getting zm setup as a house monitor system.
Would like to put a bunch of cheap touch screens about that with a single button push, power on and bring up a montage type screen. Kitchen to view door, bedroom to monitor alarms up front or see who's at front door, etc.
thought of using something like ipod touch but can't get video streaming and power-on to wifi sync is a bit long for my liking, and a bit small for my liking
any other thoughts on something sub-$200 per screen ideally ~4-5", build in wifi (so only need to find power), browser and touch screen enabled, no keyboard or mouse and screen most of the "display".
most solutions I've seen are $500+ each...and given I'd like one in hall upstairs outside kids room...another in the master bedroom, another in kitchen, maybe in media room in basement, one in basement office and main floor office...allow monitoring of everything going on without having to where I am, etc...especially answering sales people, charity donations, etc...all the time wasters answering the door...watch kids in back yard, etc.
I'm sure I'm not alone in this quest...what have others done..thoughts..successes...comments welcome
cheap touch screens to deploy around house
I was the same way. There are 3 main options out there:
A) Touch Screens with a PC built in to the base/screen (downside is obviously cost, upside is all in one solution and easy)
B) Touch Screens with a separate PC. You can actually get really nice touch screens on ebay super cheap, I grabbed some 15 touch screens for < $50 with native USB support (try to avoid serial based ones as they are a pain to get working). Combine that with a Intel Atom box and you have nice tiny machines.
C) Just buy Touch Screens and then hard wire or get a wireless video feed from a centralized server driving multiple touch screens. The main downside here is its trickier to setup and requires either wireless video (not a whole lot of products out there) or them to be fairly close to your central server (I think you can go 50-100 ft with DVI without a external active repeater).
So how much work / technical skill will feed into this.
A) Touch Screens with a PC built in to the base/screen (downside is obviously cost, upside is all in one solution and easy)
B) Touch Screens with a separate PC. You can actually get really nice touch screens on ebay super cheap, I grabbed some 15 touch screens for < $50 with native USB support (try to avoid serial based ones as they are a pain to get working). Combine that with a Intel Atom box and you have nice tiny machines.
C) Just buy Touch Screens and then hard wire or get a wireless video feed from a centralized server driving multiple touch screens. The main downside here is its trickier to setup and requires either wireless video (not a whole lot of products out there) or them to be fairly close to your central server (I think you can go 50-100 ft with DVI without a external active repeater).
So how much work / technical skill will feed into this.
Why not use VNC over the network?
You can have multiple clients connecting to the same VNC virtual screen at the same time, and its basically as if they are all on the same screen at the same time; the touch screens can all display and interact with the same screen at the same time. That has a lot going for it. If you had a fast network, it might be quite good.
However, I know from experience that screen redraws would be an issue on a slower machine and network. Any kind of motion video is really pushing the limits of a system like that. You might get 3 or 4 FPS. If that.
VNC has been around for decades and its quite efficient with resources and stable.
However, I know from experience that screen redraws would be an issue on a slower machine and network. Any kind of motion video is really pushing the limits of a system like that. You might get 3 or 4 FPS. If that.
VNC has been around for decades and its quite efficient with resources and stable.