# 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.

- Category: Interface (mod)
- Device: [Meta Portal](https://afterware.xyz/d/meta-portal)
- Made by: [Azad Balabanian](https://x.com/Azadux) on X
- Original: https://x.com/Azadux/status/2115129653652557993
- On Afterware: https://afterware.xyz/p/a-35-meta-portal-reborn-as-a-muni-tracker

## Can I build this?

- Difficulty: Beginner
- AI-buildability: 5/5 (Almost all the work is software on a display you already own, with Codex writing the dashboard and tracker code.)
- Time: A weekend
- Cost: $0
- Tools: Home Assistant, Codex

Estimates based on the original write-up. How the AI-buildability score works: https://afterware.xyz/ai-buildability

## Build sheet

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

## 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.
```

## 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.

Tags: meta portal, home assistant, kiosk, smart display, transit tracker, codex, vibe-coded

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