A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| HA | Home Assistant automation software |
| ~ | High Availability |
| NUC | Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers |
| SBC | Single-Board Computer |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
[Thread #513 for this sub, first seen 14th Feb 2024, 21:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Raspberry pi/small NUC with a screen, in a digital kiosk mode. Just load a static html file with some js to update the clock. No keyboard, no touch input, no way to break it. Connect to it via ssh over tailscale or wireguard VPN to update the HTML with the notes you'd like to display. This way if internet goes down, the clock still works and whatever was displayed wrt messages stays displayed, and you don't have to worry about the increased overhead of home assistant changes or updates breaking things. It will remain consistent since it's just HTML and js. If you want less technical family members to be able to update the display...idk, seems like a headache.
Have you looked up raspberry pi magic mirror projects?
You don’t have to use a a mirror, but just a pi and an old monitor mounted on the wall would probably accomplish everything you need.
What I'd do is set up a simple website that uses a little JavaScript to rewrite the date and time into the page and periodically refresh an image under/next to it. Size the image to fit the remaining free space of however you set up the iPad, and then you can stick anything you want there (pictures/reminder text/whatever) with your favorite image editor. Upload a new image to the server when you want to change the note. The idea with an image is that it's just really easy to do and keeps the amount of effort to redo layout to a minimum -- just drag stuff around in your image editor and you'll know it'll all fit as expected as long as you don't change the resolution (instead of needing to muck around with CSS and maybe breaking something if you can't see the device to check that it displays correctly).
There's a couple issues to watch out for -- e.g. what happens if the internet connection/server goes down, screen burn-in, keeping the browser from being closed/switched to another page, keeping it powered, etc. that might or might not matter depending on your particular circumstances. If you need to fix all that for your circumstances, it might be more trouble than just buying something purpose built... but getting a first pass DIY version working is trivial if you're comfortable hosting a website.
Edit: If some sample code that you can use as a starting point would be helpful, let me know.
The easiest solution would be to get a digital picture frame that you could access remotely. You might also look into smart TVs that have an API for messages.
Really, you could make one pretty easily with a raspberry pi or arduino.
Not the advice you're looking for but I wouldn't do this.. I have a lot of experience with servers and software development and I wouldn't do it. The amount of effort to make and support a robust system like this is bigger than running a Jellyfin server for friends.
The client needs to be super user friendly and robust. It should work even when the server is unavailable. And you'll need to be on the hook for support. The server would need high availability as well for people adding reminders and schedules. Those are expensive requirements both in terms of money and time. Redundancy isn't cheap.
If these things aren't true the users won't trust the system and/or won't use it. Or a dementia patient could become confused. Maybe they skip medication or double-take it because a reminder wasn't shown? Think through your failure modes carefully.
You really don't need a server for this functionality. You could handle everything locally with a bit of python and use an s3 connection or something to set changes remotely. It should be an extremely simple project.
It's not like he's developing a product that needs to meet FDA regulations or support hundreds of or something.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness. I'm not dead set on self hosting - I figured that the relatively simple functionality might already exist in some tools. The client side of the solution would involve no interaction which is why I considered the self hosting route. If the server goes down, as long is it continues to display the time/date/last know notes/messages without any intervention then it would meet our needs. A dashboard tool that runs some elements independently and queries a server for updates on occasion.
I did find MagicMirror, which looks like it could be set up with an SBC connected to a monitor. I haven't yet had time to dig in to its workings to see if would meet the offline/online requirements.
I also found calendarclock.app which, while not self hosted, is purpose built for this scenario and would allow the recycling of existing hardware.
So long as you understand and accept the risks - that's your call. Glad you're thinking things through.
That calendarclock looks promising actually. One of the things I was going to suggest was some sort of "client monitoring" to ensure that the screen has been updated so that it doesn't display old events which would be very confusing to somebody struggling with a sense of time. And their admin app seems to provide you with a "last updated" time which you could check to see if it's working. Hopefully there could be some alarms/notifications if it hasn't updated recently?
Either way - I hope the person you intend this for is doing well. As well as those caregiving.
From your requirements, I am thinking about a "digital signage" device or app.
Don't know about iPad, but for a cheap Android device there is this free app for example: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.mimac.slideshow
Thanks, digital signage is a helpful term. I'll explore that!
I'm going to just advise you to consider the nature here and if you really want to self host. Unless you really think you've put enough effort in to make sure your running HA and are prepared to support.
Consider when you may need this most, in an emergency where you ain't going to be troubleshooting with a family members health on the line.
IMO, I have zero interest in that level of responsibility.
Similar to atzanteol's reply, I appreciate the thoughtfulness you put in to this. Our use case is luckily not so severe as needing reminders for important tasks (medication, eating, etc)... yet. A dumb clock would almost meet our needs, save for the desire to leave notes about our interactions (remembering when we last talked/saw each other is the major stressor).
I don't use it for dementia but just as aregular reminder for myself but it shows the same things you mention hike Date, time todays calendar but also weather andl other things which are 9000 to know. And I also use HomeAssistant for it.
Any reason to have it be self hosted, or really Internet connected? I can think of a few reasons, but I'm curious your use case.
I know they make $15-20 standalone units that are just what you're looking for, but not Internet connected at all.
The desire to have it internet connected comes from my wanting to leave notes on the screen. Currently, the major cause of anxiety/stress for the family remember is not remembering when we had last interacted. Leaving a kind of "journal" of our most recent interaction by phone/in person/etc may be helpful for reducing that anxiety.
I don't know of anything built for that purpose but you could use home assistant dashboards to pull it off pretty easily if you already have an instance set up.
That's an interesting thought. Thank you, I'll toy around with that.
I would prefer something that functions both on and off line. A home assistant dashboard will be useless while you, for example, reboot the server. You would want something that stores all it needs locally and gets pushes from a server. Though I don't know what that would be ..
As the importance of a system increases your attention to stability must also increase.
Edit: you probably want something that is locked down as well so that the user doesn't accidently click to a different screen or exit the app.
Thanks, I did look in to it and had the same thoughts you raised.