Kitchen Computer

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Creator:
Jeff Cotten
Status:
Completed
Born On:
08:43, 16 January 2020 (CST)
Last Updated:
08:48, 28 March 2021 (CDT)

Overview

A touch interactive kitchen computer for displaying recipes, watching cooking tutorials, and managing shopping lists.

This is where you would see a picture of the project if our wiki server was configured properly.  But we're a non-profit so you know, budget constraints.

Click This Link to See Larger Picture


Hardware

  • Raspberry Pi 4 (Also needed: Micro HDMI to Regular HDMI, and a 2.5A USB-C Power Supply. A Yellow lightning bolt will appear on the screen if you selected an under powered supply.
  • Raspberry Pi Case
  • SD Card
  • Touch Screen Monitor That works with Linux
  • Articulating wall mounted monitor arm
    • One came with our house, but you can buy them on On Amazon
  • Microphone \ Speakers
  • Keyboard and mouse for initial setup

Stretch Goal Hardware

  • Wifi Camera pointing down over oven range
  • A camera that can attach to the front of the oven and look inside. After market cameras that go inside an oven are prohibitively expensive.

Operating System Candidates

  • LineageOS (Android): https://konstakang.com/devices/rpi4/LineageOS16.0/
    • Note, do not follow instructions telling you to wipe after installing gapps. This will cause the lineageOS to startup in a mode that pops up the unregistered device notification that can't be closed, preventing you from getting to terminal and running the command to retrieve the GSFAID.
  • Raspian

Software

  • OS: Raspbian (A Linux Distro tailored for the RaspberryPi hardware)

Usability

Configuration

  • Via terminal, created multiple users in case someone wanted to login to their recipe\gmail\etc accounts.
  • Set Appearance Settings to "Very Large." We want it in this mode to make buttons easier to click with finger.
  • Added an icon to bring up Matchbox-Keyboard to top bar. Currently you have to touch this icon each time you want to use the on screen keyboard, it does not come up automatically when you select a text field, like it does in Windows or Android.
    • Improvement Idea: Rasbian might not have been made with touch interface in mind, but another distro like Linux might auto bring up the keyboard. This user experience improvement would be worth evaluating a different linux based OS.

Software

  • Install Matchbox-Keyboard
    • sudo apt-get install matchbox-keyboard
    • On Rasbpian Desktop Toolbar, add keyboard application
  • VNC Server (for remote maintenance without having to stand in the kitchen)
  • Created Desktop Icon for a shell script that will quickly open the Appearance Settings configuration panel. Sometimes after reboot the display reverts to normal.
  • Chromium web browser (comes installed with Rasbpian)

Webpage Based Cooking Tools

  • Allrecipes
  • Gmail for emailing yourself links ( we have ours logged into a shared account so that visitors can't access our personal accounts ).
  • Link to GoogleKeep (or any webpage) on desktop: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=171128
    • Follow these steps to remove the annoying "are you sure" when you click it
      1. File manager
      2. Edit
      3. Preferences
      4. General

Do not ask option on executable launch

  • YouTube for cooking tutorials

Other Tools

  • Balera-Etcher for flashing Rasbpian image to SD Card
  • SD Card reader

Commercial Products

Products that offer similar experiences

  • GE Kitchen Hub (available for kitcen hood and microwave). Expensive, over $800

Alternative Approaches