Tablet as a photo frame. What to make from an old tablet. A few easy steps to transform your tablet into a photo frame

Remembering the boom in digital photo frames that raged just a few years ago, I wondered where the photo frames from the shops and the experienced hype on them disappeared. For the sake of interest, I monitored the market for devices and offers to date.

The peak of the popularity of photo frames fell on 2009-2010, then the demand for the product steadily fell. Manufacturers have made changes in the design and functionality of photo frames, adapting photo frames to the needs of the market. For example, the idea of production of photo frames with Wi-Fi was first realized in 2009-2010. Photos were remotely uploaded to such frames via Wi-Fi, the frames had a fixed e-mail address, some were synchronized with the sites Facebook, Flickr, Picassa.
Many manufacturers have created separate sites for working with photos and photo frames (Kodak, CIEVA, Pix Star). Pix Star in 2010 released Android app for smartphones, making it easy to upload photos to your photo frame.
Several major global brands have produced touchscreen Wi-Fi frames:
- Sony
- Kodak
- Pandigital

Among additional opportunities photo frames became popular inner memory and playback of MP3 and MPEG4 multimedia files.
At the moment, the production of frames with Wi-Fi and touch screens almost completely stopped. The production of Wi-Fi frames was closed by Sony, Kodak, CIEVA, Looqs, PF Digital Inc. The idea of remotely uploading photos to a photo frame hasn't become widespread. However, Pix Star (one 10 "model) and Pandigital still sell Wi-Fi frames, but their models are very outdated in design. Sales are mainly carried out through AMAZON.
Common digital frames are still sold by Viewsonic (2012 models with a very modern design), Sony (2011 models with HD video viewing and audio playback), Philips, Transcend, Assistant. And Samsung has completely abandoned the production of photo frames.
In the country where literally everything is made (China), there is also a drop in demand for photo frames. Therefore, the main part Chinese manufacturers concentrated their efforts on the production of tablets. I managed to talk with some manufacturers, most of them, who considered the possibility of equipping Wi-Fi frames, came to the conclusion that this product will not be in demand in the market due to limited functionality and great competition from tablets.

Among the most attractive digital frames on the market today, it is worth noting the products of the Chinese company Gadmei electronics www.gadmei.com.

They don't have Wi-Fi and / or touchscreen bezels, but they have a very sophisticated design. The company is the manufacturer of the world's thinnest digital photo frame - model PF 8086E. With a screen size of 8 ”, the screen is only 3.5mm thick. Control - push-button, located on the leg - stand.

Their products are sold under their own brands by such companies as Viewsonic, Texet (Russia). So, recently the Texet company announced the release of a new teXet TF-111 frame, produced in a bright design (in lilac tones with orchids, with Chinese motifs and in the disco style).

Naturally, tablets became competitors of the frames, and eventually their complete replacement. At the moment, in China in retail, you can buy quite quality tablets at very low prices: for comparison - a tablet based on the Allwinner A31 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 chipset and a Retina 9.7 ″ 2048x1536 screen (a screen with wide viewing angles and increased pixel density per square inch) at a price of only $ 158, and a tablet with chipset Infotmic iMAPx15 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A5 and 7 ″ screen with a resolution of 1024 × 600 for $ 57.
SmartTV technology can compete with frames, especially for large sizes.

From latest news in photo frame technology, I can say that Google received a patent for the production of a "smart" photo frame that supports automatic synchronization with a smartphone via a channel wireless... In addition to the traditional functions of uploading and displaying photos, the photo frame is equipped with the ability to tag people in the photo. During synchronization, the frame will transfer the list of put marks to mobile device where they will be associated with contacts in the phone book.
Thanks to tags and synchronization, the user will be able to initiate a session voice communication by simply clicking on the image of the desired subscriber in the photo shown on the display of the photo frame. In addition, upon admission incoming call on the smartphone, the caller's photo will be displayed on the frame screen.

Wait and see. Do you believe in the future of photo frames?

Digital photo frames were quite popular a while ago. The idea that you can put a small screen on your table, which will not only replace your favorite framed photo, but also be able to show entire albums of pictures, was liked by many. The advent of tablets diminished this boom a little, especially since there are applications that can easily turn any tablet into a “smart photo frame”.

Daydream software for devices under Android gives you the convenience of using your tablet to showcase beautiful photos. Moreover, the source of these pictures can be both your personal photos from social networks and photo hosting sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, 500px, Dropbox, and Google+), and local folders devices. In addition, (and many will like this feature the most) you can take advantage of an endless stream of the best photo works from popular photo services.

Immediately after starting the program, you will be asked to indicate your interests, on the basis of which the photo feed will be formed.

After that, you will be taken to a screen with thumbnails of the photos. By pulling this screen to the left, you can change the order or sources of photos. Click on the arrow in the upper right corner to start the show.

Photos are shown on Full Screen With beautiful effect panning. On top of the image you see a clock (clicking on it brings up the dialog for setting an alarm) and brief information about the author of the picture. By default, each frame is shown for 10 seconds, but you can change this value in the settings. There you can also authorize Daydream in your accounts in in social networks if you want to contemplate not the beautiful works of masters of photography, but your pictures from Facebook, Instagram or Google+.

Daydream software will turn your tablet into a spectacular photo frame that can download and display the work of the world's best photographers in the background. Now your tablet will work even in minutes of idleness to delight your aesthetic needs.

We need:
- old tablet(in my case Texet TM-7029, but it can be almost any)
- charging to it
- thin wires
- screwdriver
- soldering iron
- solder, rosin
- multimeter
- resistors (may not be needed, depending on your tablet, the denomination also depends on the tablet)
- convert DC-DC voltages (may not be needed, depending on your tablet, the rating also depends on the tablet)
- drill
- drill for metal 6mm

Step 1 Power.
This is the most difficult and crucial step. Older tablets have a lot of problems. One of them is an old battery that does not hold a charge. There are several ways to solve this. The easiest is to leave the battery plugged in and supply power through normal charging... But there are pitfalls here. First, over a long service life, the connection socket breaks and no longer provides a reliable connection. Secondly, aesthetically, I personally do not like the view of the charging wire sticking out from the side. Thirdly, a complete failure of the battery is possible and then the tablet simply will not start. As you already understood, an individual approach is needed here.

I will tell you in detail only about my Texet TM-7029, and for the rest I will give options for what you can do. So, in my case, the connection connector is broken and the wire does not hold in the socket, the battery is weak, but still alive. We disassemble the tablet.

I tried to solder the battery and supply power through its connection marks. The tablet started, but gave an error and turned off. Therefore, I decided to leave the battery, and connect the power through the micro USB socket, as it should be charged. Micro USB socket soldered with back side boards. We unsolder the battery and speaker wires. We unscrew all the screws holding the board. It is not necessary to disconnect the screen and touchscreen cables. We turn the board over and see that the socket contacts are very small. You can unsolder the socket and solder the wires to the contacts, then it will be much easier, but I wanted to leave the possibility of connecting to a computer, and therefore with a multimeter I found a capacitor standing to smooth the power on this line and soldered the wires to it:

I will give tips for owners of other tablets. You can also try:
Disconnect the battery, connect your own charger, turn on - great, we test in different modes load stability. If it is cut down under load, you can try to take a more powerful adapter, or replace the wire with a shorter / better one, since the material, length and cross-section of the supply cable are of great importance and can easily create conditions under which the device cannot take more than a certain current.

Most modern devices charged via USB understand whether the computer is in front of them, or a native / non-native memory. And this understanding comes to them via the D + D- data bus. In this regard, the device will take a certain current, namely up to 500mA from a non-native memory and USB, and up to the nominal value of the adapter from the native one. Accordingly, using the device via USB without a battery becomes impossible. Regarding the inclusion of the "native" memory mode, there is information that:
most android devices need to short circuit D + D-
some Samsung to supply both D + and D- at 2.5v
Iphone and D + and D- by 2v. iPad D + = 2.5v and D- = 2v

So, some people think (or just do) that the adapter external power supply you can put "plus or minus" on the corresponding contacts instead of the battery and there is nothing wrong with that. This is not entirely true. In most cases, power from the battery goes first to the power controller, just like from an external food goes same way. Not too lazy to find and open a datasheet for a microcircuit of this controller, for example AXP209, it says in English and white that the power supply from the battery side should not exceed em ... 6.3v, but it will burn out at 11v. maximum. And on the controller of another tablet, no more than 4.5V is written ... you can't guess, besides, sometimes the power from the battery can go straight to other nodes. And it is not known how those nodes will treat your 5v, instead of not higher than 4.3v. In general, here you need to look.

In addition, it is possible that the voltage from your charger to the contact pads of the battery sags on the wires, or just under load, then, in general, everything is in order) The main thing is to make measurements.

As for the choice of the maximum current of the power adapter, then, for good reason, you need to put an ammeter in the gap of the battery plus and see how much the device actually eats in different modes. In general, honest two or three amperes with a power reserve should be suitable.

If the backlight blinks and the sound crackles, try soldering a capacitor between the plus and minus of the battery contact pads on the device itself (the more the better), you can have two. One, for example, 3000mkf - the second 0.1mkf.

As another option, you can connect power to the contact pads of the battery through a DC-DC converter, setting the converter to a voltage of 4.2 V.

In general, everything can be beaten even easier: put on the plus from the adapter a silicon diode with a current margin, on silicon diode the voltage drop with direct connection is 0.6-0.7v, it turns out just the "battery" voltage.

We connect the soldered wires to the wire at the end of which the UBS connector.

The main thing is not to mix up the polarity. You can take a wire from an old phone and cut off the phone plug. Most often, the wires differ in color. Red is a plus, black is a minus, cut the remaining pieces shorter and insulate.

Step 2 Cover
It is necessary to provide for ways of attaching or staging our tablet. To wall mount our tablet, you need back cover drill a hole. We use a 6 mm metal drill for this. First you need to measure the middle and only then drill. And don't forget to cut a notch for the power cord. If the lid is metal, like mine, we cut it with scissors for metal, if the plastic - just with a knife.

If you have a flipper case for it, you can just put it on. For example like this:

Step 3 Programs
The functions of our tablet are completely dependent on installed programs... One of the options is a table clock with weather. I use for this free program Tablet Clock. You can download it through Google play link:

Usage tips:
At the first start, select the city for which to display the weather.
If your tablet has a navigation bar, it will be hidden when you launch the application. In this state, clicking anywhere on the screen will return that string without affecting the application in any way.

Clicking on the alarm icon will display the system window for setting the alarm.
Pressing on time brings up the application menu (the same as on the device menu button, if it is not there).

Pressing on weather switches to two different kinds forecast - for a day and a week.
If your device does not have a light sensor, but there is a camera, preferably a front camera, turn on the brightness control using the camera in the settings - the light will be measured by the camera every 30 seconds. If you run the application without a connected charger with this mode - time autonomous work shrink.

The time and date format is taken from the system.
If you want to reduce the brightness even less than your device allows, change the R, G, B values in the text color settings to lower values. For example, if you put 80 instead of FF for green (# 00FF00), the brightness will be 2 times lower.
You can choose to rotate the screen in the settings.

Another option is a digital photo frame. The application is called Digital Photo Frame. It's free too. It also has musical accompaniment. You can download it from Google play at the link.

Daydream for Android devices gives you the convenience of using your tablet to display beautiful photos. Moreover, the source of these pictures can be both your personal photos from social networks and photo hosting sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, 500px, Dropbox, and Google+), and local folders of the device. In addition, (and many will like this feature the most) you can take advantage of an endless stream of the best photo works from popular photo services.

Immediately after starting the program, you will be asked to indicate your interests, on the basis of which the photo feed will be formed.

Photos are displayed in full screen with a beautiful panning effect. On top of the image you see a clock (clicking on it brings up the dialog for setting an alarm) and brief information about the author of the picture. By default, each frame is shown for 10 seconds, but you can change this value in the settings. There you can also authorize Daydream in your accounts on social networks if you want to contemplate not the beautiful works of the masters of photography, but your pictures from Facebook, Instagram or Google+.

Tablet as a photo frame. What to make from an old tablet. A few easy steps to transform your tablet into a photo frame

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