rPi Kiosk Mode + Airplay w/ piBeacon

Posted on
Mon Feb 15, 2021 1:22 pm
whmoorejr offline
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rPi Kiosk Mode + Airplay w/ piBeacon

My current rPi deployment is raspian light that boots directly into a no curser chromium which loads directly into an indigo control page. Simultaneously, sharpoint-sync (airplay) is loaded. This is attached to HDMI 1 on 4 TVs throughout the house.

SIDENOTE: I'm experimenting with other browsers besides chromium to find one that is more command line friendly so I could automated changing a URL.

Experiment 1: I’ve got a project rPi running piBeacon. I've tried following the steps (see bottom of post) to add kiosk mode to the rPi without much success.
Experiment 2: On my Kiosk rPi, I've installed piBeacon, but it too isn't working well. The plugin will see it, but that's about it. It's not recognizing tags, etc.

My best guess (from a non-programmer POV) it's a start-up thing. I think both (chromium + piBeacon) are trying to use the startx thing but they look at different startup files I think.
On my Kiosk rPi, the startup file is edited by
Code: Select all
sudo nano /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart


This is Experiment 2, currently displaying an indigo control page, streaming audio from iTunes on indigo machine and piBeacon is running in the background, but not beaconing:
IMG_0139.JPG
IMG_0139.JPG (185.46 KiB) Viewed 2319 times


Ideally, I will be able to get a rPi 3B+ to run in kiosk mode in the foreground with airplay and piBeacon stuff running in the background. These are the build steps I followed for the Kiosk Mode and AirPlay if anyone else wants to follow along and give it a shot.

Airplay: https://appcodelabs.com/7-easy-steps-to-apple-airplay-on-raspberry-pi

Raspberry [url]Kiosk: https://die-antwort.eu/techblog/2017-12 ... iosk-mode/[/url]

Bill
My Plugin: My People

Posted on
Mon Feb 15, 2021 2:32 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: rPi Kiosk Mode + Airplay w/ piBeacon

If your setup calls:
sudo python callbeacon.py
( It is in the pi home dir )
Pibeacon should start


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Posted on
Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:50 pm
whmoorejr offline
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Re: rPi Kiosk Mode + Airplay w/ piBeacon

I grabbed a fresh SD card with a copy of my kiosk stuff on it. Deleted the rPi beacon from the plugin and started with piBeacon from scratch....

I think the rPi is telling piBeacon to start in two places....
sudo nano /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart -> I added the line sudo python callbeacon.py

and from piBeacon:2..... if you use a plain raspberry image....
1. sudo nano /etc/rc.local -> added (phthon /home/pi/callbeacon.py &)

and now when I try to add the rPi (Initial BASIC setup of rPi servers) after filling in IP, user, pwd... the message from plugin is "Pi server disabled"

does the name of the device matter? The one where I started with your image is named "raspberrypi" the one where I started with my image is named "MasterBerry"

Bill
My Plugin: My People

Posted on
Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:58 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: rPi Kiosk Mode + Airplay w/ piBeacon

It has 2 modes
1. start w callbeacon from startup
2. after start and Launch xwindows it relaunch itself from within xwindows.
But # 2 is only active if set in rpi device edit

So if you start xwindows then open terminal and do sudo python callbeacon it should work.

There might be a conflict as pibeacon thinks it’s alone. It some times wants to reboot the rpi after installs or if something goes wrong. After reboot without the callbeacon call it will not start. You need to do that in your setup - after you start your xwindows App.

Karl.


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Posted on
Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:48 pm
whmoorejr offline
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Re: rPi Kiosk Mode + Airplay w/ piBeacon

With the kiosk up and running...
Code: Select all
pi@MasterBerry:~$ sudo python callbeacon.py
rm: cannot remove '/home/pi/pibeacon/pygame.active': No such file or directory
pi@MasterBerry:~$ cd pibeacon
pi@MasterBerry:~/pibeacon$ sudo python callbeacon.py
rm: cannot remove '/home/pi/pibeacon/pygame.active': No such file or directory
pi@MasterBerry:~/pibeacon$ sudo python callbeacon.py &
[1] 2021
pi@MasterBerry:~/pibeacon$ rm: cannot remove '/home/pi/pibeacon/pygame.active': No such file or directory

and I still get "Pi server disabled" when I try to add.

Bill
My Plugin: My People

Posted on
Tue Feb 16, 2021 2:31 am
kw123 offline
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Re: rPi Kiosk Mode + Airplay w/ piBeacon

I will need to check when I am back home and electricity is back. And The Water Pipes are not cracked .

We are in a hotel for the next 2 days.
Karl


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Posted on
Tue Feb 16, 2021 8:42 am
whmoorejr offline
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Re: rPi Kiosk Mode + Airplay w/ piBeacon

No rush. Luckily, I've only lost internet a few times. About 85% of my county is without power. I'm working on this as a break from running around town taking care of friends and family... delivering hot meals, extra blankets, swapping out charged phones... I'm about to leave the house to see if I can fix grandpa's generator... so I may be there all day.

One of the reasons I posted a picture of the control page... I was hoping someone else that uses your plugin (and knows linux/ rPi) would think that is a good idea and take it on also.

The fun thing about a rPi, if you mess it all up, grab another $5 SD card and start over, you can't brick the rPi (at least I haven't killed one yet).

Bill
My Plugin: My People

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