCARS (Star Trek)... what more could I want? Color, maybe (too expensive).

I hope to build a fast, portable remote-UI system to use on such systems. It will run on DOS, Linux and Macintosh at least; maybe the Palm too. If I get it done some day, there will probably be a link to it here.

Speaking of Palms... they are a better alternative to the GameBoy someone else mentioned, IMO. Old ones can be cheap on ebay; and they have a real touchscreen.

Of course, use an iButton to securely store login credentials.

Pannel PCs

[Bryan Andersen]

As some others have mentiond, what you want is a pannel PC. These are embedded PCs that have a flatpannel for the screen, commonly also have a touch screen interface. They can be purchased with or without HD. Usually they have some sort of network connection. 10/100 twisted pair being the most common. Many manufacturers make em, but the prices can be a bit high in compairison to a regular PC. It's both a combination of low volume and that flat pannel display.

When you select one, don't go for super high speed CPU. As you will be mounting it in the wall, where will the heat go? Mounting a small low speed fan, blowing up, below the unit in the wall cavity can do wonders for cooling the unit even though it dosen't draw any air from outside the wall cavity. It will better distribute the heat up and down the wall cavity making a better heat sink.

touchscreen web browser devices

[dublin]

There really isn't a good (as in fully satisfying) answer to your question.

I don't know why, but no one has yet seen fit to produce what you're looking for - I've been looking for several years for the same thing.

One option is some of the Internet-enabled "web phones" - I have several of the ones Philips ad Lucent built a few years ago, but never released. They're potentially impressive ARM CPU, VGA color touchscreen, PCMCIA slots, wireless IR keyboard, nice speakerphone, cool case, etc., but hobbled by running Inferno. It should be possible to put Linux on them, but I haven't had the time to really try. I still have several if you're interested, but we forewarned the hack will take some effort unless you're already an ARM wizard.

Other options include the ePods One, which is sort of like what you're looking for, but runs only CE right now, so it's not much better - and there's no kiosk mode in the dain-bramaged CE version of IE.

Sorry, but there's just no acceptable solution to this at the moment...

use an embedded PC

[Zurk]

use one of the embedded PC designs on this page and integrate the ZF86 chip into a touchscreen. no need for anything else - just use a 16MB on board flash to boot linux and the ZF is a 486 compatible CPU. run mozilla/netscape/etc and youre all set.

For those on a budget...

[cr0sh]

First off, ask yourself - is there really a need for a large, graphical touchscreen for most applications? You probably won't be surfing the web standing in the hallway, and the only reason you would want large graphics would be for artwork or something - and unless you are willing to spend >$1000 per panel, you won't be getting a really large and clear display anyhow.

What to do, what to do...?

Go here - and hook yourself up with some low cost (compared to LCD touch panels, that is) LCD displays and keypads from Matrix Orbital. They are cheap, low power, small, easy to program and communicate with (via a serial cable - which makes the basement server idea an easy possibility - provided you use a multiport board or something), backlit - some have graphics even! You can use everything from a 12 key keypad to a full AT keyboard on select modules.

Some of the smaller ones would easily mount in a 4 way electrical box, making installation a breeze. Run some DC power and a serial cable (using CAT3 or something), and you're set.

Most applications don't need more than the 12 key (heck, many need less) - think temperature control, stereo control, light control - simple apps that could be automated. With the larger text LCDs and mini AT keyboards, your could do simple email terminals, kitchen recipe terminals, perhaps even a funky Lynx web browser!

For anything else (security cams, quick web browsing), run that data to custom entertainment PCs next to the TV.

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Re:For those on a budget...

[cr0sh]

1. Walking over and flipping a switch is more intuitive by far, but if you have to have a centralized interface, more than likely you will want to be comfortable while doing the configuration, which means sending the video to a TV, and using a pointer of some sort (remote control style). If you have at least one screen in each major room and bedroom, you would never be far from a place to set things up.

2. Same for the info screens. But this information could be served up on standard LCDs, even made wireless - all the info on most info screens is text only. There is no real need for the fancy graphics (with the exception of a weather map, say)...

3. I would select the audio from the room I was in, rather than setting a room from another location - this would allow me to tune the settings to how I want them while I was in the room. Simple LCDs could work here again. If you had to have the special stuff, once again you would be in a room where there would be a monitor...

4. Place a 6 inch LCD in the wall, in addition to the regular LCD - display the video on that. If you are in a major room, once again, you will have a monitor at your disposal.

One key to all of this would be to have a PC in every major room - which would serve as an "entertainment/productivity" hub for the room. Everything (video/audio/data) would be served up by a massive server - network the house using 100BaseT (or fiber, if you can afford it). Each computer would handle decoding the data streams and piping the output to the connected speakers and monitor for the room. You could build the PCs into the walls, if you wanted (use those all-in-one motherboards, that have audio/video and networking on-board, and build a custom vent system to keep it cool while in the wall).

I made my original suggestion for those on a budget, for those kind of people who don't have money to throw around. If you have the money, what you suggest can easily be done, but I still hold by my original speculation that you would be looking at $1000 or more per panel. If this doesn't faze you (sends me reeling, personally), go for it...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

What I've been thinking...

[cmowire]

I think that the current best solution is probably not to have extra-long video cables to the basement.

Try getting a PC/104 or other sort of single-board computer from a place like EMJ Embedded. You should be able to find one that's small enough to fit in a small box, inexpensive, and beefy enough to run Linux. And then put a nice LCD screen and whatever perepherals you want with it.

The people at OpenHardware have some stuff in the works that would be cheaper than any of the single-board computers -- Like the EZ328LCD Terminal, except that you'd end up building it yourself.

This will be more light switch box sized and cheaper than the flat panel computers from ZF Micro Devices, which is also an option already mentioned.

In any case, you can then just string power and ethernet and run things remotely. This works especially well if there is a X server that will work with your display.