A DIY Touchscreen Display for the Kitchen Can Keep Your Life Organized

Modern people live complicated lives, and that can make it really difficult to keep track of everything you have going on. The situation just gets trickier if you have a family. When is Timmy’s dentist appointment? Is the weather going to be nice enough to have that picnic tomorrow? Which day does your wife leave to go on her business trip? There are smartphone apps to help you keep track of those things, but one great alternative is to put a touchscreen display in your kitchen so that the whole family can look at a shared calendar, weather, reminders, and more.

This project write-up comes from Nemanja Dubravac, who constructed this DIY Kitchen Wall Display to keep track of exactly those sorts of things. The centerpiece of this build is a large 22” touchscreen display. Screens like that aren’t cheap (about $200 in the US), but the size makes it easy to show a lot of information without forcing people to scroll. Dubravac will be covering the software in a future post, but you can use this hardware with just about any organization software. DAKboard is one popular program for projects like this, but there are many alternatives out there.

In addition to the touchscreen display, you’ll need a Raspberry Pi or similar single-board computer (SBC) for this project. Dubravac used a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, which is the most powerful SBC that Pi currently offers. In order to keep the display as flush to the wall as possible, Dubravac used a low-profile VESA wall mount and an electrical outlet with built-in USB ports to power the Raspberry Pi. This particular display has room to attach the Pi using Velcro without adding to the overall thickness of the unit. His display is mounted directly next to a cupboard, so these keep it from obstructing the cupboard door. This build wasn’t cheap (€700, or about $825 USD), but the components are significantly less expensive in the US. Either way, that’s a small price to pay to help your household run more smoothly.