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Show HN: Self-hosted Raspberry Pi wall display (no cloud, no subscription)

7 points by g_33_k 6mo ago

g_33_k 6mo ago
I got tired of subscription-based wall displays and locked ecosystems, so I built my own. This turns a Raspberry Pi into a wall-mounted dashboard that boots directly into a fullscreen display and runs entirely on the local network. No accounts, no cloud, no ongoing fees. From a fresh Pi install, it takes about 8 minutes from running the command to a working display after reboot. Install: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/silentg33k/chalkboard-installer/main/install.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/silentg33k/chalkboard-inst... | bash What it does: - boots straight into a kiosk display - controlled via a browser on the local network - stores everything locally - runs on nginx + PHP + Chromium kiosk - background updates handled via cron + local scripts After install it’s immediately usable, and then you can layer in things like schedules, weather, or other content if you want. I built it specifically to avoid paying for something like a “smart display” that requires a subscription and limits what you can do with it. Wondering if anyone thinks this solves a problem or is a viable project.
- atmanactive 6mo ago
  Very nicely done, congrats, but, not a word about the content? What is available to show on such a device? A self-refreshing single URL only? A full-blown Home Assistant client? What does the admin panel provide?
  - g_33_k 6mo ago
    Right now it's a structured display rather than just a single URL refresh. Out of the box it handles things like time, schedules, rotating messages, and weather. The layout is driven by JSON and the admin UI lets you define slides, fields, and timing without touching code. There should be screenshots available on the GitHub. It's not trying to be a full Home Assistant frontend — more like a lightweight, purpose-built display that boots straight into something usable. You can extend it pretty easily since it's just PHP + JSON under the hood, but the default goal was: install to immediate working wall display then customize from there. Change numbers of fields per slide. Change whether those fields are static or weekly. Change slide titles. Change font sizes and type settings. Adjust screen timing. Turn slides on or off. Set dimming schedules and reboot, schedules and screen off schedules. Change weather location. Set up remote updating via email and limit email updating to a single email account defined in the settings.
gfalcao 6mo ago
lotza binaries with no actual source code, looks more like a supply-chain attack
- g_33_k 6mo ago
  That's a fair concern. The installer is doing a full system setup (nginx, PHP, kiosk, etc.), which is why it's packaged as a release artifact instead of a bunch of inline shell. That said, everything it installs ends up on the Pi in plain files (PHP, JSON, scripts) under /var/www/html/chalkboard, so it's not actually opaque once deployed. I kept the main repo private while building this out, but I get how that looks from the outside — making the runtime files more directly inspectable is something I should probably clean up. Appreciate you calling it out.
ranguita 6mo ago
Wonderfull project , thanks for sharing
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
dlcarrier 6mo ago
There's a couple of Github features that would make it easier to explore and install your project: 1. It has built-in support for releases. Following this guide, you can make the different releases versions easier to navigate, and keep them from cluttering the codebase: https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/releasing-projects-on-github/managing-releases-in-a-repository https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/releasing-projects-o... 2. It can integrate images, like screenshots, into the readme markdown file, making them clearly visible to anyone browsing the project page. The images can also be in a sub folder, to keep them from cluttering the codebase. Here's a guide to do so: https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/writing-on-github/getting-started-with-writing-and-formatting-on-github/basic-writing-and-formatting-syntax#images https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/writing-on-github/get...
- g_33_k 6mo ago
  That’s useful. Thank you.
natloz 6mo ago
The Raspberry Pi is so versatile once you get creative with it, nice work!

7 points by g_33_k 6mo ago

I got tired of subscription-based wall displays and locked ecosystems, so I built my own. This turns a Raspberry Pi into a wall-mounted dashboard that boots directly into a fullscreen display and runs entirely on the local network. No accounts, no cloud, no ongoing fees. From a fresh Pi install, it takes about 8 minutes from running the command to a working display after reboot. Install: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/silentg33k/chalkboard-installer/main/install.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/silentg33k/chalkboard-inst... | bash What it does: - boots straight into a kiosk display - controlled via a browser on the local network - stores everything locally - runs on nginx + PHP + Chromium kiosk - background updates handled via cron + local scripts After install it’s immediately usable, and then you can layer in things like schedules, weather, or other content if you want. I built it specifically to avoid paying for something like a “smart display” that requires a subscription and limits what you can do with it. Wondering if anyone thinks this solves a problem or is a viable project.

atmanactive 6mo ago
Very nicely done, congrats, but, not a word about the content? What is available to show on such a device? A self-refreshing single URL only? A full-blown Home Assistant client? What does the admin panel provide?
- g_33_k 6mo ago
  Right now it's a structured display rather than just a single URL refresh. Out of the box it handles things like time, schedules, rotating messages, and weather. The layout is driven by JSON and the admin UI lets you define slides, fields, and timing without touching code. There should be screenshots available on the GitHub. It's not trying to be a full Home Assistant frontend — more like a lightweight, purpose-built display that boots straight into something usable. You can extend it pretty easily since it's just PHP + JSON under the hood, but the default goal was: install to immediate working wall display then customize from there. Change numbers of fields per slide. Change whether those fields are static or weekly. Change slide titles. Change font sizes and type settings. Adjust screen timing. Turn slides on or off. Set dimming schedules and reboot, schedules and screen off schedules. Change weather location. Set up remote updating via email and limit email updating to a single email account defined in the settings.

gfalcao 6mo ago

lotza binaries with no actual source code, looks more like a supply-chain attack

g_33_k 6mo ago
That's a fair concern. The installer is doing a full system setup (nginx, PHP, kiosk, etc.), which is why it's packaged as a release artifact instead of a bunch of inline shell. That said, everything it installs ends up on the Pi in plain files (PHP, JSON, scripts) under /var/www/html/chalkboard, so it's not actually opaque once deployed. I kept the main repo private while building this out, but I get how that looks from the outside — making the runtime files more directly inspectable is something I should probably clean up. Appreciate you calling it out.

ranguita 6mo ago

Wonderfull project , thanks for sharing

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

dlcarrier 6mo ago

There's a couple of Github features that would make it easier to explore and install your project: 1. It has built-in support for releases. Following this guide, you can make the different releases versions easier to navigate, and keep them from cluttering the codebase: https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/releasing-projects-on-github/managing-releases-in-a-repository https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/releasing-projects-o... 2. It can integrate images, like screenshots, into the readme markdown file, making them clearly visible to anyone browsing the project page. The images can also be in a sub folder, to keep them from cluttering the codebase. Here's a guide to do so: https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/writing-on-github/getting-started-with-writing-and-formatting-on-github/basic-writing-and-formatting-syntax#images https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/writing-on-github/get...

g_33_k 6mo ago
That’s useful. Thank you.

natloz 6mo ago

The Raspberry Pi is so versatile once you get creative with it, nice work!