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In-Wall Touchscreens for the Home? 22

Posted by Cliff from the or...building-sets-for-your-next-sci-fi-production dept.
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.
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In-Wall Touchscreens for the Home? More

In-Wall Touchscreens for the Home?

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  • So far the best I've come up with is one of these [ebay.com]. 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 [ecloud.org].

    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 [ibutton.com] to securely store login credentials.

  • these? [resconsys.com] They fit in a single outlet box and are pretty easy to hook up. With correct UI design, they should be able to do the job and not cost too much ($200 for the one with an LCD and $100 for the one with buttons only).
  • If not (i.e. it is a collection of controls...) then I wonder if you could build/buy a prototype of what the people at the AT&T labs in cambridge use: a 'bat' which allows you to point and click anywhere. [att.com]

    OK, so you need some ultrasound receivers and some funky software, but you did ask slashdot, right?
  • I'm surprised that no one has mentioned PDAs or HPCs Yet -- Depending on the capabilitied you want, you could pick up a greyscale WinCE Clamshell for under 50 bucks and hack it up a bit to make a 640x240 touch panel using a Web browerser over ethernet, or if you demand more capabilities, you could go with a few ePods (colour, fast, etc) for a few hundred USD each.

    Running Pocket Internet Exploiter and conneted to ethernet or even serial/ppp, you could do it quite well.
    .
  • Interesting. I was aware of ClearCube [clearcube.com]'s product line, where they have rack-mount PCs and a patented method of putting KVM and audio over cat5 cable, but I didn't know about the cybex product.
  • Yes, I was thinking about doing the X-Terminal thing. I could use Flash ROM to store a minimal OS and a browser.
  • First off, ask yourself - is there really a need for a large, graphical touchscreen for most applications?

    Here's what I have in mind:

    • Total light control from a map of the house. This is far more intuitive than a big row of buttons labeled "hall light 1", "hall light 2", "Bedroom #2 light", etc.
    • A general-purpose info screen with weather, temperature, email status, perhaps even things like top news, etc. Like a specialized portal.
    • The ability to browse an audio library, choose an audio source, and choose the room(s) in which to play it. Preferably allowing more than one source at a time to be playing in different rooms. And control one of these [wurlitzer-jukebox.com]. I haven't looked into it yet, probably needs some sort of massive multiplexer in the central data closet.
    • The ability to choose a video source (i.e. from the front porch camera) and display it on the panel.
    Now, if I want to do the above, do I have any other alternative than a PC touchscreen?

  • Pannel PCs (Score:3)

    by Bryan Andersen ( 16514 ) on Thursday April 19, 2001 @07:39PM (#279226) Homepage
    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.

  • There are assorted pad/tablet computers available. Mount cradles for them where convenient, and tap on them on the wall -- or move it to where it's convenient for what you're doing at the moment. Some are wireless, some have PCMCIA which can be used with 802.11*, some have IR, and some will need a wired connection (Ethernet or serial).

    In addition to the currently available industrial and home pad/tablet computers, are older and discontinued ones which can be used as terminals. Even a 386 or 486 device can deal with Lynx or TinyX -- or old Netscape on MS-WfW. The hard part is having a touchscreen which your O/S can listen to.

    Do some web searches for "pad computers", "tablet computers", and "pen computers" (many pen computers have finger-sensitive touchscreens).

    ...or use PDAs which have a suitable program.

  • This PL-300 [proxima.com] may be your solution. Its usually used for digital projectors and transmits several remotely or locally, SWITCHABLE video and audio signals from the transmitter to the receiver via CAT-5(b) cable. Also it has an bi-directionall RS-232 port on both receiver and transimtter, so you can interact with the display or sources. It can be connected to any AV controller board that uses RS-232. I have used these extensively and found them to be very good products.

    Also, anytime i need to do some funky/custom cabling switching etc... Extron [extron.com] has been a good source for cables and distribution amps.

    When you get your project dialed in, let us all know how you did it!

  • 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 (Score:3)

    by Zurk ( 37028 ) <zurktech AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday April 19, 2001 @09:06AM (#279230) Journal
    use one of the embedded PC designs on this page [zflinux.com] 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.
  • 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 [matrix-orbital.com] - 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 [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
  • 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 [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
  • The ability to browse an audio library, choose an audio source, and choose the room(s) in which to play it. Preferably allowing more than one source at a time to be playing in different rooms. And control one of these. I haven't looked into it yet, probably needs some sort of massive multiplexer in the central data closet.

    Everything I have looked to do what you are talking about is in the $2k-3k ranage (for a 6 input x 6 output). They all are nice, but expensive. I looked here for most of my stuff for this: http://www.smarthome.com/8270c.html [smarthome.com]

  • And if you can't get your apps to run in that memory footprint, run ethernet to it and use it as an X-Terminal. That has the added benefit of allowing a central computer access to all the applications, so you could perhaps turn the lights out in the living room from your bedroom, etc.
  • Unless you're looking at home automation systems from the 1980s, I don't think they're too ugly. I use a Crestron Isys TPS4500L controller in my home... it has a pretty nice interface. Check out the Crestron website -- http://www.crestron.com [crestron.com]

    The entire Crestron setup is very Windows-centric, but I feel it was worthwhile. Not as simple, but much more expandable than what I used to use (a custom HyperCard stack running on a Mac Plus interfaced to an X10 transmitter).
  • CYBEX makes what they call the long view. (http://www.cybex.com/index3.htm) It is a KVM Extender. All you need to do is plug in the PC in to the PC box plug the keyboard, video, and Mouse in to the other box. Plug them together with a patch cable. Power can be plug into ether one of the boxes to power both boxes and you are done. I have used them many times and they work very well.

  • 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 [emjembedded.com]. 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 [openhardware.net] 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.

  • How about hacking a cartridge for a Nintendo game boy to interface with your HA system. It wouldn't be a touch screen, but it would have color & sound and perhaps would be cheaper. It would also have a well built yet simple interface. It is also roughly the size of a standard switch plate which is where I would put it. The only problem I see if developing the cartridge with a custom interface and making it communicate with your HA system. Dale
  • It would be nice to have a small web browser with a touchscreen for navigation. I ended up using a LCD/touchscreen I got from smarthome.com and replacing the PIC processor. It uses a RS-232 link to a PC-104 386 class processor that runs the network. Color would be nice but even greyscale would be an improvement. The unit I used mounts onto a double wide outlet box, a picture here [certsoft.com].
  • Broadly speaking, it sounds like you have 3 options. 1. Get really long cables. Benefit is that it's cheap. The downside is you might get problems with attentuation of video and mouse signals depending on the distance the cables have to reach. 2. Embed a PC into the wall. There are plenty of companies out there who make really small PC's (and I don't mean laptops). Benefits are that you get dedicated processing power at each point and there are no problems with attentuation. UTP copper can go as far as 100 metres (not sure what that is in feet - I live in the real world) and fibre can go as far as 2000 metres. The downside is that this is a really expensive option. 3. Install a web-based terminal into the wall. These are even smaller than PC's and are generally cheaper. Sometimes they have an embedded OS such as Linux or WindowsCE. Others just send video and keyboard/mouse signal via the network. For your application you don't need raw processing power at each point - so why pay for it! I don't like to drop names but Compaq and Wise have terminals which cater for both religions - Microsoft and Unix. Both can be configured to just have the browser on screen at power-up. In my humble opinion, this is the best option for your application.

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