Hallway Tablet Mounted

The hallway tablet is finally done!!!

1. I cut some holes in the walls to hide the charging cable. I did this mostly because there isn't an outlet in the hallway where I wanted to mount it, so I needed to plug it in on the opposite side of the wall. But hiding the cable is nice too.
2. I attached wood strips to the wall to attach the tablet to. I planned to use velcro strips because I didn't see a pre-made mounting system I liked online (that didn't cost as much as the tablet itself). I also know the velcro strips don't stick well to textured drywall, so I wanted to stick it to wood strips instead.
3. I got a tablet case to stick the other side of the velcro to. I originally put the velcro strip directly on the tablet, but when pulling the tablet off the wall, the back of the tablet would lift and if not careful the tablet will be torn apart.

Let's start with the final result!

Final Result

The tablet is mounted in the hallway next to the bedroom door, across from the office. It's easy to check in the morning when we leave the bedroom or when we leave the house (you have to pass by it to get to the garage). The screen turns on when you pass by it.

I'm using a right-angle USB-C cable so the cable is mostly out of the way. There are also even more unobtrusive flat cables available online, but this was a cable I already had and wasn't particularly using anymore. It was also long enough that I didn't need an extension.

The wood strips are mounted to the wall using drywall anchors. The tablet isn't heavy, so I didn't need to attach them to a stud. I didn't paint the wood because I was lazy and it's mostly hidden anyway. If I did paint it later, I would probably make it match the wall.

You'll see in later pictures that the wall plate here is different. I originally got brush wall plates because they were popular on Amazon, and the one I bought came with the wall bracket. But after installing everything, my partner was like, "Did you forget about the mice in the walls??"

...Yes. Yes I did. LOL.

We occasionally hear mice in the walls. By occasionally, I mean I've heard them twice, once when we moved in, and once a few weeks ago. We also found a dead mouse in the garage last year. So we needed to get wall plates that a mouse could not break and/or fit through.

Now let's jump to the beginning of the install.

Installation

I used an oscillating multi-tool to cut a rectangle out of the drywall. I was hitting a lot of resistance, which is something I've experienced before when drilling holes in other walls. I got the chunk of drywall out and found out of there was actually a sheet of OSB (oriented strand board) behind the drywall. Well, that explains my previous experiences. That might also explain why it was SO hard to drive screws into the studs in the closet because I had to go through a 1/2-inch of OSB too.

It took quite a bit of physical effort and mental perseverance to get through the OSB. I kept thinking I was going to break something. But I did research online that said it's not uncommon to have OSB behind drywall for extra support, and it's fine to drill/cut into it. It also smelled strongly of burning wood (as to be expected when cutting wood). I did have a respirator on. I'm sure it would have smelled even worse without it. I'm so sorry to my cats who did not have little kitty ear protection while I was making lots of noise.

After I got the wood out, I had to trim the sides down more with a hack saw and utility knife so the wall bracket could actually fit. Also, because of the OSB, I couldn't clamp the bracket to the wall with the provided hardware. (I just need longer screws, but I didn't have any at home.) But that's fine because it's behind the tablet, so I'm not worried about the bracket falling out of the wall. And if I ever sell the house, I would probably patch the hole anyway.

I repeated the same thing on the other side of the wall at approximately the same distance from the door but closer to the floor at electrical outlet height. This was much, much easier because there wasn't OSB behind the drywall here. Thank goodness.

Then I just dropped the USB-A end of the cable into the wall from the hallway, and pulled it out in the bedroom; no fancy cable/wire-fishing mechanism needed. Once I got the cable out, I put on the wall plate.

The last step was mounting the tablet. I had some leftover 3/8-in x 1.5-in wood strips from making canvas frames, so I cut two 6-in strips and sanded them. I used a bunch of tape to secure it to the wall while I drilled the pilot holes. I also had leftover drywall anchors that I used.

In the first iteration, I only used one strip of velcro on each end of the tablet that exactly matched the strips on the wall, which meant I had to be fairly precise when attaching it to the wall. Not that I expect to be taking it off the wall frequently.

In the final iteration (already pictured at the beginning of the post), I used two strips of velcro and made the strips longer, so there was more leeway in placement without worrying about the velcro not holding.

The last thing I did was plug the charger into a smart plug, and create an automation in Home Assistant to start charging the tablet when it hits 30% and stop charging at 80%. Not sure if it will make a difference for battery longevity, but at the least, it shouldn't make it worse.

alias: (Bedroom) Hallway Tablet Charger On/Off
description: ''
triggers:
    - trigger: numeric_state
      entity_id:
          - sensor.fire_tablet_battery
      below: 30
      id: battery low
    - trigger: numeric_state
      entity_id:
          - sensor.fire_tablet_battery
      id: battery high
      above: 80
conditions: []
actions:
    - choose:
          - conditions:
                - condition: trigger
                  id:
                      - battery low
            sequence:
                - action: switch.turn_on
                  metadata: {}
                  data: {}
                  target:
                      entity_id: switch.hallway_tablet_charger_switch
          - conditions:
                - condition: trigger
                  id:
                      - battery high
            sequence:
                - action: switch.turn_off
                  metadata: {}
                  data: {}
                  target:
                      entity_id: switch.hallway_tablet_charger_switch
mode: single

Life Updates

My sabbatical is tragically already half over. So far, I have accomplished two things, the bedroom closet (7 days) and the hallway tablet (25 days).

I'm still tired and want to sleep all the time. But I have started a consistent workout schedule (at least it's been for 3 weeks!). I started doing some 15-minute Caroline Girvan workouts because I was severely out of shape. I was very sore after the initial leg workouts, like I was wobbling around for a few days sore lol.

Now I'm following Caroline Girvan's IRON Series on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (3 rest days instead of 2 on the recommended schedule). Usually using 5-lb dumbbells, but today I tried using 10-lb dumbbells and downgrading to 5-lb when it was too hard. I have been enjoying Caroline Girvan's videos because:

1. She doesn't talk during the workout. I don't need someone to give me a motivational speech while I'm working out.
2. There is almost always a rest between different exercises where she shows a preview of the next exercise with written tips on how to do it correctly and what to focus on. There's a few times where she does variations without rest in between, but I think it's fine for me to take a moment to adjust, and it's not "cheating".
3. She does the whole workout with you. You can see her struggle, start sets late, and stop sets early (albeit she's using very heavy dumbbells, and the timer is just a recommendation).
4. The music is pretty inoffensive, energetic and with limited vocals, and she repeats the same songs across different videos, so there's familiarity. The song will also never change in the middle of a set, which is also a very nice touch.

I don't always do all the sets. Especially when it's lunges lol. I hate lunges. But I think I might hate them because I'm doing them barefoot on a yoga mat on hardwood, which is hard on my feet. I cleaned an old pair of running shoes that I'll try using as my indoor workout shoes to see if I still hate lunges as much.

Aside from exercising, my next goals are to finish the skirt I restarted working on at the beginning of sabbatical, and actually start on game development.

Oh, I also made macarons for the first time in like four years and they turned out pretty good actually. (For those who don't know, I had a macaron phase from 2017-2020. I also delivered macarons to friends during shelter-in-place as an excuse to go outside and get irl social interaction. Then afterward, I basically never made macarons again.) I made them for my partner's birthday because we met after my macaron phase was long over, so he never got to try them until now. I'm glad I only had to make one batch (as opposed to the batch being an inedible disaster and having to make another batch), but I wish I got more cookies out of it. I piped the shells too big so I only got 9 cookies instead of 12-15.

On the plus side, the oven temperature of my new stove is pretty consistent/accurate. When it said it was done heating to 300, it was around 295, which is pretty close (I did wait a few minutes for it to reach 300), and afterward I think it stayed within 5 degrees. Compared to other ovens I've used that varied by like 15 degrees.

They say money can't buy happiness, but it bought me an induction stove that makes me quite happy, so...