Homeboard

A wall-mountable home dashboard with news, family calendar, stocks, weather, energy prices, music control, and more. Originally built for a 24" touchscreen on a Raspberry Pi; now also available as a native Android app for tablets.

Feel free to fork, file feature requests, send pull requests, or share ideas.

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Two ways to run it

Android tablet (React Native) — recommended

The active version. Easiest to install: grab a prebuilt APK and sideload it.

1. Download the latest homeboard-vX.Y.Z.apk from Releases.
2. Sideload to your tablet — either copy the APK over and tap it in the tablet's file manager, or:

   adb install homeboard-vX.Y.Z.apk

3. Open the app, walk through Settings to configure services (weather, calendar, Tibber, Sonos, news, etc.).

For build-from-source instructions, contributing, and developer docs see reactnative/README.md.

Raspberry Pi / Linux kiosk (web): same app as Android

The React Native app rendered in a browser via react-native-web, served by a small Node server with a CORS proxy and UDP bridge, so it has full feature parity with the Android version (Sonos discovery, LAN settings sync, all widgets). Runs as a Chromium kiosk on a Raspberry Pi 4 with a Dell P2418HT 24" touchscreen, or on any Linux box with Node 20+ and Chromium.

See web/README.md for installation, migration from the legacy app, and development docs. The base system setup (Chromium, X11, nvm, pm2, splash screen) in the legacy section below still applies to a fresh Pi.

Raspberry Pi (legacy web app, deprecated)

The original version: a Vue/Framework7 web app served by a Node + socket.io backend, run as a kiosk on a Raspberry Pi 4 with a Dell P2418HT 24" touchscreen. Superseded by the web kiosk version above; kept for reference.

Recommended hardware:

• Raspberry Pi 4 (2 GB or more)
• Micro HDMI to Standard HDMI cable
• Dell P2418HT Touch 24" (or any HDMI touchscreen)

Software structure

The frontend runs as a static node-server powered by Framework7 + Vue. It talks over a websocket to a Node backend that pulls from external sources (news, weather, calendar) and devices like Sonos speakers and Tibber. The background process is managed by pm2.

Installation on a fresh Raspberry Pi

Change the default password

passwd

Set the hostname to "homeboard"

Change the last line in both files to homeboard:

sudo nano /etc/hosts
sudo nano /etc/hostname

Install Chromium and other X11 packages

sudo apt-get -y --fix-missing --no-install-recommends install matchbox chromium-browser cec-utils xinit x11-xserver-utils ttf-mscorefonts-installer xwit sqlite3 libnss3 xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xinit pciutils xinput xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalable unclutter xdotool

Install Node and npm via nvm

sudo apt update
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.3/install.sh | bash

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion"

nvm install node
npm install -g npm@latest

Install pm2

npm install -g pm2
pm2 startup
# Then run the suggested `sudo env PATH=...` command pm2 prints.

Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/blanck/homeboard.git ~/homeboard
cd ~/homeboard
git remote set-url origin git@github.com:blanck/homeboard.git

Install dependencies

npm install
npm update
npx browserslist@latest --update-db

Start the background server

pm2 start '/home/pi/homeboard/server.js'
pm2 save

Remove the first-run welcome screen

sudo rm /etc/xdg/autostart/piwiz.desktop

Disable Wi-Fi power save

sudo sed -i "/exit 0/isudo iw wlan0 set power_save off" /etc/rc.local

Autostart on boot

echo "@sh /home/pi/homeboard/start.sh &" | sudo tee -a /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

Move /tmp and /var/log to RAM (avoids SD-card corruption on crash)

echo "tmpfs    /tmp    tmpfs    defaults,noatime,nosuid,size=1024m    0 0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
echo "tmpfs    /var/log    tmpfs    defaults,noatime,nosuid,mode=0755,size=100m    0 0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

Configuration

Copy the sample config and fill in your own API keys / preferences:

cp ~/homeboard/config.sample.js ~/homeboard/config.js
nano ~/homeboard/config.js
pm2 restart server

Remote access

ssh pi@homeboard.local
cd homeboard

Local development on your laptop

git clone git@github.com:blanck/homeboard.git ~/Development/homeboard
cd ~/Development/homeboard
npm install
node server.js          # one terminal — backend
npm run dev             # another terminal — frontend with HMR on localhost:8080

In Chrome, open DevTools → Toggle device toolbar (CMD/Ctrl + Shift + M) and set 1920×1080 to match the kiosk display.

Splash screen

sudo sed -i " 1 s/.*/& disable_splash=1 logo.nologo consoleblank=0 loglevel=1/" /boot/cmdline.txt
sudo systemctl disable getty@tty3
sudo apt-get -y install fbi
sudo pip install gdown
sudo gdown -O /etc/systemd/system/splashscreen.service https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download\&id=13eWP-EtHfgUL6yl2-ptZhjkT3PJuR8rj
sudo cp ~/homeboard/assets-src/splash.png /opt/splash.png
sudo systemctl enable splashscreen
export DISPLAY=:0 && pcmanfm --set-wallpaper /opt/splash.png

Troubleshooting

Bad-looking screen — try one at a time:

sudo sed -i '/#disable_overscan/ c\disable_overscan=1' /boot/config.txt
# Or edit /boot/config.txt manually and try:
#   disable_overscan=1
#   framebuffer_width=1920
#   framebuffer_height=1080
#   hdmi_force_hotplug=1
#   hdmi_group=1
#   hdmi_mode=31

npm install fails with node-gyp error on macOS

Missing Xcode command-line tools:

xcode-select --install

Manually run the server

pm2 stop server
cd ~/homeboard
node server.js          # see errors directly
pm2 start server

Take remote screenshots from your laptop

sudo apt install -y maim
ssh pi@homeboard.local 'DISPLAY=:0.0 maim' > screen.png