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Use a Raspberry Pi to display a dashboard on a screen

Use a Raspberry Pi to display a dashboard on a screen

Install our kiosk script to automatically load your dashboard on a Raspberry Pi.
Richard Ingram avatar
Written by Richard Ingram. Updated over a week ago

Before you setting up Geckoboard on a Raspberry Pi, you'll need a Micro SD card (freshly formatted is best) with a capacity of at least 8 GB to store all its files and the Raspberry Pi OS. Depending on your setup, you might also need a Micro SD Adapter and a USB powered SD card reader.

On a different computer to your Raspberry Pi, you'll need to download:

Step 1: Set up your Micro SD card

  1. Connect your Micro SD card to the computer you downloaded the Raspberry Pi OS and balenaEtcher to.

  2. Unzip the Raspberry Pi OS.zip file, then load balenaEtcher.

  3. Click Select image and locate the unzipped .img file.

  4. Click Select drive and locate the Micro SD card. Click Flash. (You may need to type in your computer’s password). This process may take a few minutes.

    flashing your micro SD card with balenaEtcher

  5. Insert the micro SD card you’ve set up with the Raspberry Pi OS into the micro SD card slot.

Step 2: Set up Geckoboard on your Raspberry Pi

  1. Open the Terminal on your Raspberry Pi by clicking on the terminal icon along the top of the desktop.

    Raspberry Pi terminal icon

  2. Write the following in your terminal window:

    curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/geckoboard/device-scripts/master/raspberrypi -o kiosk_script; bash kiosk_script

    Then press Enter. This might take a little while to complete (at least 5 minutes). After a time you’ll see a progress bar.

  3. When it’s finished you’ll be prompted to reboot. Type sudo reboot into your terminal, then Enter to reboot.

  4. After your Raspberry Pi has rebooted you should now see a passcode on your screen.

    Passcode screen for sending a dashboard to a TV

  5. We'll now use the passcode to link to your chosen dashboard.

Step 3: Connect Geckoboard using Send to TV

To use Send to TV to display your Geckoboard dashboard, follow these steps:

  1. On a different device to your Raspberry Pi, log into Geckoboard and click Send to TV in the top right corner of your screen.

    login to your geckoboard account

  2. Enter your passcode under Step 3 in the window that appears. If you already have screens paired, you'll need to click Add new screen first.

    add a new screen modal

  3. Click Connect. The screen is now connected and should be displaying the dashboard you’re currently on.

    To change which dashboard or dashboard loop is displayed or to connect more devices, click Send to TV.

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