So last month, I put out a project that demonstrated how I used a few Fire Tablets and Home Assistant to really give life to a new interface in the house to control my Smart Home. This post is just a quick update to that original post since a few things changed once I started rolling it out.

The big change was the use of Wall Panel. Unfortunately, this software presented too many issues related to the Fire Tablet locking and then not being able to unlock on motion. Switching to ‘Fully Kiosk Browser’ solved this issue. Fully Kiosk Browser allows the fire Tablet to just DIM the brightness level down to 0 and then when motion is detected by the camera, it brightens back up. The result is perfect and exactly what I wanted for the panel. After 60 seconds of no motion, it will dim back down. Check out the short video below for a demonstration.

The magnetic cable has worked out GREAT though! I can easily slide out the Fire Tablet and then leave the cable end attached to the corner metal bead under the sheetrock. That was unexpected but works great!

The USB outlet also worked out great. It was easy to install and provided the necessary voltage to provide full power to the Fire Tablet.

The only thing left now for me is to paint around the outlet box. All in all, I consider this a successful weekend project.

The part list used was as follows:

Read all my Home Automation Posts here! #IOT