Weekend Project for the wife - Project: Geek Out the Kitchen

kwiksilver

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 24, 2006
Messages
126
A few days ago I was browsing the web and saw this article on instructables: http://www.instructables.com/id/Every-wife-should-have-a-Kitchen-PC
It showed a simple interface for a touchscreen that allowed for web browsing, email, recipes, and simple tasks.

I realized I already had ALL of the hardware for this project so the cost would be $0. It seemed like alot of fun to me so I bounced the idea off my wife figuring she would laugh and say that we didn't need a computer in the kitchen.
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Much to my surprise, she was very excited at the idea of dragging her macbook into the kitchen any time she wanted to lookup a recipe. (We are trying to go green and not print recipes).

So without further delay here is a quick software demo video showing the screen in action. Sorry for the video quality and shaky camera work, I was trying to hold the camera (read: iPhone 4S) and operate the touchscreen at the same time. It makes it seem like the machine is a little bit laggy especially when I clicked the ads at one point in the video, but it's actually quite snappy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIjp8jPwr5s - Software Demo

Now if you're wondering what is powering this sweet little setup the specs are:

Screen:
15" Gateway LCD Screen 1024x768 - Painted black for an old project.
Resistive LCD touchscreen kit screen from ebay with serial to USB
VESA wallmount that can pull out from the wall.
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Software:
Windows 7 -
Rainmeter and the
Omnimo skin.

Hardware Specs:
Intel Atom 330 1.6ghz dual core
ASRock a330 ATOM
80Gb 2.5 Sata HDD
60W Morex PSU and brick
USB Wifi N card
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Here is a video showing how the hardare is wired up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZEomYNIQX4 - Hardware

I plan to configure it a bit more and find a few more recipe RSS feeds and make it perfect, but she likes it a lot so far.
 
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What's the advantage to this, compared to a cheap tablet?

1. He had all the hardware, so $0.
2. Innovative. Build something for ones self instead of being trendy and wasting money on something pointless and niche.
3. Permanent. Not everyone wants something to carry anywhere they want. Some people recognize certain hardware is for certain tasks, and they don't try to perpetuate trendy gimmicks that tablets and smart phones are going to kill laptops and PCs.
 
What's the advantage to this, compared to a cheap tablet?

As stated above I had all of the hardware on hand. Literally didn't cost me a dime. (except for some time).

I do have a spare HP Touchpad that doesn't get used a whole lot, and to be honest I thought about using it, but I didn't feel like it would be as durable. Mounting would have been more difficult. Though on the flip side it's got a nicer screen, a better touch interface.

It was just a fun project.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good onscreen keyboard or browser plugins to make chrome or firefox more touch friendly?
Or any cool touchscreen software?
 
1. He had all the hardware, so $0.
I can appreciate that. Cheap is a virtue all its own.
2. Innovative. Build something for ones self instead of being trendy and wasting money on something pointless and niche.
It's hardly pointless if it does what you want it to. I'm not criticizing his choice of hardware, just wondering if he'd considered the option.
3. Permanent. Not everyone wants something to carry anywhere they want.
Tablets can be mounted on the wall just as well as this monitor was.
 
Saving money is a virtue, cheapness is a flaw, and so is throwing away money and resources. What this guy did was not cheapness. Cheap is not a trait of a thing, but rather of a person.
 
Currently there are only a few on there which are pretty generic:
http://www.food.com/rssapi.do?page_type=26&slug=pressure-cooker
http://www.food.com/rssapi.do?page_type=26&slug=comfort-food
http://feeds.epicurious.com/latestfeatures
http://rss.allrecipes.com/daily.aspx?hubID=80

I'll take a look at yours which I'm sure are much better.

--

I agree when you add up the costs of the items they are probably expensive. But the case, power supply and power brick were from a carputer project I had done 5+ years ago. The HDD was a pull from a laptop that had a cracked LCD given to me by a friend. The touchscreen, the lcd, and mount came from a project I had made 2-3 years ago when we were trying to make a touchscreen jukebox, but the novelty wore off and it just sat. The motherboard was a review sample. The ram I had laying around from a few upgrades ago.
Could I have sold it all of and bought a tablet with a mount? Probably.
Should I have? I don't know yet.

---

Update:
So I enabled the Win7 onscreen keyboard, except I grabbed it from the tablet input section not the accessibility options that way there is a small button on the side I can click to activate it.

I also attached some speakers so she could watch cooking videos or youtube video, or rock out to pandora while she cooks.
 
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What's the advantage to this, compared to a cheap tablet?

Cheap tablet = crappy 7" screen with older OS

Expensive tablet = nice 10" screen

This project = 15" screen that has a better chance to be readable from across the kitchen
 
Good effort, really like this. Funny how such a simple idea doesn't come up to more people, as in my mind, this is a brilliant idea, which would make life so much easier for the Missus.

I am moving into my new house soon, PorterDavis in Melbourne should have it ready mid-January. One of the things I have planned for is adding a similar setup to the kitchen. Lots of space, and even more ideas :rofl:

I have 3x spare Lex Twisters with 7200 mobile CPUs and 2GB ram each, and one will be destined for the kitchen, and one more for my garage. The last will be used to further my development for an industrial control-node.

I still have a very neat HP L1955 LCD too, and will get a 21" touchscreen overlay for it.

I will keep an eye on your project, and also post a link when I start mine.
 
how well does the touch adapter work?

got most of the parts for a win8 touch build....minus the touchscreen which would run me ~$250

I really want to drop it into a coffee table, but the kitchen idea is pretty sweet and I think I have enough hardware for 2 LP machines
 
The touch adapter works well. It's not captive like an iPhone or most newer devices, it's resistive. At the resolution of 1024x768 its enough to work well with a finger after doing the 25pt calibration.

It was a bit of a paint to take apart the monitor and get the touch panel lined up just right but after ~20min I got it.

The suckiest part was waiting for the touchscreen kit to come from china from ebay. That was like two weeks or so.
 
I was thinking of going with an AIO touchscreen PC but this solution seems much better!
 
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