Nico Brailovsky's thought repository

This is an extremely rare occurrence: I have finished a project!

I have now completed my Homeboard project. This doesn't mean there are no bugs (although tactical systemd unit restarts take care of most known bugs), and it doesn't mean I won't ever build new features (some day I'll make it boot over LAN). It does mean I achieved all of the initial objectives I had for this project (or have, at least, clever workarounds for missing features). It is now complete and stable enough that I don't feel too ashamed of calling it done. Of course, the project is also built in an extensible way so that I can add new (software!) features cheaply.

Looking back:

• The project took 2 years to complete
• The feature I'm sad about not achieving: buttons! Having a physical interface to interact with the device is nice, but the cables in my assembly proved too fiddly to work reliably. I did add a QR code to the display to quickly open the web remote control, however, so I can live without it.
• The feature I'm most proud of: SVG overlays. This was a pretty brilliant idea, if I may say so myself. Running on a Raspberry Pi Zero over PoE, the device is very compute-constrained. This means no fancy HTML or React rendering. Using SVG, I can still overlay arbitrary data and easily extend it, while keeping the device software lightweight enough the platform.
• The best bug: a bad mmWave sensor placement. It picked up occupancy signals from the display, meaning the panel would be in an on/off loop.

You can build your own, extensive instructions are available in the project's repo.