Nexus 5 as dashboard night stand

[jokob]

Hi guys,

Trying to convert my old Nexus to an always on dashboard and thinking about a custom rom. The official one doesn't seem to allow always-on display. Any recommendations?

Thinking about undervolting it as well.

The ideal outcome is having:

• -clock
• -Weather (rain / no rain, temperature chart during the day?)
• -upcoming birthdays today/tomorrow (e.g. via calendar)
• -agenda for today
• -top read news form 2-3 news sources / rss feeds
• -air quality index
• -departures from my bus/train stations and selected buses/train platforms
• possibly a smart home control panel in the future
• google now for voice commands

What I think is the best approach so far:

1. custom rom (maybe)
2. custom launcher (Nova)
3. black background
4. adaptive brightens or scheduling
5. have the above as widgets on one home screen

I was thinking building a web site on my local network for this but pre-built would save me a lot of time, so even paid ones are good.

Any thoughts?

Cheers in advance!

 

[jokob]

Alright, here is what I've got for anyone attempting to do this:

Rooted halogenOS 7.1..2
- disable bottom navigation buttons
- disabled battery optimization for all the apps below
- auto hide status bar

id=nu.nav.bar Navigation bar app to replace navigation buttons (set auto hide after 10s)

Nova launcher pro:
- allow widget overlap
- lock the screen configuration
- lock into landscape mode

Business calendar pro
- 2 widgets one for business calendar, one for birthdays

id=com.piyushsatija.pollutionmonitor Air pollution monitor - AQI (still not 100% happy with the look of this one)

id=com.weawow WEAWOW (weather) (alternatively CHRONUS but I like the look and feel of WEAWOW)
- 4 different widgets for current temperature (feeling), wind, precipitation , 7 hour forecast for current location.

id=xyz.masmas.clockwidget Clock widget
- clock

id=dk.nicolai.buch.andersen.glasswidgets Glass widgets (rss reader + other functionality - it was surprisingly hard to find a decent one fitting the black and white theme without unnecessary buttons)
- 2 widgets for local and world news


TODO:

- departure times (may depend on your location, will be easier for some countries and areas)
- a nicer air quality widget
- find a nice stand & a place where to put it

 

[cavedano8]

Very very good idea.
I am testing to use as a home automation center.
I think CPL launcher might be a good alternative to Nova, with hide status bar (for rom without this function). I have to check if it has the possibility of overlapping widgets
I will follow your experiments!

 

[jokob]

Cool, glad to help.

Any widgets you recommend? I was thinking about some noise tracking or similar apps, but didn't research too much. Also still researching on where to place it and what kind of mount/power supply to use. Any suggestions are appreciated

Still playing around how to setup my Brilliant Smart lights as a widget (the native app widget is fugly and buggy) and experimenting with tasker. Plan to setup a Home Assistant server in the future, so maybe then.

A tip is to make the home screen grid as fine as necessary (I started with 4x5 and ended up with 8x6 icons as it allows for finer control of the widget placements).

New widgets:

• Klara weather
• Clean weather - for Air Quality Index information

Small update: