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Comment by dangrossman | Hacker News Reader

Instead of a $99 custom button, what about a sub-$99 Android tablet? You can put them anywhere you'd put the button, and leave your home control app running with the screen set to never turn off. Turning on/off a light with a touch will then be no more effort than flicking a light switch -- there's nothing to take out of your pocket, no waiting for an app to open.

This is how my home works. I built the app that runs on the screens all the time (a little node.js server and web app), and have a few tablets mounted on the walls. This is a screenshot from October:

http://www.dangrossman.info/wp-content/uploads/home2.png

Since then, I've added a bunch of new controls for dimmable lights and scenes (e.g. turn off all the first floor lights at once, or dim them all to the same percentage).

I built my own, but there are dozens of free pre-built home control apps in the Play Store. I find Wink's very attractive for example: http://i.imgur.com/DUWIwh3.png

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I've had the same thing going for about a year now with some 7" andriod tablets I got from Aliexpress for $45 each. This is absolutely the way to go for smart-home stuff.

I found some fat picture frames at Walmart that attach them to the wall perfectly. Mine have front facing cameras so I used motion sensing to fade them in as you approach them. Its creepy-cool in a good way. Sadly, they don't fade smoothly all the way in from black like an iPad. I'm hoping to upgrade later to jailbroken ipads.

Absolutely!

I think it's lack of imagination about where you can use a smartphone for. You don't necessarily need to use the smartphone that's in your pocket!

http://www.bemo.io/ shows that you can have a thermostat with a nice display.

This is a personal opinion, but I consider most of the smartphone apps better designed than for example the graphical user interface of my microwave, thermostat, or laundry machine. I can't wait till these producers are gonna finally give up and:

1.) start to use technology from the smartphone hardware industry with respect to high-resolution screens

2.) start to use the technology from the smartphone software industry with respect to applications and catering to third-parties (app developers) with much better track record in nice interface design

That would really give the home automation stuff a swing!

Some other examples:

* http://www.getmyrico.com/ for security

* https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/xentry-transform-your-spa... for a smart door, but they didn't think it through w.r.t. charging, oops! :-)

* the best one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4Dno6FMD3E the laundry machine from Samsung

This is really awesome and a good example of a cheap Android device as glass for software (what a world). Do you just have it instant-on when you push the power button? What about having it automatically wake up when you pick it up? (Since yours is a web-app, it might require you to use something like Tasker to do it.)

I mounted the tablets on walls with $10 kits from Amazon that use those 3M removable strips to hold the mounts, and drilled small holes for charging cords. I have the screens set to never turn off, and leave the browser open. So all the buttons are always just there on the wall, ready to be pressed. Nothing needs to wake up first.

BTW, Windows 8 8" tablets are now under $100 at Wal-Mart and Best Buy, so you aren't even limited to Android for this kind of thing anymore.

Hah, that's amazing. Great solution. If I had a house, I'd put together something like that, but with a Qi wireless charger with the magnet holding it up (hopefully strong enough).

Still waiting for home automation widgets to come down in price so I have an excuse to install a lot of them in my apartment.

Is there value in that context for a tablet with an e-ink display that's movable and could last long without recharging ?

Nice, I've done similar but used a nexus 7 with a modded kernel so I can double tap the screen to turn it on.

Can we see a photo of your setup? sounds pretty good.

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