[ronjohntaylor]

Has anyone tried using a 7" ( or similar) Display/screen on NEMS?

I was thinking of mounting a small screen in my computer room running Nems TV.  This would show the current status of all devices at a glance.

I can see three options.

1. Use a HDMI screen running from the NEMS Pi HDMI port. running up a browser an then connecting to NEMS TV.
   Pros???
   Cons??? 
   
   
   
2. Run a separate RPi and run the 7" screen & browser displaying NEMS TV 
   

Use an old laptop and run a browser displaying NEMS TV.  Higher Energy use though.

Anyway I thought maybe someone might have a better solution?

Any suggestions?

Thanks
Ron

[Premium]

Better this one 
2 Run a separate RPi and run the 7" screen & browser displaying NEMS TV

[Robbie Ferguson]

Yeah, you can't connect this directly to the NEMS server. If you do, you'll just see your IP address and running version of NEMS, not NEMS TV Dashboard (as NEMS does not have a DE / graphical web browser).

With a separate Pi connected to your network, Install Raspbian and setup Chrome/Chromium to automatically open your NEMS TV Dashboard in Kiosk Mode (full screen, hides the DE) on boot.

Make sure you post pictures when you're up and running :)

Robbie

[ronjohntaylor]

Hey Guys,
Thanks for the replies.

I had a moment of inspiration and thought about using an old Nexus 10 that had sort of been sitting in the bottom draw unused for some time.
I pulled it out, fired it up and the battery was still 100%; after at least 6 months of sitting in the draw, amazing.
Anyway I decided to give this a run and see how it went!

• Pretty cheap option, no outlay at all! Retasking old gear.
  
• Battery Backup!
  
• 2560×1600 WQXGA display 
  
• WiFi so portable
  
• Screen saver gives me a room clock as well!!  Bonus
  

I see a bit of potential here.

I have cropped out the URL line to hide IP address as nems.local/tv did not want to resolve on this device?? It does on all my other PC's and Laptops.
There was a lot of updates to do on the Android OS (been OTA for a while) so might try that after all updates have completed.
I might uninstall a lot of the stuff that was on it and customise it more to the task after a time but at this stage I will just let it run

I will report back after a few weeks of running this option.

I have put Android into Developer mode so that Screen doesn't time out while being charged.
This is the only Modification I have done so far.

Have attached a Pic as requested.
   

Cheers
Ron

[Robbie Ferguson]

Beautiful!

Yeah, Android doesn't support .local name resolution, so you'll need to use the IP.

Keep us posted how it goes! Great solution!

[ronjohntaylor]

   
The Command Center  

I just finished install the Data Cabinet to tidy up cabling!
RT

[Robbie Ferguson]

Very nice! Love the setup!

[ronjohntaylor]

My Nexus 10 Android 5.1.1 solution has now been running for a week with no issues now.  It's the latest released for the Nexus 10. So much for Nexus getting all the updates.

I saved a nems/tv shortcut to the home screen for quick access.
As Robbie said Android does not resolve the nems.local so you have to use the IP address.  This is a reserved IP address. 

The only thing I had to do was put Android into developer mode so that the screen/display would not time out/go to sleep.
In developer mode the screen is constant when the battery is being charged.
In Battery mode I have set display time outs to maximum so that it does not have to be refreshed but this only takes a tap when security is turned off.

The portability of the tablet means it can be moved about my house as well. I have fast Wi-Fi pretty much everywhere in the house.
I mainly use wired connections so my Wi-Fi bandwidth is pretty good.  I have two WAP's running 802.11 n/ac 2.4 & 5GHz and both fed by 1Gbs connections.

The other benefit of the tablet is if I have to acknowledge a problem then the tablet can also do that.
I have tested running up Nagios core, Nagvis and a most of the menu items and all worked well.  I found that using a stylus worked better than fingers too. Fat fingers??

I also tried it with an iPad Mini and used Safari.  It all seemed to work OK and nems.local did resolve.
As I am not as familiar with Safari as Chrome so things were a bit different (I am mostly Android) but got it to work.
I mainly use the iPad Mini for my Phantom 4 and to Facetime with my daughter and grandkids in Brisbane.


However this gives another dimension to NEMS.

[Robbie Ferguson]

Excellent stuff Ron!
Also, I'd suggest you take a peek at the NEMS Mobile UI, which is included with NEMS 1.4+.

Enjoy!
Robbie

[ronjohntaylor]

Thanks Robbie.

I gave the Mobile UI a whirl.

Initial reaction was " what, where..."
it came up on the Nexus as just all grey horizontal tabs with white text.
   

After I looked around I found that it did most of what I wanted it to do but the screen navigation was unfamiliar at first.
I reckon a bit of colour might help navigation. 
 
Do the Tabs change colour if there are issues?
For example if there is a problem the Problems Tab goes red?
That's what I like about the TV interface. A problem goes red.  
Maybe this does but as I did not have a problem when looking I did not see it?

I did not have an in depth look nor did I try it on IOS but assume it would be very similar.

Cheers
Ron