HOW-TO

WINDOWS

Turn a monitor into a digital dashboard

Anthony Spadafora turns an unused monitor into an information delight.

YOU’LL NEEDHaving all the information you office, your kitchen, or the microSD card, and case.
need available on one screen can
• An old or entrance of your home? As we had plenty of PC
cheap monitor
be a great convenience, In our example, we used an old equipment around, we decided to
• A monitor wall
especially during the work day. monitor and the free DAKboard use an old mini-PC to get the job
mount HDMI andInstead of having to pull up dash software. We only had to done instead. DAKboard supports
Power Cables
separate apps to check the purchase a wall mount and we Windows, in addition to iPads,
• Raspberry Pi
weather, view your calendar,
4B or old PC could put some old hardware to Android tablets, smart TVs,
and read the news, you can have
• DAKboard good use. Amazon Fire TVs, and of course,
everything in one place.
(www.dakboard.com/ Raspberry Pi computers. The
Sure, there are lots of gadgets
site) Roll your own benefit of using a Raspberry Pi is
out there that purport to do this, First launched in beta back in that it can be tucked behind a
most notably the Amazon Echo 2015, DAKboard is a monitor pretty easily, and its
Show 15, but at customisable web interface used power draw is much lower than
"First launched in around $399, it’s to display photos, calendars, even the smallest of traditional
a lot more news, weather, and more. PCs. However, a mini-PC can still
beta back in 2015, expensive than Although the company sells a be hidden away on a shelf, as we
DAKboard is a a standard PC pre-made wall display that has did here.
monitor, not to all of the hardware needed (as do
customisable web mention certain other third parties), you Premium content
interface used to significantly can also make your own using Getting DAKboard up and
smaller. But off-the-shelf hardware. running is a matter of logging
display photos, maybe you have If you don’t have an old into a web interface running in a
calendars, news, an old monitor computer lying around, the full-size browser window. The
around that’s cheapest way to do this is to buy company recommends Chrome,
weather, and not being used, a Raspberry Pi 3B+ or a as it tests all the latest features
more." or maybe you’ve Raspberry Pi 4B, which are using Google’s browser.
been eyeing an recommended by DAKboard. One of the main reasons we
upgrade to Supply chains are getting better decided to go with DAKboard over
something bigger or better. In for these cheap micro- something similar, such as
that case, why not repurpose computers, but you may still Rainmeter, is that we wanted our
your old monitor into something have trouble fi nding one at their setup to be easily portable across
brand new, using some free recommended retail prices. devices without having to
software and cheap hardware? Expect to pay around $230 for a reconfigure things each time. Just
Something that will be of great Raspberry Pi 4B starter kit with bear in mind that if you’re using
use to you and your family everything you need, including more than one screen, you’ll have
hanging on the wall of your power and HDMI cables, to pay for one of DAKboard’s
subscription levels, which start at
US$5 per month.
Another nice thing about
DAKboard is its flexibility.
Although the free plan limits you
to one screen and predefi ned
layouts, the paid plans let you
configure multiple screens in
either portrait or landscape. We
set up both a landscape and
portrait screen, though it’s easy to
switch between the two as each
DAKboard (even the free one) has
its own private URL. This way, you
can add them to your bookmarks
and show off your digital
dashboard with one click.

Left to your own devices

We were also pleasantly surprised
DAKboard’s paid
plans allow you to
when testing out a landscape
run multiple DAKboard, as it automatically
screens in scales for larger screens,
landscape or including an ultrawide monitor.
portrait modes. However, we did have to change

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its resolution manually when
trying it out on other devices,
such as the Chromebook Duet 3
or an Android tablet.
Even with the free plan, you
can still make lots of tweaks to
the appearance and there are
integrations for a variety of
photo hosting sites, such as
Flickr and Apple Photos, plus
you can add your Google
Calendar. You can also add an
RSS feed showing all the latest
stories from your favourite
websites, such as our sister
publications, TechRadar and
Tom’s Guide, where you’ll find
RSS links at the top of the
homepage next to the social
icons.
If you want more integrations,
you’ll have to upgrade to a paid
plan. That’s what we did as we
really wanted our digital
dashboard to be shown in
portrait mode without having to
change any settings on the
monitor itself.
Integrating into the community
Besides giving you more
integrations, the cheapest paid
plan (Essential, costing US$5/
month) also unlocks an
advanced editor. Those familiar
with any of the most common
website builders, such as Wix,
WordPress, or Squarespace will
feel right at home.
Much like those website
builders, DAKboard’s block-
based editor allows you to drag
and arrange blocks for different
tools and integrations to
configure your digital
dashboard. From stock quotes to
Slack messages, there are a wide
variety of blocks you can add to
Landscape or
portrait – choose
your layout.
your screens so you have all the
information you need
throughout your day available at
a glance.
As the Essential plan gives you
two custom screens to work
with, you could potentially
configure one for your work and
another for personal matters
and switch between the two
throughout the day. Likewise, if
you have multiple devices, for
example, a smart TV and a
monitor, you can have both
screens on at the same time.
DAKboard running on a tablet
In our case, we now have a
wall-mounted monitor showing
a digital dashboard in portrait
mode in the home office, plus a
repurposed old Android tablet to
show calendars and the weather
when working elsewhere in the
house.
Although the digital
dashboard has only been up on
the home office wall for a few
days, it has already been of
constant assistance, really
helping us to stay on top of
things throughout the day.
As for the future, we’re
looking forward to perhaps
creating a separate screen with
social media feeds to help stay
up to date with family and
friends. Or possibly one that
displays our favourite pictures
to remind us of what’s most
important in life.
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