Indigo Domotics

In case you're wondering, don't do the following to a rPi that you haven't booted since March of 2015 ( unless you have a lot of time on your hands):

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sudo apt-get upgrade


That is all.

Yep. It's been churning for hours. I would kill it and build a new image, but I know in my heart that it's almost finished.....

Took a while to update, but I now have a tiny NTP server. Maybe that should be NTPi....

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DaveL17@raspberrypi:~ $ ntpq -pn
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
+73.98.218.154   .NG7M.           1 u  374 1024  377   93.487    2.840  10.420
*132.163.96.1    .NIST.           1 u  282 1024  377   68.124   -4.117   0.570
 150.95.255.38   .INIT.          16 u    - 1024    0    0.000    0.000   0.000
+128.9.176.30    .GPS.            1 u  589 1024  377   87.929    5.854   0.846
 10.0.1.123      .BCST.          16 u    -   64    0    0.000    0.000   0.001


I'm thinking about adding a display to my NTP server.



The display is a bit clearer and more monochromatic that the picture lets on. I think a better font will help.

The above post is fun, but not that interesting. But it got me to thinking.....if you took a modern rPi and a display like this, you could have the makings of a great touch interface for Indigo for about US$80.

Was this just a "do it for fun to say I did it" project or working/testing towards something? I keep wanting to get back and play with the spare Pi that I have (one spare not used, one running RetroPie, so not a ton of experience). They aren't bad in cost but, apparently, you actually need time to be able to play with them. Stupid obligations.

RogueProeliator wrote:

Was this just a "do it for fun to say I did it" project or working/testing towards something? I keep wanting to get back and play with the spare Pi that I have (one spare not used, one running RetroPie, so not a ton of experience). They aren't bad in cost but, apparently, you actually need time to be able to play with them. Stupid obligations.

That little screen, if there was a good case for it, or wall mount could be great. Could just use indigo web pages but would be cool to have native custom icons.

This is why I love indigo and this forum. Of course someone has already done this!!

Small touch screens
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?share_ ... are_type=t

DaveL17 wrote:

The above post is fun, but not that interesting. But it got me to thinking.....if you took a modern rPi and a display like this, you could have the makings of a great touch interface for Indigo for about US$80.

This comment and the topic in the link below prompted me to share a little project I've been (very) slowly working on.

Photos and video in the topic below.

https://forums.indigodomo.com/viewtopic.php?p=169426#p169426

Pete

RogueProeliator wrote:

Was this just a "do it for fun to say I did it" project or working/testing towards something? I keep wanting to get back and play with the spare Pi that I have (one spare not used, one running RetroPie, so not a ton of experience). They aren't bad in cost but, apparently, you actually need time to be able to play with them. Stupid obligations.

A little of both. This is a model B that I've had sitting on a shelf for a long time, so there was a "because it's there" factor for sure. Do I need my own NTP server? Of course not. There's also apparently a facility to run an NTP server on top of my Unifi router. I suspect that most of my equipment doesn't even allow me to enter a custom NTP server, so there was no need. But I do have thoughts about adding some rPi's to do other things. For example, I currently have an AEBS running solely for the purpose of serving a USB Drobo over Ethernet. The latest Pi has Gigabit Ethernet and could easy serve that purpose with more control, and a smaller energy (and physical) footprint. The combination of a Pi, the screen I referenced and a PoE hat would make for a pretty trick custom control panel (I haven't played with one of the referenced screens personally, so I don't know what they look like IRL.) But it was mostly for fun.

I also have an Arduino sitting on the workbench....

siclark wrote:

This is why I love indigo and this forum. Of course someone has already done this!!

Small touch screens
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?share_ ... are_type=t

I saw that initial post, but didn't see the custom touch screen posts. This is exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm starting to get itchy.

siclark wrote:

That little screen, if there was a good case for it, or wall mount could be great. Could just use indigo web pages but would be cool to have native custom icons.

You wouldn't be limited to control pages--you could include hooks into Indigo via the API, for example-- but I think native control pages would be great for most applications.

DaveL17 wrote:

I saw that initial post, but didn't see the custom touch screen posts. This is exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm starting to get itchy.

I am definitely itchy. Voice recognition only goes so far, but I hope to have a Fire 7 (or whatever) in each room running room-sensitive control pages. Of course, an open RasPi environment would be awesome too.

My rPi NTP server is running well. Now, it will also auto mount attached USB media, and make that available using Samba. The idea is to replace the Airport Extreme that I currently use to host a USB Drobo. Will save space and should provide a bit of energy savings to boot. I've added a 480x320 3.5" TFT Color Touchscreen hat in place of the tiny OLED because, why not?

I played around with a Raspbian GUI with the intent of running a kiosk web browser for Indigo control pages but decided that wasn't going to be totally green (loads way too many unneeded resources). Instead, I think I'm going to follow Pete's lead (see this post referenced above.) So I've ordered another Pi (model B+) for that.

Since I was ordering the B+, I might as well throw in a Pi Zero because, hey, it was only $5. How can you not buy one for $5? I don't even know what I'm going to use it for.

Thus continues my descent into madness.