There is a bit of a story here.

A friend was given about 10 of these Surface Pro 4s from work, we determined 8 worked and he had 8 working chargers, so we spent an evening with a few beers and installed Windows 10 on all 8. He gave me 2 of them, one with “some” battery and one that would only work plugged in.

I used the one with battery for a while but it didn’t last long so had limited usefulness, I looked up changing the battery and decided it wasn’t worth spending £40 on a battery, if changing it could ruin the device

Then I randomly saw a video about installing Linux on one of these, due to Microsoft end of life notice, out of the drawer it came and Ubuntu installed with the Surface kernel, a fun process but once again held back by the battery life.

My intended MM project is a 65" boardroom screen in the new office, displaying MM when the screen is otherwise not in use, but the office move is delayed due to issues with the refurb, so my office mirror is currently on a 27" monitor, wedged vertical on my desk

While looking for another project I found the Surface and thought it would make a good mirror, initially I just used a full screen browser then decided a native install would make this “portable” with a wifi connection and likely needing to be plugged in, but I can set it up where I am working, It has touch screen access to the calendar and the displays are truly stunning

So there you have it, why I am using a Surface Pro, running Linux as a mirror.

First page uses Calendar EXT3 and Agender EXT3 plus I wrote my own news module with short and long headlines because I have a lot of news sources

Second page (other than clock and weather) are all modules I wrote, making API calls to my PV array and various bits of info from the UK grid

The screens are not easy to photograph, but they are not reflective in real use

I have written a number of modules that access either public or free APIs that need a sign up

These show data from the UK grid, such as demand, generation by source, interconnectors, agile pricing, carbon intensity, frequency etc

These have been written for my use, but if there is any genuine interest, I will upload to Git

Let me know if you want to see them

@sdetweil

MM reinstall seems to have worked

Now to set it up properly

Thanks

This is an early development version of what will be my office display, used as a screensaver when the display isn’t in use
the actual display is a 4k 65" smart display, it is in storage until the office move

The 2 modules I wanted did not exist, so I wrote them both

UK Grid Status https://github.com/KayosPi/MMM-UKGridStatus
Does not require API’s and shows either realtime or snapshots of the UK grid

Solax PV https://github.com/KayosPi/MMM-SolaxPV
Displays information from a Solax PV inverter, customisable to show whatever you want to see. Needs an API and a serial number linked to that API

Now it works, I will make it look nice

I have created a module to read the Solax PV API when given a valid key and inverter serial number

It has a text mode and I am working on a graphics mode

I have also created a version that aggregates data from multiple inverters, using the same API, however unless you are an installer, O&M or have lots of inverters, this will not be any use

I am getting to grips with Github and will upload it when I have that sorted