Interface · mod

A $35 Meta Portal, reborn as a Muni tracker

A discontinued Meta Portal bought for $35 now runs a Home Assistant dashboard, with a custom tracker for the N Judah stop on the wall.

Build sheet

Device page: Meta Portal →
Device: Meta Portal (discontinued)
Software: Home Assistant dashboard, kiosk mode
Built with: Codex
Cost: $35 used

Can I build this?Beginner · AI 5/5 · $0

Difficulty: Beginner
AI-buildability: 5/5
Time: A weekend
Cost: $0

Tools

Home AssistantCodex

Starter prompt

Based on "A $35 Meta Portal, reborn as a Muni tracker" on Afterware: https://afterware.xyz/p/a-35-meta-portal-reborn-as-a-muni-tracker

Write a Home Assistant dashboard for an old tablet or smart display running in kiosk mode. Show the next departures for one transit stop by pulling from a public transit API, refresh every 30 seconds, and use large high-contrast text for reading from across a room. Keep the layout to one screen with no scrolling.

Estimates based on the original write-up. How AI-buildability is scored. The maker built this with AI tools: more vibe-coded builds. Building with an AI assistant? Connect it to Afterware (free MCP server).

Story

Azad picked up a discontinued Meta Portal for $35 and pointed it at a new job. The smart display now runs a Home Assistant dashboard in kiosk mode, with a custom tracker for the N Judah stop in San Francisco's Muni system.

The code was written by Codex, per the post. The screen is the interface: the Portal's original hardware stays put, and the new software turns it into a wall-mounted info panel for the next train.

Worth stealing if you have an old smart display in a drawer. Kiosk-mode Home Assistant plus a small custom card is a weekend job, and the same approach works for any stop, bus line or dashboard you check every morning.

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