Hello all
First post on here, apologies if it’s in the wrong place.
I’ve been playing with MM for about a week now, got the basics up and running, but need some help with the long term goal/ideas.
I already had a GassistPi running with the GoogleAIY V1 Hat, I also have a genuine Alexa.
The GasisstPi had a large 20 x 4 LCD display attached to it and I initially had the thought that with the addition of an MCP23017 I2C multiplexer, I could add some buttons to call various scripts and the info could be displayed on the LCD. Examples of the scripts I needed were:
Bus arrivals at 5 local bus stops.
Arrivals at my local rail station.
TfL Tube status.
Webscraping of DHT sensors or similar running on a Nodemcu but still on the same network. Possible logging of these.
A couple of Internet radio stations start/stop.
Volume up/down
Did make a cool laser cut case but didn’t get as far as doing anything with the buttons, have coded MCP23107’s before on Arduino, confident of being able to do it on the Pi and also willing.
Bus scripts were done for all 5 stops, but it is in Python 2 which as you will know is near end of life.
Train arrivals was done in Python 3, but only one way, not a major issue as I only really need to know what they’re doing in the morning.
Tube status – didn’t look into it.
DHT sensors – didn’t look into it.
I then found a URL for train departures which loads super quick, just what I need in the morning:
http://realtime.nationalrail.co.uk/ldbcis/departures.aspx?u=039B1CD1-14D4-4CB9-83B1-A84CC3AEDF83&crs=HHY&H=6000
changing the code HHY to other station codes will give info about that station.
Brilliant! But obviously, this will be better on a screen rather than an LCD character display.
Some kind person then gave me a 7” HDMI touchscreen.
I then discovered MagicMirror.
So I can load up the Tube status via a webpage (https://unop.uk/tube/) using the smart web display module and also the national rail link above, but I need them to go to the top of the page, not below the news feed which is at the top centre and still visible. Nor do I want the weather which is top right to be visible through the station departures web page.
How can this be achieved please?
Should at this point say, GassistPi and MagicMirror will be/are running on the same Pi
Longer term, I’d like GassistPi, Alexa and the buttons to display an individual module only when requested and for about 30 seconds before they disappear and the screen turns off. Apart from the web radio which will be an on/off thing.
An infra red remote control option doing the same thing would be handy too.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
My boss then challenged me to build something “funky and Linuxy” for the office. We’ve got plenty of screens around, so MagicMirror is in the running, but it may not be a mirror, more like an info board.
What would be needed for the office is a clock for most of the time, some news feed maybe, weather, Tube and National rail info at home time only and some photos, probably our company values.
Plus all of this only visible when someone is there, so PIR module would be installed, that’s a minor issue. Again, with some buttons, each module is displayed for a period of time as someone may leave at some random point in the day and need to know when the next train is.
I appreciate this is a long first post, but any help or pointers would be good.
Thanks in advance