Smarthome Kitchen Kiosk

I started this project because of a combination of factors: I found that when cooking, I often used my laptop to pull up recipes so I wouldn’t have to handle my phone. Furthermore, I had been adding an increasing number of smart devices to my house, and I could have it generally display the main Home Assistant page. Finally, I have been interested in local-network voice control, and thought it might form a good base for tinkering with using Rhasspy and a PSEye for a local voice assistant.
Phase 1: IdeationI centered the design around a 12” damaged LCD touchscreen that I purchased. In order to ensure that it would have sufficient processing power to handle potential voice assistant functions or other things I might add, I chose a Raspberry Pi 4 for the main board. To ensure stability, I incorporated a USB adapter to connect a small old m.2 SSD as the boot drive, avoiding the failure of flash chips common with SD cards. Finally, I also planned to use a small buck converter so that a single 12V power supply could power the whole unit.
Phase 2: PlanningOnce I had obtained the parts, I assembled the components, installed Raspbian, and verified that everything performed adequately. I found that under load the Raspberry Pi benefitted from active cooling, as did the LCD when on for long durations. As such, I added a small fan to the design.
I then modeled the case in Fusion 360, designing it to replace the back casing of the LCD screen. I added mount points for each of the components, and guides to funnel air from the intake grate over the Raspberry Pi, buck converter, and LCD chips before exiting the top. I also sized the mounting holes for the rear panel to use brass inserts for reliability over time.
Phase 3: DevelopmentOnce designed, I 3D printed the case and internal air baffles at the Spartan Makerspace at WashU, then assembled the complete kiosk.

The kiosk worked as expected, however the fan was sufficiently noisy to be noticeable during quiet hours. I ended up replacing it with a 40mm Noctua fan.

The kiosk, now in use, provides an effective way to display recipes, navigate smart home features, and watch entertainment while cooking.