Digital Picture Frames & E-InkAdvanced

Turn a digital photo frame into a family wall dashboard

A photo frame with factory root over ADB, turned into a family wall dashboard

Full build guide

View original on GitHub View original on X View @lito_ordes's post on X View wesbos/photo-frame-dashboard on GitHub

Posted: Oct 14, 2026
GitHub stars: 9 (GitHub)

Turn a digital photo frame into a family wall dashboard — Demo by Lito (@lito_ordes), posted 2026-10-15 · Watch on X

Build sheet

Parts: XORO CPF 10PF 10.1" digital photo frame (1920x1200, Android 10 eng build), Computer with ADB for setup
AI model or service: Claude Code (the repo is a guide for coding agents like it)
Difficulty: Advanced
Accounts needed: Planify-Backend reachable over HTTPS, plus an account made in Planify-APP
License: MIT

Parts list

XORO CPF 10PF 10.1" digital frame (Allwinner A133, 1 GB RAM, 1920×1200, Android 10 eng build) [9]
USB-C data cable (Must carry data, not only charge) [10]
Computer with adb, JDK 17+ and the Android SDK (Tested on Linux) [11]

Prices and notes: Parts and requirements

Steps

Skill level: Advanced

Phase 1: confirm it is exactly this hardware and software (identity checks)
Phase 2: verified eMMC backup (SHA-256 of every piece)
Phase 3: choose the app and backend
Phase 4: configure and build
Phase 5: install and make the frame a kiosk (Device Owner)
Phase 6: isolate the frame with the firewall
Phase 7: updates over Wi-Fi from one IP
Phase 8: boot logo, screen schedule and power
Phase 9: first use (Wi-Fi, sign in, settings)
Phase 10: final checks [19]

Full instructions: View original

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Overview

Lito (@lito_ordes) replaced the maker's app on a 10.1" XORO CPF 10PF photo frame with a native Android dashboard: a split-flap clock, Open-Meteo weather, a swipeable week calendar, routines, tasks and a dim night clock. He calls it fully compatible with Claude Code and says the native Android app, with everything superfluous removed, took less than one 5-hour Claude session; the project started from Wes Bos's photo-frame-dashboard. The repo (eusonlito/Planify-Dashboard, MIT) is written as a step-by-step guide for your own coding agent.

What it does

Turns a digital photo frame into a family wall screen: time, weather, events, routines and tasks at a glance, without the maker’s app or a subscription. [1]
Today screen: a split-flap clock, the next event with a countdown, the weather (now, hour by hour and the coming days), upcoming events, today’s routines and tasks. [2]
A week calendar you swipe through, a weather page with a 24-hour view per day, task lists in columns, and a dim night clock outside screen hours. [3]
Keeps showing the last data when the network drops: content refreshes every 5 minutes and the weather every 30. [4]
The repo is written mainly as a guide for coding agents such as Claude Code or Codex to build their own version, the same way the creator started from wesbos/photo-frame-dashboard. [5]

The creator's config

Copied word for word from the creator's repository, at the commit linked in each source.

Phase 4 configuration (comments in Spanish, from the README) [6]

cp android/planify.properties.example android/planify.properties
#   planify.baseUrl=https://tu-backend/        URL de la API (obligatoria para la release)

cp scripts/config.example scripts/config.local
#   ADB_FROM=<ip-de-tu-pc>                     única IP que podrá usar ADB por Wi-Fi (vacía: solo USB)
#   FRAME_TIMEZONE=Europe/Madrid               opcional (por defecto, la de tu PC)
#   FRAME_NTP=pool.ntp.org                     opcional

Use-case ideas

Point the app at another data source by reimplementing the three backend requests it needs (sign-in, events and tasks). [7]
Adapt it to another Android 10 frame with root over ADB: the kiosk, per-UID firewall, screen schedule and cached data layer carry over almost unchanged. [8]

Parts and requirements

Part	Spec / notes	Needed	Price
XORO CPF 10PF 10.1" digital frame [9]	Allwinner A133, 1 GB RAM, 1920×1200, Android 10 eng build	Required
USB-C data cable [10]	Must carry data, not only charge	Required
Computer with adb, JDK 17+ and the Android SDK [11]	Tested on Linux	Required

Network: 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi with WPA2 (the frame’s chip has no WPA3 or 5 GHz); a guest network is better
Computer for setup: Computer with adb, JDK 17 or later and the Android SDK (compileSdk 37); tested on Linux
Planify-Backend reachable over HTTPS, plus an account made in Planify-APP: only if you use this app as is [12]
Requirements source: [13]

How it works

The frame ships with an Android 10 `eng` build that gives root over ADB, so no exploit is needed. A native Kotlin/Jetpack Compose app runs as a Device Owner kiosk and reads from a backend plus Open-Meteo, and a per-UID firewall lets only the dashboard reach the internet. Steps: 1) verify the eng build has root (adb shell id returns uid=0); 2) make a verified eMMC backup (SHA-256 of every piece); 3) pick a backend (Planify, Google Calendar, CalDAV or Home Assistant); 4) install the app as Device Owner; 5) set up the firewall and the screen schedule. Built on a XORO CPF 10PF. Other frames need a different root path; see the Wes Bos guide for other models.

Layer	Component	Runs on
Dashboard app	Native Kotlin and Jetpack Compose dashboard, read-only [14]	Android app (android/)
Kiosk	Device Owner with lock task (no home or recents buttons) [15]	Frame
Data	Planify-Backend (PHP + SQLite) API [16]	Planify-Backend
Weather	Open-Meteo, no API key [17]	Open-Meteo
Isolation	Per-UID firewall: only the dashboard reaches the internet [18]	Frame

Setup effort

Skill level: Advanced

scripts/install.sh runs phases 2 and 4 to 8 in one go and can be re-run; the README says to understand each phase before launching it. [19]

Limits and caveats

Many similar frames use the same A133 SoC or Rockchip boards but change the build (many are user builds without root), partitions, touch and Wi-Fi. [20]
1 GB of RAM and heat: continuous animations pushed the frame to 72 °C; pre-rendered frames keep it around 60 °C. [21]
The frame’s Wi-Fi has no WPA3 or 5 GHz, and its clock loses the time without a network. [22]

Based on

Take over a cheap Android photo frame and run your own family dashboard by @wesbos.

Hardware

XORO CPF 10PF 10.1" digital photo frame (1920x1200, Android 10 eng build)
Computer with ADB for setup

Credits and links

Lito (@lito_ordes): Creator
Wes Bos: photo-frame-dashboard: the idea and method it builds on
License: MIT

Sources

This page is a short summary written by HardwareLab. Build steps, code and photos belong to the creator; follow “View original” for the full project.

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