Working approach to kiosk mode

[JaapvanEkris]

Hi Lars and Damian,

I received my touchscreen today, and was quickly able to put it into kiosk mode using this guide: https://die-antwort.eu/techblog/2017-12-setup-raspberry-pi-for-kiosk-mode/, starting from the Light install as proposed by Lars in his installation manual.

One modification: I changed the start of chromium into
/usr/bin/chromium-browser --app=http://127.0.0.1 --kiosk --noerrdialogs --disable-session-crashed-bubble --disable-infobars --check-for-update-interval=604800 --disable-pinch

It works pretty nicely, this will definitely replace my monitor on my rower.

Jaap

[laberning]

Good stuff! Thats pretty close to what I had in mind for my final rower setup 👍. Are you using the original Raspberry Pi Touch Display?

Are the touchscreen inputs (taps and keyboard) working properly? Dropping the Raspi and the touchscreen into a case like the OneNineDesign Raspberry Pi 3 Touch Screen Case would probably create a really slick Rowing Monitor.

[JaapvanEkris]

Hi Lars,

I looked at that gorgeous case as well and loved to use it. However, I have the problem is that the current monitor stand has a huge plate (11x12 cm), so I needed something to cover that. So I bought this one: https://www.amazon.nl/gp/product/B083S6RXDV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 The screen is quite similar to the original Raspberry one, but the cables go to the outside. For now it will do as removing the monitor stand and replacing it with something more subtle entirely is to big of a task.

Taps work great, I can change the Bluetooth mode easily. I haven't used the on-screen keyboard: I think that adding data is much easier through the webinterface or SSH. I must say it looks quite cool. Coming weekend I will test for the best settings for my rower and than I will remove that ugly monitor from my rower and add the screen and Pi to the current stand. I'll share some pictures.

[JaapvanEkris]

To prevent any issues with high-frequency rowers, I set the nice-level for startX and Chromium to 19.

[laberning]

I've added the set up of a browser in kiosk mode to the installer script (as an optional step).
It uses a quite similar approach (running chromium in kiosk mode), but I've configured it to run as a systemd service calling xinit directly.

That makes it a little bit easier to script and control, as it is easy to restart or disable the browser via the service (if needed).
If you want to change the nice level you could set it in the webbrowserkiosk.service, i.e. add Nice=19 to the [Service].

I still haven't decided what touchscreen to get for my rower, so I can not confirm if the touch input works. However I don't see a reason why it shouldn't (input with the mouse works without problems).

[JaapvanEkris]

I'll test it for you :)

Chromium uses quite a bit of memory, so I explored some options to reduce it.

As my rower currently is broken (the belt between the handle and flywheel is broken), I can only do limited tests. I hope the people from NordicTrack sent replacement equipment soon.

[JaapvanEkris]

I still haven't decided what touchscreen to get for my rower, so I can not confirm if the touch input works.

I went for the standard 7" touchscreen. I first had a touchscreen that had its HDMI-port and powerport through connectors, which quickly were damaged by walking past and hitting them. So I went for the more robust solution of only having internal ports in a case. I didn't want a too big screen, as it is permanently mounted and is the primary interface for the rower. For that, I like the 7" form factor. It is small and not too dominant, and the GUI can be read well.

I added a mount for a second screen, which probably is cheapest to use a cheap Android tablet instead of a bigger touch-screen (the ones I found on Amazon are expensive!). But that is still a work in progress.

[nathan-stewart]

I know this is old, but I have a 10" touch screen integrated pi case that ended up being too small for a PC for my kid. I'm hoping it's enough to watch videos on the sled. I was trying to think about video overlay but I think itd be better to use the phone for splits/hr/etc.. and video on the 10" monitor

[laberning]

Hi Nathan,

yes, that should work. The current installer of OpenRowingMonitor can set up a chrome based web browser in kiosk mode on your Raspberry Pi. So any multimedia content that the browser supports should be playable.
The current Web Frontent of Open Rowing Monitor is more a proof of concept and does not support stuff like video overlays yet. But a rework is currently on the way. And one future idea for that is that it could play training videos that are stored on the raspberry (or streamed via internet) while showing the metrics as overlay.

I personally run the metrics dashboard on a 10" integrated pi case and use my phone for playing additional videos. I find it easier to attach i.e. bluetooth headphones to the phone like this. But of course thats a matter of taste and depends on your use case.

If you are using an Android Phone, then the app MyHomeFIT might also be a good option - it can show the metrics as an Android OS overlay which you can place anywhere on the screen while showing the content of any other app.