Hardware

Hardware

What you need

• A Raspberry Pi 5 or Pi 4, or any 64-bit Linux machine with a display.
• A touchscreen. HomeCanvas is built for touch, with no mouse or keyboard.
• An Immich server on your network, for the photos.
• Optionally, a speaker: Bluetooth, or wired to the Pi, for music, timers and read-aloud.

What it's built and tested on

• Raspberry Pi 5 with a 10" DSI touch panel (1200×1920, used in landscape)
• Raspberry Pi OS (Debian 13 "trixie") with the labwc desktop

Other panels work: the installer finds the touchscreen and its display for you. If yours is fitted rotated, or touch lands in the wrong place, see INSTALL.md → Set up the touchscreen.

Good to know

• Give the Pi a fixed address on your router (a DHCP reservation) if you'll use Alexa to turn the screen off. Alexa remembers devices by address.
• Storage: photos are cached on disk so they load fast. An SSD or a good SD card helps. The cache can be cleared from Settings → Photos → Storage.
• Burn-in: the corner panels drift slowly, and the screen can turn itself off when idle (Settings → Display).