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I use MMM-BackgroundSlideshow to display random paintings from over 200 images. It seems to work pretty well.
All of the paintings are stored locally on the Pi, in a subdirectory of the module directory: ~/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-BackgroundSlideshow/Paintings
@_V_ said in The typical beginner question:
Just a last question: So Ive read a couple of times that people warn to check for the right angle/position/whatever of the hdmi port of the screen - is this more related to the people who plan on put the screen into a housing / behind a frame? I guess with a 90° or even 180° adapter itll be good for me if I am going to attach it to a wall?
Out of curiousity: Any screen suggestions?
The adapters are really just so you can get things to fit in the frame or whatever you’re using to mount it. I’m working on a small one for my son where I have 180° adapters for power & hdmi for the screen to save space and get the cables going in the right direction. I went through a lot of different adapters to get that right. (Aliexpress can be your friend here.)
I just used a monitor I had already. It happened to fit the space I wanted it for. Basically, any monitor will work. Note that different size screens (esp. screen ratio – width to height) will display things differently.
@_V_ said in The typical beginner question:
you maybe wanna share a pic or two of this controller and how it is connected? :)
I guess Ill do as you adviced and get a Pi. Actually I already got one to play some retro games with it.
Usually I buy overpowered hardware, just cause Im one of those victims who can hardly resist ^^
Unfortunately, I don’t really have any good pictures of how the Pi and monitor are connected. The Pi itself sits in a little bracket my son designed and 3d printed.
The whole mounting process went a little cattywumpus because it turns out that the box that holds the monitor electronics isn’t connected to the screen, other than by a couple of pieces of tape and I was mounting everything and then it started to fall apart and fall off the wall so I panicked and just screwed it to the wall. One of these days, I’m going to have to deal with that but that’s a problem for future me. 8^)
@_V_ said in The typical beginner question:
a last question though: Ive read a lot about screens which need to have some ports ( hdmi or something ) located on special place or direction - you dont got a recommendation for a screen 17" to 20" which meets those conditions?
I just used a monitor I had lying about. iirc, I used a 90° right-angle m-f hdmi adapter to get the cable going in the right direction. I also played around with a few different cables to find ones with small enough connectors. But that’s something to worry about once you go from getting modules set up and all to the point of actually figuring out how you’re going to mount it.
@sdetweil said in MMM-AddressBook - Display a list of people/addresses:
I would put those behind QR codes so someone could scan them and save
thus ability to use the text or numbers quickly
vs take a picture and have to rekey it all…
That’s not a bad idea! I’m not sure EMTs are set up to be able to do that, but I’ll look into it. Apparently, QR codes can hold 4600 alphanumeric characters so pretty much any reasonable list could be put into a QR code.
Thanks for the suggestion!
One of the main reasons I wanted to build a MagicMirror was to have an easily accessible list of family members, doctors, and medicines in case of an emergency. I saw how much time it took for EMTs to try and gather that info for my mother-in-law and even then we weren’t 100% certain that the info was correct. So I built a module to display an address book.
In addition to family contact info, medical providers, and medicines we take, I use it to list travel memberships (mileage numbers and such), subscriptions and login info (Netflix, Spotify, etc.), and Utilities with account numbers and contact info. I’ve also added an instance listing our political representatives and important government contact info as we fight to slow the descent into totalitarianism.
It’s pretty flexible, I think, so hopefully others can put it to use.
A single-column instance
A two-column (the default) instance showing family contact info. (Until recently, we had two kids away at college, so a lot of different addresses)
An interesting idea but I think I’ve got too many pages as it is – I’ve got three currently and going to switch to six soon – but it’s not enough of an issue to really put much thought into. Thanks though!
I initially wanted to create a legend for MMM-CalendarExt3 to show which calendar is what color (I show 11 calendars of the 15+ I maintain) so I created this module to put a little table below the calendar.
I’ve since added another instance to list a chart of who’s supposed to set the dinner table on which night.
I’ve tried to make it flexible enough in terms of formatting but I’m certainly no javascript programmer. Nor am I well versed in the ways of CSS.
It’s useful to me; I hope it’s useful to others as well.
A legend for CalendarExt3 calendars:
A table of who’s supposed to set the table (half the time I end up doing it):
[card:Unclearogre/MMM-CustomTable]
I’m not sure how that card is supposed to work so here’s a link:
I’ve got mine running on a RPi 4 with (iirc) 4gb of memory which seems to be enough. I’ve got a lot of modules divvied up into 3 pages that are selected via a wee macropad (three buttons & a knob) attached below the screen. (My dev version has 6 pages and I’m waiting on a new 6-key macropad so I van put that on the main system.)
I don’t have it behind a mirror; it’s just in a wooden frame.
I (and my family) add stuff to our calendars on our computers/phones; the MM is only for display. If I didn’t have to waste 8+ hours a day at the stupid job thing, and if I had more money (college in the US is outrageously expensive), I would try to get touch working so as to be able to go to the next/previous month on the calendar (MMM-CalendarExt3) but I’m happy with it as is.
I don’t worry about profiles – mostly everyone looks at the dinner menu (I have a google calendar just to say what I’m cooking for the next week or two) or the main calendar. Those are on the first page.
So, based on what you said, I would suggest getting yourself a basic RPi – I think the Pi Zero 2 is a little underpowered, but it’s doable – and an old monitor and start playing with it. Worry about installation and all that once you have it showing what you want and working the way you’d like it to.
I’m fortunate in that I have an extra Pi so I have a copy running on it that I can play around with without breaking the one in the kitchen that everyone looks at.
Just to be clear, this is meant to allow you to control the MM from HA, not display HA info on the MM, right?