I don’t have a real screen but I just updated my esp8266 to a xiao esp32c6 for my home assistant box. I wanted zigbe and matter access but half the things I wanted to interact with are proprietary, so I need a new hub and to rebuy a few things.

Just use esp home its stupid easy don’t really have to do anything besides point it at your pin outs and label them. You can probably buy everything you want and add on more stuff. The largest cost will be a eink display probably starting at 50usd for a tiny one, you can get esp boards in 5 packs for maybe 10 USD. But I recommend xiao just because I recently bought from them and am blown away with what feels like a premium board compared to the older ones I have. They all kind of have their own use cases and quirks, I wanted the c5 for better WiFi but the c6 came in a 3 pack for much cheaper.

I use a 16x2 LCD display you get in starter kits made for kids and just simple buttons and splurged on a decent temp sensor. Its also controls a led strip under the counter that used to be controlled with a remote but I hated using the remote. Just be careful you pretty much need a separate power source for that and to make sure the pins don’t get fried by 5v. I’ll stay awake at night thinking over if I wired it correctly even though I know I did so it feels weird trusting that because I’m an idiot.

I plan on buying a 5 pack of 1 inch oled screens and upgrading it, I just have so many other little things to buy on my list I haven’t gotten back around to finishing it.

Edit* you can also just use an old android phone the home assistant apk has a setting for it. You can also buy a pi or use a old computer, but esphome is cheaper, gives you more flexibility, and is smaller so you can design and make a smaller product and choose if you want to power it via USB or just directly wire it into something. The Xiao’s I got have battery terminals and handle charging very slowly so ive been excited to try that out.

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Yes, using cheap Amazon tablets about 5-7 years ago. They never got used. It’s just more convenient to use the home assistant app on your phone or Siri.

I personally use retired devices around the home, they are put on my IoT vLAN and wam bam thank you man I have a kiosk.

Generally speaking, I use the app.

I do, however, have miscellaneous tablets that are in rooms to show information and have a designated account just for that room’s controls. I also have a wall-mounted touch panel that was from a pro control system that I picked up cheap that I rooted and set HA to open at boot, but I don’t recommend this route unless you happen to get/see one cheap and know exactly what can/can’t be done with it.

I have a RPi that I got back when they were cheap paired with a 7in touch screen mounted in a 3d printed cage on the wall. It’s used multiple times daily by the family for light controls mainly, but there’s definitely more that I could be doing with it

I have tablets in my home, with batteries (as fallback in case of power loss - my HA instance and router/APs are on UPS).

I’m using older (thus cheaper) Samsung tablets. Fully Kiosk works well, but recently I’ve started adding kiosk features to the HA Android app (no public PRs yet so it’s a few months away) to add some features (mostly sleep/wake via audio/camera motion, sleep screens, default pages for the specific instances etc.), so I can ditch FK.

Battery bloat is an issue - my Tab S6 is on its third battery (though admittedly it is nearly 7 years old now, got it January 2020), and my Tab S5e lasted 3.5 years until its battery started getting spicy. I’ve switched both to LineageOS to reduce heating + have more control over charging/discharging, and that so far seems to have helped. Unfortunately Samsung tablets don’t support running off of USB without a battery (they bootloop if no cell is detected), so pulling the battery and running them off a wall outlet isn’t really an option.

To me, a Pi or similar SBC with a touchscreen just seemed like a very hacky solution. I rent so I can’t add a box in the wall for the board and PSU, and tablets are just more elegant. Throw in a 3D printed enclosure/mount, and you’re golden.

I use mine regularly, especially since they wake whenever I walk past them.

E-ink, unless you’re writing your own frontend, I’d recommend against. There isn’t really a good eink theme for HA at the moment, and most panels that are good sized (10-13-16") cost a fortune (£250-300 just for the display, and you’d still need the brains). Meanwhile older tablets in good condition go for £70-150, and you get the full kit for that price, plus generally, brilliant displays (just limit your search to AMOLED tablets).