How to use an Android phone or an Android tablet as a touch display for a Raspberry Pi?

Last Updated on September 8, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

  • We failed to this date to find Raspberry Pi displays for our application which fits our needs.
  • Many of those are small and have a small resolution. And the bigger ones are often very expensive.
  • Furhtermore, the power management of Pis is limited for external displays.
  • On the other hand, Android tablets and phones are very inexpensive, often have excellent displays, an excellent power management.
  • They can be found cheap on eBay.
  • The battery lasts often for more than 24h.
  • An Android phone would be our preferred choice as a display for a mobile single board computer bases for instance on a Pi zero 2 w.

It has been shown previously that an iPad pro tablet can be used over usb-c as a Pi display:

  • But an iPad pro costs on ebay between 200 – 300 USD.
  • Who spents that much for a Pi display?
  • Android tablets are much cheaper.
  • We have suggested here this solution:

At 07:03 in the above video it is showw how to do this with Android devices.

  • Unfortunately, we do currently not have time to go through this step by step an try it. But maybe someone else has time and is interested in it?
  • It is also possible to start this by doing some experiments with the information we list here.

Instead of an usb-c connection, we can start with an ethernet cable.

  • Using a usb-c to ethernet adapter and connect it over ethernet is eventually easier. For ethernet there is software available.

Here is shown how to connect a Pi to a LinuxPC directly over an ethernet cable:

  • The author is using a static ip adress for both devices
  • and then connects over ssh to the Pi from the Linux PC.
  • We can for instance choose 2 Pis and connect those over usb 3 to ethernet adapter to the ethernet cable of the second Pi which runs Ubuntu to reproduce the above example.
  • If we are using a static ip adress, it is eventually simpler.

If we have an ethernet connection over cable from a Pi to a PC we can connect to the Pi via SSH:

https://www.elektronik-kompendium.de/sites/raspberry-pi/2011111.htm

  • So we should theoretically be able to establish a remote desktop connection over this direct ethernet connection from Pi to PC.

We miss a developer who makes a YouTube video which explains and shows this all step by step.

  • Unfortunately do not have the time to do it by ourselves, but we miss an instruction which shows this and tests this.
  • And it eventually can be done much easier for a skilled person who is familiar with remote desktops, SSH and static ip adresses, than we can do it.

In the following video it is shown how to use a remote desktop xrdp software over ssh to control a Pi (at 5 min in the video)

And in theory we have a Pi with an Android tablet or Android phone as a display over ethernet or usb – c cable. These are some suggestions to solve this problem. The instruction with the Termux app shown in the video abouve is probably the best, since it is from an expert in this field. If someone is interested to solve this problem with a demo or several demos, this would be highly desirable.