Raspberry Pi Kiosk

Some very dear friends of mine run a restaraunt called The Wheelhouse. They recently opened a location in a hotel where their menu is on display on a large TV in the lobby. Unfortunatly the TV had been controlled by the hotel IT department and they were sometimes slow to respond to requests to change the image running on the TV, so we took matters into our own hands.

The goal was to have a Raspberry Pi running behind the TV so we could more quickly and easily update the menu, and not be dependent on anyone else's timeframe. I came up with two scripts to run on timers on the Pi, one to donwload a fresh copy of the menu that is on their public website, and one to open a browser in "kiosk" mode and refresh occasionally.

Menu Script

I'll talk about the menu script first. It just wgets the source for the webpage to keep a local cache in case there is any internet outage. Here is the source:

# /lib/systemd/system/kiosk.service
while true; do
        wget --no-check-certificate --adjust-extension --span-hosts --backup-converted --convert-links --page-requisites --directory-prefix=/home/pi https://www.wheelhousefood.com/media/menu/lunch-dinner.html
        # re-download public page every 30 minutes
        sleep 1800
done

Kiosk Script

The kiosk script is pretty straightforward. Requires the following dependencies:

$ sudo apt-get install chromium sed xdotool unclutter

Comments added inline below:

#!/bin/bash

# Turn off the screensaver
xset s noblank
xset s off
xset -dpms

# Hide the mouse
unclutter -idle 0.5 -root &

# Disable some chromium warnings
sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/' /home/pi/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences
sed -i 's/"exit_type":"Crashed"/"exit_type":"Normal"/' /home/pi/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences

# Open chromium
DISPLAY=:0 chromium-browser --noerrdialogs --disable-infobars --kiosk file:///home/pi/www.wheelhousefood.com/media/menu/lunch-dinner.html &

# Refresh (ctrl-r) every 20 minutes
while true; do
   xdotool keydown ctrl+r
   xdotool keyup ctrl+r
   sleep 1200
done

systemctl orchestration

/lib/systemd/system/kiosk.service:

Description=Chromium Kiosk
Wants=graphical.target
After=graphical.target

[Service]
Environment=DISPLAY=:0.0
Environment=XAUTHORITY=/home/pi/.Xauthority
Type=simple
ExecStart=/bin/bash /home/pi/kiosk.sh
Restart=on-abort
User=pi
Group=pi

[Install]
WantedBy=graphical.target

/lib/systemd/system/menu.service:

[Unit]
Description=Menu Updater
Wants=graphical.target
After=graphical.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/bin/bash /home/pi/menu.sh
Restart=on-abort
User=pi
Group=pi

[Install]
WantedBy=graphical.target

Start the service with:

sudo systemctl enable kiosk.service
sudo systemctl start kiosk.service

sudo systemctl enable menu.service
sudo systemctl start menu.service