Need programmable LCD touchpad

There seems to be something interesting at:

but I have no direct experience with the company.

-- Bobby G.

Earth makes some that might be useful:

But they're not all that inexpensive.

Thanks for the replies.

I took a look at ezlcd and earthlcd and also found this:

...which is not touchscreen but still looks pretty spiffy. And if I can do it with an LCD + keypad for cheap (less than $100 per unit) then that's close to a total win. Also the Matrix Orbital site seems to have a pretty good community of people who are into this sort of customization.

The other side of this is that my house is from the 60s and has a

3-wire Nutone intercom. What I want is to build a homebrew contoller that I can fit into the same wall cutouts as the Nutone units, assuming I can run CAT5 cable without it getting too hairy.

I'll post again if I find the "right" solution that I'm looking for.

Again, thanks.

If you've decided not to go with a touchscreen, you should also look at...

Thanks for the replies.

You may want to check out RAD I/O:

This product is in early production. They have a PC-based video card that sliced a VGA screen into eighths and sends each segment to the LCD touchscreens (which are small enough to fit in a single-gang box) over a cat5. The LCDs can display whatever you can display on the screen, so you can make your interface however you want, even with HTML.

It's less expensive than putting a Leopard in each room, but perhaps not as inexpensive as you'd like. Feature-wise, though, it's pretty cool. For example, you can play video over them, show a Now Playing cover art for music currently playing in that room, etc.

I rather liked this product when last I looked at it. If the screens had some way to go to sleep, individually, I'd like it a lot. That's been a catch for me in wanting to put multiple touchscreens on one computer. The screen saver and sleep mode across multiple monitors.

I also note they still refer to 8 Quadrants. :)

Mark, do you have any information on the cost of this system?

Hi

I did a little project similar to what your suggesting .....It has a menu up menu down button and 4 user buttons and an lcd....its rs232 based and the pc ha software i use to generate the OSD messages is xPL....Was going to get a pcb done for it but it didnt seem to attract any interest in the xPL world so havent bothered as yet....

Frank

If this is real it would work perfectly. I could do a 1/4 unit in the kitchen and another in the entry area and then 4 1/8 units in each bedroom.

I was *not* looking forward do doing my own serial I/O programming. I've got better things to do with my time. ;-)

Their web site hits the nail on the head - it's not right to make the wall unit a "thick client" by building all the X10 control logic in (which is what the Leopard does).

Thanks Mark, I will definitely look into this.

Didn't they announce this this ages ago? And it's still not in production?

What price point are they talking for it?

I think the stopping point for most LCD keypads or other 'in-room' touchscreen devices is definitely things like motion video. Users are rather spoiled in their expectations, if it's not a plain text LCD screen they'd expect it to have TV-like capabilities. Everyone wants crestron features but not at their hideously expensive pricing. TAANSTAAFL.

-Bill Kearney

And there are some rather inexpensive TVs with touchscreens for the automotive market. Unfortunately, they use USB for the touchscreen interface so don't lend themselves to in-house, in-wall use with long wire runs.

For simple graphics and text, the BasicAtom (yet another BasicStamp clone) has NTSC output.

I don't think I'd plan on building anything LCD oriented for a few months. The trades are talking about tremendous over-capacity in LCD plants that's going to contribute to a big push down in LCD prices across the board. It's already happening in large screen LCD TV's - they are half of what they were last year with lots more features, too! I just saw Outpost selling a 17" LCD monitor for $150. The prices are on the move.

-- Bobby G.

There is a simple graphic LCD/Touchscreen at

that might work well for you.

There is also a simple serial video module at

that does color NTSC out. Has text and graphics commands and a pretty simple command set that can be controlled from simple controllers like the BASIC Stamp.

Wow! Those are great prices, too. There have been text OSD serial boards but they cost more than this.

The mono LCD is also an excellent price.

I think so to. The OSD boards like the BOB series are pricey. The video boards from Multilabs don't do OSD but if you don't need that these boards are a cheaper alternative. I have also seen graphic LCD modules that are more expensive then theirs without a touchscreen and lesser resolution.

Maybe we could persude then to stick a serial resistive touch panel over some of the LCD TVs.