The kitchen is one place you might not expect a smart display — but with the right application, it’s actually quite useful. Today we’re sharing one created by maker and developer Stanislav Khromov who decided to build his own from scratch using a Raspberry Pi. The display is loaded up with cool dashboards and tools but you can always add more if you’d like.
According to Khromov, the idea was to create a gadget that would be able to provide information on demand. Most of what he wanted to display on the screen is browser-based so the initial plan was to rotate through a list of web-based dashboards using a full-screen browser window.
Khromov provides a complete list of what tabs are rotating through the kitchen display. A few examples include one dashboard that lets you monitor electricity usage, another featuring the word of the day, and another one with the color of the day. Pretty much anything browser-based is fair game to throw into the mix. This project is very easy to integrate into a larger smart home system.
The project is built around a Raspberry Pi 4 but you could easily get away with something older like a Pi 3 or smaller like a Pi Zero 2 W. It’s connected to a Roadom 7-inch touchscreen display with integrated speakers. Instead of a microSD card, Khromov is using a RasPiKey from the Pi Hut which relies on eMMC instead of flash memory.
As far as the software side goes, everything operates on top of Raspberry Pi OS. When the Pi first boots, Chromium launches. By default, you can program Chromium to open a particular list of tabs which is how Khromov is programming the various dashboards. A plugin enables the rotation function by switching tabs automatically with a timer.
If you want to learn more about this Raspberry Pi project, check out the full project breakdown over at Khromov’s official blog.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.