Interactive Multimedia Smart Coffee Table

Hello reader, and thank you for stopping by. I hope life is treating you well.

So welcome to my Instructable for my Interactive Smart Table project. It has been quite a while I visited Intructables as life got in the way, but really happy to be back and to return with a pretty fun project. This has been one of my most favorite projects I have taken on, yet it when planning this, it was going to be very different. Basically after redecorating my flat, I wanted to replace my existing coffee table which I picked up from a freebie website and has served me well over the past few years, but I wanted a change and have something a little different.

So in a nutshell and over the course of an evening with a lot of researching and head scratching, my plan went from…

1. building an Infinity table…
2. then to a screen within a table with different live and static wallpapers (including an infinity effect (but obviously without the depth perception effect a real infinity table would have offered) all stored on a thumb drive…
3. then to a secondary screen to miracast from a tablet…
4. then almost finally, I settled on using an old laptop plugged into the TV using a touchscreen overlay frame (which I knew the technology existed to make a home made touchscreens, but not like this and so easily) …
5. then made one last decision, to make the table top, tilt. So I had finally come up with a final plan of an interactive smart table which could also be used primarily as, well, a coffee table.

When I though through the final idea, I figured that this could be a pretty straight forward and relatively inexpensive project (compared to “made for purpose” interactive tables) that would end up being incredibly useful, and I have always had a love for gadgets and thing that do more than one thing.

So let me talk about cost for a moment. My table measures 108cm (42.52in)in length, 65cm (25.59in) width and 46cm high. This by design simple because of the footprint it would take up in my flat, specificity, where the table would sit around the seating area, the height of my sofas and to closely match my old coffee table that was the perfect size. The smart table also has a 40" TV inside of the tabletop, the biggest screen I could use for it to be practical, but to keep the table the size I needed. From looking online, the few interactive or smart tables that are available to purchase like the 33” Infinity games table for around £1000 which is smaller and only plays games, and at the size my table, others sell from anything from £4000 for something while pretty cool, are also pretty basic. Others I have seen with similar specs to mine are upwards of £7000/£8000... or more. But these tables either run on a skinned version of Windows, Android, or run on their own proprietary software and operating systems. And many of these are either fixed flat on a table style and cannot tilt, or not actually tables and are fixed in an angled position. It wasn’t until I can across a child’s educational interactive table used in schools, that I came up with making my table tilt. My table runs on Full Windows 11 Pro, a free Android emulator from a company called Bluestacks (AKA MSI App Player App) and a secondary Android OS which is used for non-touchscreen and uses a cheap amazon Fire tablet, essentially using it as a wireless trackpad, mouse, keyboard. Also as I’m using a smart TV instead of just a monitor, I have all of the functionality of the TV such as streaming services, the available apps and can also hook up an aerial, cable or a satellite receiver.

More on computer side of things later because I want to get back to cost, and is one of the main reasons for writing this Instructable. It’s not unreasonable to say that I have essentially made a £6000-£8000 interactive smart table… for less than £500, in fact it actually cost me around £300. This was using reclaimed wood I already had from a storage unit I made and vinyl wrapped about 4 years ago but no longer had a need for, paint I had left over from redecorating, a 13” laptop that was sitting in a draw for ages, and a soundbar that was given to me and had sitting in my office which I didn’t really use much (the soundbar was not a necessity for the table, but I had it and not using it much, so I figured “what the heck”, make the table the best I could. The TV I got from a freebie website that someone was giving away, and when I asked to be considered and explained what I was going to use it for, they said absolutely I could have it, as long as I sent them a demo of it all working (more than happy to do that). The Fire tablet I had already bought a few months back and traded in an older one. The only things I actually did buy was the touchscreen overlay frame, £190 for a 40” TV, a cut-to-size sheet of 5mm clear Perspex (acrylic) with a light grey tint and polished edges for £50 (I did look around to see if anyone had any scrap or unwanted Acrylic sheet, but I only found someone who had a piece that was to small), and the other thing I bought was a 16GB RAM module upgrade for the 8GB RAM laptop to run all of the software smoothly. I nearly purchased some draw runners, until I remembered I had a couple in my bits-and-bobs box. They were a bit long, but I made them work as you will see later. For this Instructable, I did actually price this up using all new materials and equipment, and with hew timber, a cheap 40” smart TV, a reconditioned 13” laptop, a cheap but decent quality soundbar, hardware and an estimation of the amount of paint I used, the total would have come in around £700 give or take, still a lot better that £7000 I think you would agree. Plus you get the added benefit and satisfaction of building something yourself. But there is always somebody somewhere giving away good condition, usable, working free stuff they no longer need on the freebie websites, friends, family, neighbours, and its really not difficult to find TV’s, wood, laptops, HDMI cables, paint etc. that people no longer need, and wish to gift it to someone rather than sell it.

So, with all that said (and if you’re still with me… fingers crossed), lets get on with the build itself. This Instructable will mainly focus on the table itself more than the software, operating systems and user interface, manly because the computer side of things is so adaptable that you can either keep it simple and use it as a secondary screen without the touch interface, or just go nuts and make your own UI like I did. But I will add a bonus Instructable at the end of the table build giving some basic “how to’s” of the UI I am using to get you started if you want to give it a try. This is a fun, not to taxing build that doesn’t really need much experience in woodwork of electronics. Not many tools are really needed, and depending on where or how you want to source your materials, this is a fairly cost effective project too for what you get. And hey, with all the electronic bells and whistles aside... it is also, I hope that you will agree, a pretty stylish and sturdy coffee table too. It also has some virtual tablecloths that I cast to the big screen from the Fire tablet. I cast them from the tablet instead of using the laptop so the touchscreen doesn’t get triggered with plate and cups etc. Obviously not fully functional tablecloths, but it’s a fun feature and looks pretty cool. Overall, a table like this with built in TV, music player, photo viewer, video player, work station, gaming table, and a table with an easy access storage area could be great as a space-saving piece of furniture if you have a small living space and, if like me you have eyesight issues, a great option to see on-screen content without waring eye glasses all of the time.

Some final notes before I get started.

I will leave a small section at the end of this Instructable talking about things I may had done differently, things I may add and any other tips I can think of that maybe helpful. One of the most important aspects of this table was the Perspex sheet. The computer stuff aside, this had to be a fully functional coffee table and needed to be able to put things onto the table top. I couldn’t go and put stuff like plates, mugs or anything else directly onto a TV screen as it would get damaged in no time, so I sheet of Perspex/acrylic was very important. Having it 5mm (0.19685in) thick was an important factor for a couple of reasons, sturdiness so it wouldn’t flex if something was placed on it, and 5mm was the max thickness I could use with the touchscreen overlay frame for it to properly and accurately detect where the Perspex/screen was touched. I also ordered the Perspex with a light grey tint, light enough so that the screen image is not effected, but dark enough not to see that there is actually a TV hidden behind it when it’s switch off.

The Touchscreen overlay frame comes in different sizes for different size TV’s, so you do have a certain amount of freedom in making this table larger of smaller, although if you did go larger, then the table legs will probably need to be taller in order to get a good tilting angle and be at a reasonable height to be used comfortably. There is also the ability to use any operating system you like, Windows, Android, Linux, Apple, but the thing to keep in mind with the touchscreen overlay frame is that you need to make sure it is compatible with your chosen OS. The one I have chosen only works with Windows. As I mentioned earlier, the wood I used for this came from a storage unit I built a while back, but after redecorating recently, I had no need for it and as I didn’t paint it and only vinyl wrapped it, the vinyl came of very easily and only had to clean of a little bit of leftover adhesive residue. And nowadays with wood being quite expensive in my neck of the woods (no pun intended), I always try to keep a small stockpile of reusable wood where I can. A final note that maybe useful, if I had managed to find a free or cheap sheet of clear Perspex/acrylic, the chances are that it wouldn’t have been tinted, especially with the right colour. So what I would have done would have been to get a cheap roll of light grey or light black car window tint film, and stuck it to what would be the inner side of the Perspex using some soapy water in a spray bottle and a squeegee.

I have written this Instructable from the view of how I did mine, and not a “what you should do”, because this whole project can easily be adapted to suit your needs or style. You may not want a bottom shelf, you may want slight “D” shaped ends on the table, hey you may not even want the table to be used as a computer and have it simply as a coffee table with a kind of floating table top. Either way, I hope that you take this as a helpful guide and get to take at least something useful away from it. When all said and done, all this essentially is, is a table with pretty simple yet modern design with a TV put inside the top, plugged into a computer, noting more, nothing less. I have built a lot of stuff in the past, but this is the first time I have built something like this and the second time I have actually built a table from scratch, the other being a table for my garden decking. I like to work with round numbers, but as you will see from my measurements, that didn’t quite happen here as even though I did draw up some plans, I mainly was making this up as I went along so my round numbers became I little bit, shall I say, mis-shapen. Coming from the U.K. I prefer to use metric with my measurements, but because everyone has their own preferred flavour, I will try to add imperial conversions too.

Below you will find a detailed layout of how the table was built with all of the tips, advice and notes (the long version), and in step 10 I will also add a bullet point version (the quick version).

Oh by the way, a lot of this Instructable was put together and the YouTube video was edited using this very table. Anyway I’ve waffled on long enough, so without further delay… lets get to it.

Tools I used:

To build this table, you really can use very few basic tools like a pencil, tape measure, a good wood saw, a hammer and a drill. Even though I used more than these, they were by no means specialist tools. Here’s what I used…

Power drill/driver and selection of drill and Philips driver bits

35mm (1.378in) and 16mm (0.6299in) Forstner drill bits

Small selection of Philips head screws

Handheld circular saw

Jigsaw

2 long ratchet wood clamps

2 small wood clamps

Tape measure

Ruler

Pencil

Triangle ruler (for 45 degree cuts)

A straight edge (I have a 150cm (59.06in) length of scrap aluminum I use)

Nail gun with 35mm (1.378in) nails/tacks

Hammer

Flush wire cutters

A Dremel with a cutting wheel

Titebond 2 wood glue (Titebond 2 is my preferred choice but any good wood glue will do)

Fine grit sand paper and sanding block

Masking tape

2 paint brushes (one to evenly spread the glue, one for painting)

Small size foam paint roller (foam for a smoother finish)

Small roller paint tray

Black and white wood paint (satin finish)

Small tube of wood filler

And I did borrow a chop saw to quickly do the four 45 degree cuts needed.

And remember… measure twice… cut once, or in my case, measure many times. Also, if using MDF, cut in a well ventilated area, and wear a mask. MDF is not my choice of wood overall, I prefer ply of LDF, but I got it for free when I made the storage unit 4 years ago, and didn’t want to dispose of perfectly good, usable wood.

Materials and Components:

JVC 40 inch smart TV

HP 13 inch laptop (with HDMI port to connect to the TV)

Amazon Fire HD 8” tablet (12 generation with mirarcast ability)

DMD Soundbar

Adjustable phone/tablet desktop holder

Cut-to-size 5mm (0.19685in) clear Perspex with light grey tint and polished edges

Pair of 450mm (18in) draw runners

2x flat door bolts 63mm (2.5in)

2x M10 120mm (4.7in) bolts with 4 washers and 2 nylock nuts

2x HDMI cables 1.5m 59in) and 1m (39.37in)

1x USB charging cable (for Fire HD8 tablet)

2x air vents 250mm (9.9in) x 80mm (3.2in)

8x round air vents 35mm (1.378in)

Chengying 40in 10 point infrared touchscreen overlay frame (plug & play).....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07H5NG5KZ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

NOTE: The measurements below are for the cut pieces to make the table. As mentioned, the wood/timber I used was from a storage unit I built and recently took apart, so the various pieces of wood I got from it were different sizes and didn’t take measurements down before I cut them, but you should have a clear idea of what would be needed to make your own. In regards to the size of the TV, I mentioned that I have a 40 inch screen. But, not all TV’s with the same screen size are created equal. By this I mean the actual physical dimensions will differ… height, width, depth (thickness) so this will need to be taken into account when sizing the table, especially the table top tray it lays in, as well as the Perspex/acrylic sheet that covers it.

Table Frame

Measurements Key:

(x#) = Quantity… ##mm x ##mm x ##mm = Thickness, Width, Length

1. Frame sides (x2) 68mm x 68mm x 650mm (2.7in x 2.7in x 25.6in)

2. Frame back (x1) 68mm x 68mm x 1080mm (2.7in x 2.7in x 42.5in)

3. Lower shelf supports (x2) 38mm x 22mm x 1080mm (1.5in x 0.86in x 42.5in)

4. Table top rest (1) 38mm x 22mm x 1080mm (1.5in x 0.86in x 42.5in)

5. Table top bolt rests s(x2) 18mm x 65mm x 140mm (0.7in x 2.6in x 5.5in)

6. Legs (x4 ) 68mm x 68mm x 395mm (2.7in x 2.7in x 15.5in)

6A. Front leg panels (x2) 22mm x 68mm x 460mm (0.68in x 2.7in x 18in)

7. Lower shelf side panels (x2) 18mm x 60mm x 415mm MDF (0.7in x 2.36in x 16.3in)

8. Lower shelf (x1 1) 15mm x 485mm x 1080mm MDF (0.6in x 19in x 42.5in)

Table Top Tray

9. Front/back panels (x2 ) 18mm x 70mm x 929mm MDF (0.7in x 2.75in x 36.5in)

10. Side panels (x2) 18mm x 70mm x 559mm MDF (0.7in x 2.75in x 22in)

11. Front/back facias (x2) 3mm x 93mm x 935mm Hardboard (0.1181in x 3.6in x 37in)

12. Side facias (x2) 3mm x 93mm x 565mm Hardboard (0.1181in x 3.6in x 22in)

13. Base. (x1) 18mm x 565mm x 935mm MDF (0.7in x 22in x 37in)

Soundbar Box

14. Back/base (x2) 15mm x 70mm x 650mm MDF (0.6in x 2.75in x 25.6in)

15. Side Panels (x2) 15mm x 70mm x 70mm MDF (0.6in x 2.75in x 2.75in)

Sliding Utility Tray

16. Base (x1) 15mm x 250mm x 930mm MDF (0.6in x 9.85in x 36.6in)

17. Sides and dividers (x7) 15mm x 30mm x 220mm MDF (0.6in x 1.2in x 8.6in)

18. Front/back panels (x2) 15mm x 30mm x 930mm MDF (0.6in x 1.2in x 36.6in)

Perspex sheet, light grey tint (x1) 5mm x 559mm x 929mm (0.197in x 22in x 36.5in)

A quick side note. Building the table top tray first was important, as this would define the actual size of the table as a whole. Even though I was measuring a lot, full transparency, I did actually end up making my tolerances a little too tight. So when I did a final test fitment before painting, I did have to do a little sanding down also taking into account the thickness of the paint to be applied. All this to say that if I had built the outer frame first, then the table top tray only to find it was too small or something… well it would not have been a good day. Anyway, lets continue.

I started by laying one of the largest sheets of MDF on the ground and laying the TV on top.

Then I measured around so there was 18mm all around the TV on the base board so that the TV would fit snug once the 18mm side panels were fitted.

While the TV was in the laying position, I also measured the height (technically the thickness of the TV as it’s laying down) so I could cut the side panels would all be the same height as the TV’s outer bezel. The Perspex sheet would sit on top of the side panels taking all of the weight, but also rest on the bezel of the TV as well so the actual screen would be as close as it could get to the Perspex for the touchscreen frame, and to reduce any screen glare reflection.

Having the numbers needed, I measured, marked then cut the MDF base and side panels with the hand circular saw, then rubbing down the edges with a sheet of 180 grit sandpaper and sanding block.

I then laid the MDF base on the floor, put the TV back on and placed the side panels on to make sure fitment was okay before gluing and nailing. Happy with the fitment, I applied wood glue to the side panels, did full coverage of the glue with a paint brush, fitted the sides to the base and put the Perspex sheet on top with a couple of tool boxes (The Perspex was new and still wrapped) to apply weight while the glue dried.

After about an hour, I removed the Perspex, then the TV realising that I needed to make an addition to the base (more to follow), then flipped the tray upside down and drove some brad nails all around the edges into the side panels with the nail gun.

Back to the addition I needed to make. Realising that at some point in time I may need to remove the Perspex and TV, and with the Perspex going to be recessed and flush fit, I needed to make a little something to help easily remove them both. A lever or plunger of sorts would do the trick. So where the top of the TV was located and in the middle of the tray, I cut a small square hole, then made a “T” shape piece and small square using some 18mm MDF. I slotted the “T” shape through the hole, glued and screwed the square piece to the end if the “T” shape. What I now had was a small push lever that when not on use would hang down out of sight, and when I would need to remove the TV and/or Perspex, I would simply push the lever up that would raise the top end of the TV which in turn would push the Perspex up too. A cheap, simple solution using MDF scraps.

The next job was to measure, mark and cut some lengths of 3mm hardboard. These would be attached to the outside of the side panels and would sit 5mm higher than the side panels to act as a lip to keep the acrylic in place and make a flush fit. They would also hide the side panels to base joins and give the whole thing a neater and smother look. These hardboard stripes, when cut, were glued and nailed into place, with the Perspex sheet in position just to make sure the fitment was good.

A few more jobs to do for the tray. First off, air vents for heat dispersal from the TV. I had a couple of black rectangle vent covers in my bits-n-bobs draw, but needed something to go on what would be the front of the table top where the bottom of the TV where some of it’s heat vent were located. I purchased a pack of 10 small black round vent covers 35mm diameter, which were no more than the price of a cup of coffee. Noting where the air vents on the TV were, I cut 2 large square holes with a drill and jigsaw in the bottom of the tray, then 8 equally spaced holes using a 35mm Forstner drill bit in the front side panel. Vents would be fitted after painting. As it turned out, one of these round vents would serve a duel purpose, line of sight access for the TV’s infrared receiver for the remote control transmitter beam.

One last thing I wanted was a mounting bracket for the Fire tablet and tablet holder stand. Later, I would attach an adjustable phone tablet holder stand to the Fire HD8 tablet using some 3M tape so I could leave the tablet in place and tilt the table without the tablet falling off or for me having to remove it every time. For the bracket, I simply used a piece of 3mm hardboard, cut it to the size I wanted, about double the length of the stand leg, and about the same height. I spread some wood glue to both back end sides of the board, placed the holder stand dead center of the front of the table top tray, placed the glued board over the stands leg, then clamped both ends in place leaving the stand in place too. An hour later, I tacked in some brad nails with the nail gun onto the board/bracket where I glued, trimmed off the protruding nails with a wire flush cutter, rubbed down the ends of the nails where I cut, then slid the holder in and out a few times, leaving it back in place when I finished so the hardboard would take the holders shape more.

The next Job was the soundbar housing. Lets move to step 2.

Measurements for the soundbar housing was dependent on the size of the soundbar I had, while also not making it too big. The soundbar I used had rubber feet to which I’ll say, if you was to opt for a soundbar and it doesn’t have rubber feet, place a piece of rubber sheet or similar for the speaker to sit on to cut down on vibrations. It also has 2 keyhole shaped wall mounting holes on the back which I made use of as fixing the sound bar to a couple of screws would keep the bar in place when the table is in its tilted position.

I measured, marked and with the circular saw, I cut 2 lengths of MDF both the same size and about 5cm’s longer than the soundbar for easy placement and removal, and access to the buttons on the side of the bar should I need them. On on piece that would be the back I cut out a square hole where the soundbars output sockets were located to feed the power and HDMI cables through.

I then measured and cut 2 end pieces, then glued and nailed the pieces together to make the back, base and sides of the housing. After flipping the table top tray upside down, I then glued the speaker housing to the base of the tray, centred and to the front of the tray. I placed a couple of heavy items on to of the housing and waited an hour or so for the glue to bond.

After the hour, I screwed in a couple of “L” brackets to either side of the soundbar housing and a couple along the back and screwed it to the table tops base. I flipped the top over and drove in a few nails for good measure. Maybe overkill, but I know that the whole thing is solid and will take the weight of the soundbar, sound vibrations and movement when tilting the table top tray.

Using a length of scrap cardboard, I made a template to measure out the length between the soundbar’s wall mounting holes. Then transferred this over to the back panel of the housing, measured, marked and drilled 2 pilot holes for 2 Phillips head screws (cross head screws) to mount the bar on to. I measured the holes so that the soundbar would hook on to the screws and drop down enough to lock in place, while being able for the soundbars rubber feet to sit on the base panel of the housing. I screwed in the 2 screws and did some test fitments, then removed them for painting.

Back to the tray, noting where the input/output sockets of the TV were located. I cut two holes to feed the power and 2 HDMI cables through, then used some sandpaper to round off the edges of the holes to save on cable ware.

The table top tray build was almost complete, but one more thing was needed before painting and that was to decide where to drill the 2 holes on either side of the tray for the two M10 120mm bolts so the tray could tilt. Location was key because the screen needed to be in a comfortable reaching distance, and be able to tilt to a comfortable viewing and usage angle without being hindered by the lower shelf and utility tray. I briefly put the soundbar mounting screws back in and hooked the soundbar on, then placed the table top tray over hanging onto my kitchen work surface. I gently moved the tray back and forth to find it balancing point, taking into account that the heaviest part of the TV, which was at the bottom of the TV and towards the front of the tray.

When I was happy, I marked off the balancing points, chose one side to measure from the front of the tray to one of the marks, then re-marked it on the other side so both holes would be equally located (from front of the tray to the marks I made, and in the middle between the top and bottom of the tray). Once the hole mark measurements were double checked to make sure they were equal, I drilled the holes with a small drill bit to make pilot holes for later on.

With that done, I removed the soundbar and holding screws, then laid the tray back down onto the floor, upside down, ready to make the table frame.

With the tray on the floor, I started to measure and mark the back and 2 side frame lengths keeping in mind that the sides needed a small gap in-between them and the tray for movement, and a larger gap between the tray and the back length factoring in the thickness of the tray and making sure it wouldn’t catch on the frame when tilting. I used 8 washers, laying two back to back, then placed the 2 lots of 2 on either side to act as spacers. I would later use 4 of these washers to go between the frame and tray for smooth movement when tilting the table. I also used a 15mm length of MDF to act as a spacer along the back between the tray and back length.

When I was happy with the measurements, I marked off the frame lengths for a straight cut and then using my angled ruler, marked off either side of the back length and one end of each side lengths to make 45 degree cuts. These angle would make a nicer looking finish, but more importantly would go to make all 3 lengths sit on top of the legs for stronger structural support.

Then using the same size timber, I also measured and marked off the 4 legs. Next, I gathered all of the lengths and used a chop saw to make all of the cuts, double checking that all of the angle cuts would be in the correct orientation before cutting. This was not so important for the side lengths as the timber was square (equal on all sides), but the back length was important as each end would be the opposite of each other (think of it as a kind of triangle type shape with a flat top).

With the wood cut, I cleaned up the sawn edges with some 180 grit sandpaper then put the frame lengths back into position around the tray using the washers and 15mm MDF length as spacers again to check that everything was good. Then I spread some glue on the ends of the side lengths and joined the sides and back lengths together then left them for an hour for the glue to dry a bit.

Next was to fit the legs. Using some 50mm x 50mm (1.96in x 1.96in) “L” brackets, I placed the legs standing up on the floor and screwed on the brackets. I used 2 brackets per back leg and 1 bracket per front leg. Once done. I spread some glue on the bracket ends of the back legs and attached them to the back of the frame, making sure they were square on, and screwing in the brackets to the frame. That was followed by doing the same to the front 2 legs.

One other thing I felt needed doing was to put a couple of thick 80mm screws through the back side of the back frame though to the side frame pieces. I did this by making a small pilot hole going in straight and only a few millimetres deep, withdrew the drill, then went in with a longer thin drill bit at a 45 degree angle. I went in again with a slightly larger drill bit, then went in with a much larger drill bit only going in a few millimeters again to make the holes countersunk. I screwed in the screws making sure the screw heads were fully in the countersunk holes. I would put some wood filler in these holes later. NOTE: Take extra care to not drill right through to the other side of the side frame, and equal care to make sure the screws used do not go through the other side as well. I did this by laying the screw on top of the frame above the hole, taking into account the countersink. Using these screws may have been overkill, but the extra fixing strength wouldn’t hurt.

To finish this step off, I cut two lengths of 22mm (0.86in) timber then trimmed them down to the exact width of the legs and total length of the legs and frame thickness, then glued and nailed these to the front of the front legs. These two pieces would add extra structural strength connecting the front legs to the frame. Added stability would also come from the lower shelf, which was next.

My old coffee table had a lower shelf and I found it very useful, so I wanted to do the same on this table. It would also add more stability to the table overall bearing in mind that technically this tables frame only has 3 sides. I would also add a sliding tray or draw to this, which will be the next step.

To begin with I placed the table top tray on it’s front side facing me on the floor, then placed the table frame around it using the back MDF spacer again. Then, using a long piece of scrap wood, I clamped it to each side of the frame sides and bought the tray to the scrap wood so the top of the tray was flush with the top of the frame. Then I used a long drill bit to drill trough the pilot holes I made in the tray for the M10 bolts, going right through the sides of the frame.

Now using a larger drill bit the same diameter as the bolts so they had a tight fit, I drilled larger holes through the tray and the frame. I fed the bolts through the outer frame into the tray using a hammer to gently tap the bolts through. At this point a measured and cut a length of strip wood the same length of the table frame, laid the whole table upside down on the floor, then rested the strip on the base of the tray and screwed the length into the legs. This strip of wood will now act as a resting stop for the table top tray to rest on when it’s in the resting table position. Doing these steps first was crucial to determine the overall height of the lower shelf. Note that I said “shelf” and no mention of the utility tray that would sit on top.

Turning the table the right way up, I tilted the table top tray to determine the final resting “tilt” position I wanted. Taking note of the lowest part of the tray, which was the front edge of the soundbar housing, I used that housing edge position, put my straight edge along that edge and dropped the straight edge down another 3cm and market off this position onto the table legs. This extra 3cm would ensure that the lower front edge of the soundbar housing wouldn’t hit against the lower shelf and leaving a generous 15mm gab for the shelf thickness.

Turning the table onto it’s back side, I took the measurements of the markings I made, and marked them on the inner side of the back legs, making sure they were equal on both sides. I measured, marked and cut 2 equal lengths of strip wood with my jigsaw, spread a little wood glue onto the legs just under the marks (between the marks and the table feet), and places and screwed in the strips.

Flipping the table over to rest of its front side, I made sure the markings were equal to the back side, then attached the other piece of strip wood the same way. These strips would now add extra stability to the overall table and act as the shelf supports. Then I stood the table back up onto it’s feet.

Measuring in between the front and back legs, that the full length of the table/strip wood I just fitted (the same length), I measured, marked and cut a piece of 15mm MDF with the circular saw, then cleaning up the edges with 180 grit sandpaper and sanding block.

I fed the shelf through the side of the table and rested it onto the shelf supports to test fitment, removed it again, spread on some wood glue, replaced the shelf, the drove in some brad nails with the nail gun. I then used the hammer to make sure all of the nails were where not sticking out. At this point, I removed the M10 bolts and took out and put aside the table top tray.

I mentioned above to take note about the shelf. Full transparency again, I didn’t originally intend on making a sliding tray, but after fitting the lower shelf, I realised that...

1: the soundbar housing actually would make reaching for thing that would eventually be on the shelf, a little difficult to access,

2: even though I left a 3cm gap in between the shelf and bottom front edge of the soundbar housing, the item’s I would eventually have on the shelf would be in the way and I would have to move them every time I tilted the table.

Yep, this was a bit of an oversight on my part, but ended up being one of the happy accidents which I love when they do happen. This particular one was the idea of the utility tray which not only did it make getting thing from the shelf much more easier, but made the whole thing look much more neater as well. And making it a sliding one was an instant addition as I had rescued a couple of really good quality draw runners from an old kitchen cupboard months ago.

I mention this because there were two ways I could have over come this problem, a sliding shelf, or with a little more work, a draw that would sit under the lower shelf. But the draw wasn’t practical for me because I wanted to place a wireless sub-woofer from my main TV under the table out of sight and save on space. But if you decide on making a table like this, maybe a draw could be an option for you. Anyway, back to the build…

With a piece of MDF, I did a layout with a pencil and the 13” laptop I would be using to determine the size I would make the tray and compartment sizes. The compartment size for the laptop would include space for hot air to escape from the laptop’s vents, and also for the HDMI, USB-A and power cable plugs. The length of the base would be a couple of mm short each side from the table legs, and the width (depth) would be a little less than half the width of the lower self, making sure the table top would tilt to is resting position taking into account the soundbar housing.

I then measured, marked and cut out the base, front, back and then the side panels/dividers (all the same length). After cleaning up all of the edges with 180 grit sandpaper, I glued all of the panels and dividers and attached them to the top of the base. I placed another sheet of wood on top and placed some tools on top to add weight, then left the glue to dry for an hour.

After the glue had initially set, I flipped the tray upside down then fired in some brad nails into the base through to the panels and dividers. I did have a couple of blow outs, so I either removed or cut of any nails with a pair of wire flush cutters. Then used the hammer to tap down any of the protruding nail heads.

The next thing to do was part aesthetics, part functional. The aesthetics part was to hide the draw runners from view, and the functional part was for the 2 bolts that I would later fit, to rest on to keep the table top in the tilted position. I made two “L” shape panels to fit in between the front and back table legs. The lower part would hide the runners and the larger part would go by the front legs for the bolts to rest on. These were simply measured to fit in between the legs and then glued in place. I should mention that the “L” shape panels I actually did make were made from 2 parts, simply because I wanted to use up some scrap MDF pieces I had instead of cutting out 2 single pieces out of a larger sheet.

So the draw runners would serve two purposes… to pull “outwards” to access the things in the tray, and to push right “inwards” to the back of the lower shelf so the table top could tilt, so the trays resting position would be around the middle of the draw runners. But as the draw runners I had were a bit long, a little cutting was needed.

I flipped the utility tray upside down and with the back facing towards me, I placed the runners down on each side of the tray making sure the widest outer side of the runners were flush with the trays outer sides. And the back end of the runners flush with the back of the tray.

Doing one runner at a time, I extended the runners out full length (the extended parts were over hanging the back of the tray) which left the front end of the runners over hanging the front of the tray because as I mentioned, the runners were longer than the actual width of the tray. Starting from the front end, I screwed in a screw in each runner. This would set the distance between the two runners. I then screwed in one screw through the back end of one runner making sure it was straight along the tray side, measured between both runners to make sure the back equally matched the front, then put a screw through the remaining runner. Then I put in 2 more screws along each runner. NOTE: make sure the screws used are short enough so they don’t come through the other side of the tray.

While the table top tray was still removed, I placed the tray onto the lower shelf, then screwed down both runners at each end of the table making sure that there was still a tiny gap on each side of the tray and “L” shape panels I fitted earlier.

To take care of the excess runner lengths, I unclipped the tray runner rails from the lower shelf rails, then used a Dremel rotary tool and a cutting disc to cut the ends of the runners. Instead of cutting the excess off flush with the front of the tray, I went back about 10mm so the cut ends would end up under the tray. A quick clean up of the metal edges then I put the tray back on for testing. All was working well so I took the tray out again then unscrewed the runner rails from the table shelf ready for painting. **If cutting metal with a rotary tool or any power cutting on any material, please use eye protection.**

So, we have the table top tray made, the frame made, the lower shelf fitted, the utility tray made, fitment and movement tests done, so there was only two small build jobs left to do… make two holes in the front legs for the locking bolts to lock the table into the flat position, and, this was more of an aesthetic look, to make 2 countersink holes in the outside side of the table frame sides for the two M10 bolts.

For the locking bolt holes, I turned the table frame upside down onto the floor, put the table top tray upside down into place and inserted the two M10 bolts. I placed the two locking bolts into the positions I wanted them, Marked off where the bolt shafts would go into the inner side of the front legs, removed the locking bolts and drilled the holes using the same diameter drill bit as the bolts for a tight fit only drilling in far enough that the locking bolt shafts would slide in to. I would fit the bolts after painting.

As for the M10 bolt countersink holes, I only wanted to go in far enough so the M10 bolt heads were flush with the outer edge of the table frame. For this, with the table top and M10 bolts removed, I used a Forstner drill bit just slightly bigger than a 10mm socket to fit in, and carefully drilled into the existing hole just deep enough to the thickness of the bolt head. With the construction pretty much done, all that left was painting and assembly.

For the painting, I went for a satin black for the main parts of the table, and a satin white for the legs. This was paint I had left over from recently decorating, so the table would match the same style. The paint I used was a water based wood paint that didn’t need a primer, so that saved a little time. One thing I could have done differently and save on masking off, although it wasn’t very much, was to paint the legs white before fitting. Just a little something you may want to consider. So there was 3 pieces to paint, the table top tray (black), the frame (black) legs (white), and the utility tray (black). One thing I did a few hours prior to painting was to put some wood filler along the 45 degree joins of the frame, the 2 countersink drill holes on the back edge of the back frame, and along the small gaps between the front legs and front leg panels. When the filler had set, I gave them a fine sanding and clean up.

I started with the top. I removed the tablet holder and took this opportunity to stick the holder to the tablet with the 3M double sided tape. Then I placed the top onto a couple of same size paint cans, then I started with the inside of the tray, even though most of this wouldn’t actually be seen, I just wanted to give it full coverage. I cut in all around the edges with a brush then did the rest with a small foam roller. “Cutting in” in case you are not familiar with the term, means painting around all of the edges/corners and difficult to reach areas making for a neat paint job. The smoother foam rollers (I think meant for gloss paint, correct me in the comments if I’m wrong) I find give a smoother finish and a nicer look. I then gave the outside edges a coat and left it for a while.

Next I moved onto the utility tray. Putting this onto a large bucket that I had handy. I painted the inside of the tray with the brush as the roller wouldn’t really fit, and the outer sides with the roller. By the time I had finished that, the table top tray was touch dry so I flipped it over onto the paint cans and did the base.

Then I moved over to the frame which I placed upside down on some wood scraps, did all of the cutting in with the brush trying to keep the black paint off the legs as much as possible, then went around the both sides of the lower shelf and frame leaving a couple of unpainted areas so I could turn the table over. Then I flipped the table over and finished off the first coat.

Now the utility shelf was touch dry, I flipped this over and roll painted the base. Then left everything for a couple of hours of so for the first coats to fully dry.

I did the same as above with the second coat of paint, but with one exception. The holes I made for the M10 bolts for the tilt motion, I wanted to fix the washers I mentioned earlier on. Fitting the washers in between the table top tray and the frame sides would have been a very difficult task to do. So with the tray, I painted everything with the exception of 2 small areas on the inside of the tray by the holes. On the outside while the paint was wet, I tipped the tray up a bit, placed a washer over the hole onto the wet paint, then used a small wood clamp to hold it in place while the paint dried. I did the same on the other side as well, and the same using the larger ratchet clamps on the frame sides, with the washers on the inner side. The pressure of the clamps also helped the washers to dig into the wood a bit, helping them hold more firmly.

After another 3 to 4 hours, I removed the clamps and gave everything a 3^rd coat, and then 4 hours later I gave the frame a 4^th coat and left it for 24 hours for the paint to cure.

After the 24 hours, I masked off the front leg panels to the same height as the legs, around the lower shelf where the legs were attached, and anywhere else I felt that needed masking where a steady hand wouldn’t have been enough. Once masked, I painted the legs, giving them a three hour, spaced out, 3 coats. After the 3^rd coat, I removed all of the masking tape and left the frame for another 24 hours.

The time I was really looking forward to was finally here, putting this table together. The first job was to fit the draw runner rails to the lower shelf. With the holes already drilled, fitment was pretty straight forward. The sliding tray will be fitted soon.

I laid the frame upside down and lined up the table top tray carefully trying not to nudge the washers too much, then inserted the M10 bolts. While the table was upside down I lined up the locking bolts with the bolt shafts extended into the holes in the legs, then screwed down the bolts to the base.

I moved on to place some 3M double sided tape around the two large air vent holes, removed the backing and inserted the rectangle vent covers. For the final time, I flipped to table over to the right way up and press fitted the 8 round air vents into the front of the table top tray. Using a 10mm socket and spanner/wrench, I put a Nylock nut (locking nut) on both M10 bolts and tightened them up to a pinch tightness (not to tight so the table top could move easily). I probably could have used standard nuts as the table top movement is minimal and had a lot of play left on the 120mm bolts (I could have used shorter, but that’s all I had to hand), but I had the locking nuts in my supply so I decided to use them.

The next job was to place the TV into the tray. At this point I made a small snap decision, and that was to use a couple of pieces of spare wood to add extra support for the top of the TV. This was because the lower half of the TV was about twice as thick as the top to house the circuitry and input/output sockets, and the top half wasn’t sitting on the table top base. The TV was very sturdy laying in the tray as it was, but I wanted to make sure there would be no possible movement. So I made and worked out what size the pieces of wood I needed, cut them out and used some 3M tape to hold them to the sides of the tray. With this done, I connected the 2 HDMI cables then fed these and the power cable through their respective holes, then laid the TV down into its final resting position.

Next was to feed the HDMI and power cable through the soundbar housing and connect up the soundbar, then hooked it up to its mounting screws. Some slight adjustment was needed when screwing in the screws, test fitting the sound bar, then re-doing this a few time to dial them in for a nice secure fit. With that done, I slotted in the utility tray to the rails attached to the lower shelf.

After plugging everything in and testing everything was connected okay, it was time to fit the Perspex. This was simply a case of peeling off the protective sheets and dropping it into the tray. It was actually a tight fit due to the paint, but it was a good, flush fit. But, one little additional job that needed to be done came to light. The TV had 2 chrome effect branding badges on the bottom of the bezel that you could see through the tinted Perspex, so 2 small pieces of black electrical tape to cover these solved the issue.

At this point I tested the tilt movement, also the locking bolts (which needed a bit of working in by sliding them back and forth a few times), the sliding utility tray, and this time connecting up the laptop to the TV and running a few simple tests to make sure the soundbar was producing sound, the remote control could control the TV. There was limited range with this, but pointing the remote straight down or towards one of the front round air vents worked with no issues. The laptop was also connected to the TV with the 1.5m HDMI cable. I also checked the Miracast function with the Fire tablet. All was working as expected (and hoped). When I finished with the tablet, I slotted it into its new holding bracket and connected it to a USB-C charging cable.

The final part to fit was the touchscreen overlay frame. It came in 4 pieces with all of the screws and had double sided foam tape already attached to each section. Each piece was marked to show what part connects to what, so once the parts connected together and finally screwed in, I turned the TV on so I could see the edges of the screen (the tinted perspex was working so well, I couldn’t see the TV to lay the frame). When I was happy with the fitment, I plugged the frame in to the laptops USB port. It’s plug-and-play as the drivers are already built in so nothing to install. It worked straight away and first impression were that it worked really well. So I unplugged the frame, very carefully turned it upside down, removed the backing tape, then carefully flipped it back over and very slowly and carefully placed it into position.

NOTE: As you may be aware, tape and Perspex/acrylic can stick together very, very well indeed, so if you try to fit a frame like this to a sheet of Perspex, especially if you use a larger screen and frame, I suggest that you 2 people fitting the frame will be much easier than doing it on your own as the frame is also quite flexible. That way you can have the frame really low to the Perspex and make very gentle movements before sticking them together. I did manage the 40” frame on my own, looking up, down, left, right constantly to make sure positioning was correct. I don’t mind saying that it did make me sweat a little as I really didn’t want to mess this up.

Infrared Touchscreen Overlay Frames. How They Work.

As the assembly is now finished, I want to quickly explain how these type of frames work. In each of the sections of the frame are lots of little infrared transmitters and receivers, much like your TV or Hi-Fi and their remote controls. Each transmitter send out a beam of infrared light across the surface of the screen (or acrylic cover in this case), and is picked up by the receivers in all four directions. When your finger (up to 10 fingers with the one I have, mimicking 10 point touch) touch the surface, the light is broken… light is transmitted but not received.

Think when you shine a flash light across a table and you put your finger in front of it. The light will will shine around your finger but cause a shadow directly behind your finger. With infrared light transmitting in all four directions, that shadow is eliminated in every direction except for directly under your finger. The software then triangulates this break of light in relation to which IR receiver diode’s didn’t receive any light transmission, and this is then converted to an input like using an actual capacitive touch screen. Then the computer it’s connected to recognises all of the inputs just like a touch pad with swipes, single/double taps and long presses. Well, that’s my basic understanding of it anyway. Pretty clever stuff, right? The kit I bought does have a website link to a calibration tool which I tried, but turns out I didn’t need it as it was already set up really well.

So, with all of the assembly done and hardware in place, one last thing I wanted to take care of was wire management. I used some wire management clips that I always keep a supply of, and attached them to the back of the base of the table top and clipped the cables in making sure nothing was catching and that there was enough play for the sliding tray and tilting top.

Assembly completed… table finished.

So that is the Table built, tested and ready to work and play. I realise that I have gone into a lot of detail and written a lot, reason being I wanted to add as much detail, tips and advice that I could to make your journey a little easier. And if at least one reader finds something I have written useful, then it was worth the effort writing this. Hey, you could try copying what I have written and paste it into a GPT and ask for a summery. I have no idea what the results will be returned however, but it could be an interesting experience (you know, for a laugh, I might even ask my GPT AI assistant to do it myself). Anyway, as I mentioned in the introduction, I have written below a very basic assembly style guide of how the table went together. This is only meant to be used as a guide as your results may vary if you decide to make your own, so make any changes, additions and your own measurements you feel necessary. This following guide uses the measurement in the plans you can see in the pictures above, and assumes all of the pieces are cut and ready for assembly, a bit like a flat pack piece of furniture.

Table Build. The Quick version.

Table Top / Soundbar Housing:

1. Place the table top base (13) on a flat surface, then glue and nail the front and back panels (9) and side panels (10).
2. Glue and nail the front and back fascias (11) then the 2 side fascias (12)
3. With a jigsaw, cut 2 square holes across the middle of the base (13) for rectangle vent covers
4. Drill eight 35mm holes with a Forstner drill bit through the front side panel/fascia (9,11) for the round air vents.
5. Use a piece of hardboard to make bracket for tablet holder stand. Glue/nail it to the front center of the table top.
6. Drill/cut two more holes in the base (13) to feed HDMI and TV power cables through.
7. Glue/nail speaker housing back and base panels (14).
8. Glue/nail the two side housing panels (15).
9. Measure equally and glue down soundbar housing to front end of table top base. Screw in “L” brackets, one each side, and two along the back of the housing to the base.
10. Make a cardboard template, measure and mark the soundbox mounting holes then make the marking onto the back housing panel.
11. Screw in two screws and temporally fit soundbar.
12. Ballance the top on your work surface to find the counterpoint. Mark off, then equally mark each side then drill a pilot hole in each side.
13. Remove soundbar, screws and set the top aside.

Table frame:

1. With the top upside down on your work surface, lay the back (2) and sides (1) around the top then glue the ends together leave for glue to dry.
2. Screw in two “L” brackets to the back legs (6), and one bracket in the front legs(6). Glue and screw in the legs to the frame.
3. Lay the table top rest batten across the back of the table, the glue/screw into rear legs.
4. Lay the table frame on its front then glue and nail the slower shelf support (7). Flip table frame onto the back and glue/nail the other lower shelf support (7).
5. Stand table up and fit the lower shelf (8). Glue/nail it in place.
6. Glue and nail the two front leg panels (6A).
7. Glue and nail the two table top bolt rests (5). Additionally, add a couple more lengths next to the bolt rests to hide draw runners (See Step 6 for more details).

Sliding Utility Tray:

1. Lay the base (16) on the work surface, the glue/nail the front and back panels (18).
2. Then glue/nail the and panels and tray dividers (17) to the base (16).
3. Flip the tray over, measure, mark and screw in the draw runners.
4. After painting, Screw down the runners to the tables lower shelf.

Finishing and Assembly:

1. Screw in two long screws at a 45 degree angle through the back frame panel into the side frame panels.
2. Fill all gaps/holes with wood filler, let dry then sand smooth and even then clean areas.
3. Paint all the pieces with 3 to 4 coats of wood paint.
4. Turn table over fit the table top to frame and bolt together.
5. Lay table top locking bolts onto the table top base, mark and drill bolt shat holes. Screw in locking bolts.
6. Flip table over and fit the sliding utility tray.
7. Fit all of the air vents.
8. Connect HDMI cables to TV and feed these and power cable through corresponding holes and lay TV onto table top base.
9. Fit soundbar screws and fit soundbar.
10. Unwrap Perspex and drop into place on table top.
11. Connect equipment to each other and to power, and fire it up.
12. Tidy up the cables using cable management clips.

So I hope that the above quick guide show that this is not really a difficult build, and anyone with some very basic skills can make their own. So with the table made and ready for use, this kinda brings this Instructable to a close. This table took me about 5 days to make including painting, not rushing and just doing a few hours a day here and there as I have a lower spine condition that slows me down somewhat. But back in my healthier days, I probably could have knocked this out in a couple of days including painting, so this is not a long term project. The software side of things on the other hand… well that is an ongoing process simply because there’s always thing I can add, change or upgrade.

At time of writing this, I have been using my table for a couple of weeks now, and I couldn’t be happier with it. It is a joy to use, has been very productive, fun and convenient with what I’ve use it for so far. I have spent most of the time making my own user interface for the Android side of the system, giving it a Sci-Fi look yet keeping it very useful and easy to use. I will say this, it started of as a but on an unusual experience using such a large touchscreen, but I have got used to it now and it really does have it’s advantages. And as a coffee table, the sliding tray has been a blessing being very easy to see what I want and keeping thing neat and tidy, and I am really very pleased with the overall look. It did take me a while getting used to putting things on the table top because in the back of my mind, I don’t want to damage anything, then realising that the screen is a sheet of Perspex and is very solid. After all, that was the initial intention… to have a functional coffee table.

A few things to note.

Placement of the soundbar housing. As I mentioned at the start, the soundbar was an optional extra and the bar I had has a source display on the front telling me what mode it’s in (HDMI, Bluetooth, Optical etc.) which is why I placed it at the front of the table. If there was no display, I may have opted to locate it either under the middle of the tabletop by the larger air vents, or towards the back of the table top. This would have given more room to access the lower shelf.

M10 Bolts. I opted for 120mm long bolts simply because I had them in my collection and were long enough to fit through the frame and tray. I was mindful about the protruding bolt lengths inside of the tray making sure they didn’t interfere with fitting the TV. If the TV ended up resting on the bolts and not resting in the tray properly, I would have purchased some shorter ones, so please keep this in mind. One thing I am going to do it to source 2 black rubber caps to plug into the recessed holes for the bolts to hide the bolt heads.

Speech recognition. More of a computer thing than a table thing, but as I use speech recognition for my AI assistant on the laptop, with the utility tray pushed back and top tilted, I dose cause a slight occasional issue with the laptops microphone picking up my voice. So to overcome this, I will be purchasing a far field external mic and place it somewhere inconspicuous on the table.

Laptop. As this is my first attempt at building something like this, and for it to cost as little as possible, using my older unused laptop was the way to go for me, and it’s working great. But some day in the future, one change I may make is change the laptop for a mini PC with the HDMI, mic and USB ports needed, and mount it under the table top somewhere.

One thing that could be added to this table to suit your needs, would be to make the table top sit at different tilted angles. The two "L" shaped side panels on the lower shelf could be marked and drilled to the arc of the locking bolts then drill equally matched and spaced holes to the locking bolt shafts to slot in to to adjust the angle of the top/screen.

If you have made it this far and have no interest in the software side of things with this table, Then this is the end of the journey of building the table, and I will take the opportunity now to say many thanks indeed for taking time out to read about my project, and if you have any questions, I will do my very best to answer you, and if anyone at found anything I have written useful in some way, or if you just enjoyed having a look, then that’s all I could ask for.

So if you leaving from here, then I wish you all the best... and happy making.

If you’re sticking around, the next section is the “Bonus Instructable” which will go through the software I am using, and give you some basic “how-to’s” and step by step guides to show how to use and begin setting up your own user interfaces and shortcuts to control your smart home devices, quick website access, and shortcuts to you favourite music playlists. From these quick examples, I am hoping that this will lead you to try your own ideas and do some more advanced stuff. And don’t panic if you’re not a coder or programmer, I only have a very basic knowledge of this I retained from building a couple of robots a few years ago and that was from a lot of research, trial and error. The examples I will show basically shows “editors” to add your own content, and programming apps that have lots of pre coded actions and examples that you are free to use and adapt to learn more. So let’s get on with it.

Windows 11:

At the heart of the computer system is a 13” Dell Latitude 7390 laptop which initially had 8GB RAM, but upgraded the module to a 16GB RAM version. It was working fine with the 8GB, but I wanted a safety net of sorts to make sure everything would run smoothly. The laptop is running Windows 11 and apart from configuring it to my preferred setup, the only customising I did was to add a virtual keyboard to the task bar for use with the touchscreen overlay frame, add some system usage widgets to the desktop screen, and added a custom made wallpaper I made using MS paint 3D.

To access the on-screen keyboard, got to...

“Start”, select “Settings”, then “Ease of Access”, press “Keyboard”, then on the “Use the On-Screen Keyboard” turn the toggle button to “On”.

Another way to do it is to press the Windows key, the CTRL key and the letter O key all at the same time to toggle the on-screen keyboard on and off. To add it to the Task Bar, when the on-screen keyboard is open, the icon for it will show up in the Task Bar. Right click on the icon then select “Pin to Task Bar”. Now simply press in the icon to toggle the keyboard On and Off.

To add desktop widgets, I used a program called Rainmeter. This acts as a widget menu and editor, but doesn’t include widgets when running for the first time, except for a demo version. To add widgets, Rainmeter was a website where a catalogue free widgets or “Skins” are available to download and install. When installed, they will show up in the Rainmeter program. From there, depending on if you downloaded a single widget or a package of several widgets, you can choose whether to “Load” a widget to your desktop screen. If you know a little coding or programming, you can also edit most of the available widgets to change certain things like font, colours, size and other things. This is something a novice can play with because if you end up messing thing up, you can delete/uninstall the widget, then re-install it again back to its original state.

A quick example to set a widget up, assuming you have Rainmeter installed.

Find the Rainmeter Skins website and look through the widgets available. Press on the one you like, scroll down to “Download”, go to your downloads folder on your computer, then double click of what you just downloaded. This will open a window asking you if you want to install it. Press “Install” and when it’s done, open your Rainmeter program which can be found in the system Tray (a rain drop icon). You should now see the name of the Skin you just installed in the Skins list. These are in the form of drop down folders so just pressing on the name wont do anything, you have to press on the arrows. So press on your skin arrow, the press on the widget file you want that ends in .ini (there could be one file or a number of files depending on what you downloaded), then on the right hand side, press “Load”. You can now go to you desktop and the widget should now be active and visible. You can click and drag it to where you want on your screen, and to turn it off you can either right click on the widget or go to the widget file in the Rainmeter program, then press “Unload”. There are more Rainmeter skins people have made available such as Deviantart and maybe worth checking out. One thing to keep in mind with the amount of widget/skin to use. Some of the refresh rates on some of the widgets can be quite fast and adding a few of these to your desktop will be resource intensive. So keep in mind the amount of RAM you have and the processor your machine has and only add the amount of widgets suitable for your computers processing speeds e.g. if you add several widgets and your computer becomes slow, remove/unload some of the widgets you don’t really need. Or if you have the know how, edit the widgets code to change the refresh rates.

Making your own wallpaper/screensavers. This is simply a case of choosing a picture or photo you want to use, or make your own image using drawing and paint programs and apps where you can make something basic and clean looking to being as creative and adventitious as you want. A tip to make sure the image you make in draw/paint programs correctly fits your screen correctly, take a screen grab of your desktop by pressing “Print Screen” key, and use a full screen image with a bright background, as this will help you define the screen edges when editing. Then open your paint program then insert or paste the screen grab. If you’re presented with your screen grab on top of a larger canvas, crop the canvas so you’re just left with the screen grab. Then you can edit it to how you like, but keep in mind to finish off by placing a blank square shape over the task bar to hide the icon , clock etc. you took a screen grab of. Then save your image, go to your desktop, right click on anywhere on the screen (not over shortcuts), press “Personalise”, then “Background” then press on “picture” and find the image you just made and select it. It should now be on your desktop.

For Windows, that’s the basics, but the on-screen keyboard is a fairly important option to use when using the touchscreen overlay. Be as creative as you want, or just keep this clean and simple, the choice is yours. A couple more customising options that would look good on this table, a transparent Task Bar using a Microsoft store app called TranslucentTB. And also having what is essentially alive wallpaper that plays your preset your your own videos or GIFs using another Microsoft app called Lively Wallpaper. I did find this to be a little heavy on resources on less powerful machines but pretty cool none the less, especially when my table top is laying flat and displaying some pretty cool effects. Of course there are plenty of other options out there both paid and free open source programs and apps.

While I was looking for PC versions of Android apps, I came across mention of an Android emulator. For the uninitiated, an emulator is a piece of software to make a computer system mimic another system. Playing old arcade games is one example where emulator software gives your computer the ability to act like an arcade or gaming console machine to play specific games not available directly for use on computers. So when I came across this Android emulator, I had to give it a try and ended up being pleasantly surprised. On my phone, I use an app called Total Launcher which gives you the ability to make your own user interface and set it as default to replace using the stock one that the phone came with. Another app I use a lot is called Tasker which if you’re not familiar with it, basically opens up possibilities to use your phone’s (or tablet’s) resources not immediately available straight out of the box. It also gives you the ability to automate a lot of stuff either on your device and smart home equipment. Tasker also works very well with Total Launcher too. Having doubts whether these apps would work with an emulator, I gave them a try and was amazed to find that I could use them both. Tasker does have a few limitations as some of the actions and tasks are designed specificity for uses with Android phones and tablets so won’t control certain thing on a PC, but these limitations are very small leaving so much that can still be done. I am pretty familiar with Total launcher, but I still have a long way to go learning the full capabilities of Tasker, but I have managed to get some pretty useful stuff working that I use on a daily basis.

So back to the Android emulator. This would make my table a very productive tool, and piece of furniture. Because it’s Android, primarily designed to be used with touchscreens, and running on my laptop with my touchscreen overlay connected to it, I would now have a very customisable 40” Android tablet. The emulator I ended up using is called Bluestacks, and there is two versions of it. The Bluestacks app available from the Bluestacks website, and another app called MSI App Player which is a skinned version of the official app and primarily designed for use with MSI computers, but it works perfectly well on other computer brands, including my Dell laptop. Both of these are free to download and use (at time of writing). MSI and Bluestacks partnered up to make the MSI App Player, and from my experience using both apps, I have hardly seen any difference between using both apps both in looks and usage. There is some setup involved such as making sure the Google pay store is up to date, the Google text to speech (TTS) engine is installed (available on the play Store) and installing some of the basic apps such as calculators, calendars etc. There is also a back up feature to save your Bluestacks setup which act just like backing up a phone or tablet.

Note that the backups you make can only be re-installed on the same computer and cannot be transferred to another machine. Also note that both apps can tend to crash from time to time, not often in my short experience, but it does happen, and the good thing is that the last state is normally saved and restarting the app is painless for continuing where you left off. A third note is that not all of the Play Store apps will be available which I think is down to the fact that Bluestacks uses and older version of Android compared to the most up to date version. But sometimes where the apps are not available, there will be a website versions you can use in the emulator. Then adding a shortcut linked to the website, it will essentially act as an app. More on this soon. Also whatever may not be available on the Android side, may be available on the Window/PC side as we have the best of both worlds to chose from only using one computer.

Now I had Bluestacks (MSI App Player is the one I use) in place and set up, I installed both of the Total launcher and Tasker apps/plugins, as well as all of the other apps I wanted/needed. Next job was to set up Total Launcher and when done, set it as the default launcher. I spent a lot of time making it look and function the way I wanted because there is so much that can be done with this launcher app. Don’t get me wrong, it took a long time, but it was a fun and creative process and the extra effort ended up with something I am very happy with. Below I will go through a quick setup to set the background look, add some useful dynamic information, and add a few useful buttons to help get you started. I wont go into lots of details about all of the launchers editor functions because the best way I learnt to use it, was to play around with it. And anything you do that you’re not happy with is easily undone. This won’t be an in-depth tutorial because there would be way too much to cover and would warrant it’s own Instructable. There are lots of helpful resources that can be found either in the apps themselves or online. You can also resize, maximise the screen to show Windows task bar and Bluestacks option menu bars, and also use the Full Screen option in Bluestacks to fill the screen to hide the menu bars and the Windows task bar.

As there are many ways to set up and customise Total Launcher and use Tasker, the next step will be a very stripped down version of what I have done on my setup making the background, setting up some working buttons and images, and adding a few tasks from Tasker.

In Total Launcher, you can add many different elements and you can spend hours or days making the perfect setup and look to suit you. Adding and editing a large number of individual elements can be a time consuming process, but if you have a set design idea in mind like I did, there is a much quicker way. To design and make the majority of the background of the launcher, I used Microsoft Paint 3D which I will use as the example below. It has unfortunately been depreciated by Microsoft now, but older laptops will still have it installed, and I made a copy of it to install on newer machines. Yeah, it’s not the greatest or feature rich draw/paint program in the world, but I like it as it’s easy to use and with a bit of outside-the-box thinking, you can do quite a lot with it. Using your own chosen draw/pain program may differ, but the basics should still be the same. I did use another laptop to do this and not directly on the new smart table that’s just been built, although you absolutely could, and I have made some additions using the table. I chose to do it this way because it it was more convenient for the amount of work my design needed.

Anyway, lets make a launcher background.

Start up the computer you’re going to use with the table then use the “Print screen” key to take a screen grab of your full size desktop screen. Open up Paint 3D the insert/paste the screen grab onto the blank canvas then crop it straight away so all you’re left to work with is the screen grab (and no extra blank canvas). Select a 2D box shape, then select black as the colour for the outline and fill colours. Draw the box over the whole screen grab so you now have a completely blank, black* canvas which will be the exact size of your launcher/computer screen. This will help stop having to resize the background and distorting the image. (*It doesn’t have to be black, it can be a colour of your choice).

This is the creative bit, but keep in mind that if you’re making this to be seen and used on a larger screen like my smart table, don’t make it comfortable to see and use on your computer screen as it may look too big and/or visually unpleasing on the big screen, unless you want it this way. For my design, I started off by making boarders with the 2D box outline no fill choosing the colour and line thickness.

Then I made some buttons, spending time making one button with any tools and colours I wanted, then simply copied and pasted the button to line up and make as many as I needed, adding a few more than needed in case I add new apps and features in the future. Then I added a couple of static images, kept blank spaces where I was going to add GIFs and other elements from the launcher.

After saving the background, I find a good practice is to make some stand alone elements such as the buttons just made. Doing this gives you the option to add new buttons in the future without having to go back into the paint program to make changes to the original background, although doing this using the original copy is not a hard thing to do and change to. So with the background still open on paint 3D, chose the select arrow and drag it around one of the buttons. Crop this when you’re happy then use the “Save As” option, not the “Save” option, to save the button image and give it an appropriate name. Do this with any other button designs or elements you made. Once happy with what I had I saved, I sent it all over to the table’s laptop, either emailing myself with file attachments, or coping them to a USB drive and saving them on the other laptop.

Total Launcher: Basic Custom Setup.

With the background and extra buttons made and transferred to the table’s laptop, launch Bluestacks then open Total Launcher. You are presented with a very basic launcher window which will have a few app widgets, a clock and a couple of others all on a blank black background. The basics of editing Total launcher are “long presses”, “dragging”, “copy & pasting”, “resizing” and single tapping a blank space to save your elements edit.

Long press a blank area of the screen to open the edit options. The main launcher window will shrink and you will see a “Menu” icon on the bottom left and an “Edit Off” icon on the right. The menu is were the launcher setting and backup options are. On the right, press the “Edit Off” icon then you will see it change to “Edit On” and also see a “New Page” option and 3 other icons under the launcher screen “Home” window, a trash can for deleting a window, an “Image” icon, and a cog icon for settings to the launcher windows. If you scroll across the screen, you will see other windows much like what you see when you have several screens full of apps on your phone or tablet’s default launcher. Tap in the middle of the window to make it full size again with the editor still On. Long press on one of the widgets and you will see it highlighted indicating it is in edit mode for this one element with a selection of editing icons. Tapping on a blank space on the window or tapping the Android navigation bars back button will exit the element edit and also saves any changes you made. For now, tap on the trash can in the top right corner then confirm to delete the widget. You’re only deleting it from the window, not from the app or system itself so you can use it again if you want. Do the same with all of the other elements to start with a clean slate.

Now we need to set the background image. Press and hold anywhere on the screen until the window shrinks down again. What we need is the “Image” icon below the window. Tap on this and you will see a portrait and landscape image. For the smart table we don’t really need the portrait option, so tap on the landscape image to open the image library page. This is where you add your pictures and GIF’s which for now is empty. Press on the plus icon, select where you saved your background picture (at this point it will be in Windows, so select “Import from Windows” on the Android Files app you will be on), tap on the picture and a copy is saved into your launcher library. Press on the picture again, then when you see the background setting page, select “Stretch to fit screen”, press okay, then press the window with your new background. You will now see your full size window with the new background. Now you’re ready to add elements to do things. Below are a few simple examples to try.

Tap on the + (plus) icon in the top right corner. Tap “graphic”. Tap “Text”. Now tap “Default” and you will now see a highlighted box with the word “Text”. Now tap on the cog (edit) icon, tap on “Text” now tap on “Date/time”. By default you will now see MMMM d,yyyy (month day, year). Tap on the end of yyyy which brings up your keyboard, then delete the lot. Now type in HH;mm, press the nav bar down arrow at the bottom of the screen, tap “OK” then tap the back button on the nav bar. You will now see a highlighted 24 hour clock. Try moving it around the screen by holding the clock and drag it to a black space on the window. Use the dots around the side of the clock element to make it larger or smaller, then tap a blank space on the screen or the nav back button to exit the element edit Long press on the clock again, when it’s highlighted, tap on the cog icon again, tap on the text section again, then tap at the end of HH:mm then change the two upper case HH to lower case hh, tap the down arrow, then “OK” now go down to “Text color”, tap “color” and have a play around chosing a colour so the “OK” box changes to the colour you want. Tap “OK”, tap back and back again to exit the element editor. You will now see the clock in the colour you chose, but also now in the 12 hour format. Have a play around with the different options like changing typeface/font, alignment and the other choices to see what they do.

Now let’s make one of the background buttons work using the similar process as above, but simplified.

Tap on +, select graphic, Text, Default, then tap the cog icon, Text, now Plain text (which should already he selected by default). Tap the text field then write Play Store. Tap the down icon, OK, tap the “Capitalise all” box, tap back, and now tap the play icon to the left of the cog. Under “Tap” press on the “Action” field, the “Application”, now scroll down and tap Play store (depending on the app you may get a second selection pop up with different options). In this case, tap “Launch app”, then tap back, drag the text element to cover one of the background buttons, resize it to fit the button (Press the cog icon again if you need to change the font size to make it fit better), then exit the element edit. Press on the new button and the Google Play Store app should now open. In the clock example above, if you have a clock, alarm clock app installed, you can use the same process so when you tap the clock, the clock app opens.

Now lets try something a little different but making a website shortcut using a new button.

Tap + > Graphic > Image > Default > Image > + > go to where you new button image you made earlier is saved and tap on it > tap on the image in the image library > move it to an empty space and resize it > tap an empty space on the background. Now long press on the Play Store text element you made earlier, then tap on the “Copy” icon (to the left of the “Cut” scissors icon. Now tap + > Paste (which will past over the original you just copied) > drag it to cover the new button > tap the cog icon > then change “Play Store” to the website name you will choose. Save and back out of the element editor, then use your search engine either via Android or Windows to go to your chosen website. Copy the URL (as were are doing this on a computer, you can use the CTRL = C shortcut to copy it), then go back to the launcher. Long press the text on the new button > play icon > Action > Launcher action > scroll to the bottom and tap “Open URL” > delete the HTTPS:// > paste in the new URL (CTRL = V) > OK > back > back to exit the element editor. Now tap the new button and your chosen website should now open directly.

The reason I used the “Play Store” copy and paste option was to 1: show you how it works, and 2: knowing this will help save time later in your project when adding a number of buttons, text fields etc. Copying/pasting multiple elements then editing them is a bit quicker that adding a new single element each time. As an example, if you had 3 working buttons in a row and you had a grid of 12 buttons to fill up. By long pressing one button to open the element editor, you can then tap on the other two buttons to select all three(all three will highlight), copy them, paste them, then move them to the empty positions then edit the pasted button to their new operations. You can then go on to select 6 buttons copy/paste/move them to their positions saving a lot of time.

If you have sound files that you may have downloaded or made yourself (Audacity audio editor for PC is a great free tool to use to do this) can be saved in much the same way as using images, and like the launchers image library, there is a sound library as well where you can copy and save your sound files. When you press the play icon when editing your element where you add and action you will also see the Sound option. Pressing on this, selecting your sound then saving/ backing out of the element editor, you can now press the element you assigned the sound to and you will now here that sound every time it is tapped.

An important launcher button I suggest you add, is to add a Bluestacks launcher shortcut because when you set Total Launcher as the default launcher, navigating back to the Bluestacks launcher can be a little tricky. There is an important app within the Bluestacks launcher which you will need easy access to from time to time, and that is the “Media Manager” app which you will find in the “System apps” app. Make a button or text element like above, then when you tap the play icon then the Action field, tap Applications then scroll down and select “Bluestacks Launcher”. Now when you press the button, it will launch the Bluestacks launcher as an app giving you easy access to the “System apps” app then the “Media Manager” app. It’s also worth adding the Android “Files” app as a shortcut too along with all of the other apps you want to use.

That’s the basics of Total Launcher, and there is so much more you can do. For example, instead of a button doing one thing, it can do 5 things by tapping as we know, but also swiping up, down, left and right. And if some of your apps have widgets, you can add them to your launcher too. I will give some more examples in the next step using Tasker, but to wrap this up for now, let’s back up out Total Launcher project and set it as a system default.

Long press on a blank space on the launcher window, the tap the Menu icon. Select Backup center, tap + then tap New backup. You will see something like “backup_123456” in the title field, leave this as it is, but tap in front of the word “backup”. Here you can write anything you line so as an example we will name it “My New Table 01”. You cannot use spaces in between the words, so you need to use underscores so it will look like this… My_New_Table_01_backup_123456. When you have done this, tap OK, let it do it’s thing then you should get a “Backup successful” message. Now you can back out of the backup center. To set the launcher as your default launcher, tap the Menu icon then the Default option and choose Total Launcher as the launcher default. You can also do this in the android “Settings” then Apps > scroll to and tap Total Launcher > Advanced > Home App > then select Total Launcher. Have a good play with the launcher to find out what it can do, and make regular backups. If you mess anything up that you cannot fix or would take a lot of work, go to the backup center and choose the last good backup you made and carry on from there. Next we will go on to Tasker and set up some basic tasks to use with the launcher.

Tasker and the additional plugins are paid for apps, but for the small cost, there is a lot on offer to use which in my opinion wakes it worth while. Like I previously mentioned, there are some limitations using Tasker through Bluestacks on a Windows PC as Tasker is really designed to be used with full Android phones and tablets. But there is still so much you still can do, but there also is a steep learning curve to do more of the advanced stuff. But there are quite a few resources online that offer help using Tasker, and there are also pre made tasks and projects made by other users and the developer which you can use and learn from. So let’s start with a simple task example by using two launcher buttons to play and stop a music playlist.

Add some music into your Bluestacks/android Files app. Do this by opening the Bluestacks Luncher app, then tap on System apps, then tap Media Manager. Tap Import from Windows then tap on Music (or wherever your music is stored on Windows), then select the music files you want to create a playlist with or if you already have a playlist folder, open it and select all of the music files.

Tap Open in the bottom right corner, then wait for the files to import. Go to your launcher home screen, then open the Android Files app. Tap the 3 lines icon in the top left of the screen, then look for the option with a phone/tablet icon next to it (this is essentially a virtual phone that is needed to make Bluestacks work). Tap on this, then tap on DCIM, then Shared Folder to see all of the music files you imported, now tap on the 3 dots icon the tap Select All. Tap the 3 dots icon again, then select Move To, tap the virtual phone/tablet icon again, tap the 3 dots icon then select New Folder, Name the folder with your playlist name, tap OK then Move in the bottom right corner. Tap the 3 lines icon on the top left corner then check that your new folder is in the virtual phone/tablet folder.

The next step is to open the Tasker app. Tap the + icon in the right lower corner press “Create”, then give your task a meaningful name like “My Pop playlist” or whatever you like, then tap the tick icon. Now tap on the + icon then scroll down and select “Media”. Tap “Music Play Dir”, then tap on the magnifying glass icon near the top right of the screen. Find and tap your playlist folder you made earlier then tap back icon. Before we go on, you will see on this page an option called “Random”. If left unticked, the play list I believe plays in alphabetical order, but ticking the Random box will play the music files/tracks in a random order. After this, tap the Back icon again then tap on the 9 square icon at the bottom center of the screen. This is an important step otherwise the task won’t run with total Launcher without choosing something, so after tapping it, tap “Material” (you can tap on any of the selections) and tap on an icon of you choosing. You can use the Filter field at the bottom and start to write something that you want like Music or Play, then you will see suggestions which closely match what you’re looking for. After making your choice, tap the back button to save your new playlist task.

Now to make a second task to stop the music. Tap the + icon > name your task (Stop Music, or something of your choosing) > tap the Tick icon > + > Media > Music Stop > back > 9 button square to choose an icon > back > then tap on the tick icon near the top right of the screen. With task now made tap on the playlist task you previously made again and press on the Play (test) arrow icon in the bottom left corner to test the playlist task, and music should now start to play. While the music is playing, press the back icon the tap on the Stop Music (or whatever you named it) task, and tap on the test arrow and the music should stop playing. You have now made two fully working tasks.

Now to add them to your launcher. While still in Tasker, press the back button on your navigation bar to exit Tasker which also takes you to your launcher home screen window. We will now use two of the free buttons on the launcher background you made by adding two Text elements.

Turn the launcher main editor On, > + > Graphics > Text > Default > Cog icon > Text > Name it with your playlist name > OK > back > Play icon > Action > then scroll down and tap “Task Shortcut” > find and select the playlist task > back > back > now drag the element over the button you want to use then exit the element editor by tapping a blank part of the background or the back button. Now do exactly the same again to make the second button, but this time choose the “Stop Music” task. Now press the playlist button to start the music, then the Stop Music button to test that it’s all working as it should. You now have two working two shortcut buttons linked directly to Tasker.

NOTE: If after tapping the Action field you get a warning, it’s because you didn’t fully exit out of Tasker, so tap on your recent apps button in your navigation bar, tap on Tasker the tap the back button to fully exit Tasker. Then you can carry on adding the Task Shortcut.

Also, if your choosing your task but you cannot back out of it to select, it’s because you didn’t add an icon from the 9 square icons button. Chose an icon then you will be good to carry on.

Tip: When you tap on the playlist button once to start the music playing, tapping it again will skip to the next music file/track. In the Media options in Tasker where you found the “Music Play Dir” and “Music Stop” options, there are also actions that link to certain media player apps so you can make music controls you can use to control the media player apps controls without having the app in view.

Lets try another simpler task. This will use the text to speech (TTS) engine if you have it installed. With Tasker open, tap + > Name it “Say Date” > tap the Tick icon > + > on the filter field, type SAY > select Say > then tap the variable icon located to the right of the word “text” (it looks like a house laying on it’s side). In the filter field type DATE > tap Date (%DATE) > tap Engine:Voice then choose your preferred language > tap back > now tap the task test icon. You should now hear the current date spoken out loud. The variable list you saw earlier are preset shortcuts to system wide actions that can be used in tasks. You can also make your own variables as well. I am no expert on this and really only know the basics, so I wont talk about this much. Now you can use the same playlist process above, but this time you can add it to your clock you made in Total Launcher, so when you tap on the time, the date will be spoken out loud.

There is a lot more to Tasker, a lot I still don’t know, so I won’t add much more to this Tasker step. But I will give you one final example that is a little more complicated, but the finished tasks are something I use every day… Smart Home Device Control. The following example uses Amazon’s Alexa assistant and an Alexa enabled mains plug with a simple On/Off operation which will control a table lamp. I don’t really like using the Alexa voice control and prefer using a dashboard. Tasker does have the ability to use a plugin called “Hotword plugin” where you can make your own hot/wake words for custom voice control. I have this set up on my table, but what I mainly use and prefer, are button presses on the launcher to control all of my lights, CCTV and other devices. And if you are not an Alexa user, I believe you can do pretty much the same using Google Assistant. I have not tried this as I don’t use Google Assistant for smart home device control, although this may change in the future.

I have had this set up on my phones for about 4 years now and I couldn’t be happier with it although the initial setup and figuring out how to put it all together was a week long nightmare I don’t mind telling you. But the convenience and security aspect of it all was worth it, so of course I had to set this up on my table. Luckily Tasker has it’s own back up feature, so al I had to do was install the Tasker, AutoVoice, Total Launcher and Alexa apps and set them up, then simply imported my Tasker backup from my phone onto the Tasker app on my smart table’s laptop. You can back up your Tasker app either locally in your Android files, and/or back it up to Google Drive which is very convenient for transferring to a new phone etc. As the makers of different smart home devices have their own set option, it will be assumed that you already have set up a smart plug and have it linked and working with Amazon Alexa.

To start, make sure you have the AutoVoice plugin app installed, signed in to it and linked up to Tasker, and have the AutoVoice skill enabled in the Alexa app and connected to AutoVoice. We are going to only make one button for the launcher to turn the switch On and Off by swiping the button up and down, but to start, we need to make a Switch On task and a Switch Off task for our smart plug to control our table lamp.

With Tasker open, Tap on the + icon, then Create, and name it “Table Lamp On”, tap the tick icon then tap the + icon. Scroll down and select Plugin and tap AutoVoice then scroll down and select Trigger Alexa Routine. On the Configuration field tap the pencil icon, then tap Create new Device. Name it Table Lamp On then tap OK, then you should get a notification saying that “Table Lamp On is Connect to Alexa”. Leave AutoVoice exactly as it is, tap your home button to take you to the launcher then open the Alexa app.

Tap on Devices to make sure your “Table Lamp On” device is visible. If it’s not, drag down the screen and release to refresh it and it should now become visible. Now tap on More, then Routines, then the + icon in the top right corner. Tap on the “When, Add an Event” section then select “Smart Home, scroll down and tap on Table Lamp On, then tap “Save”. Now tap on “Alexa Will, Add an Action” section, then “Smart Home”, then tap on “Plugs” (this is where your smart plug should be located by default when it was linked with the Alexa service from your smart plugs own app). Tap on your smart plug, then by default it should already be highlighted “On” (you will need to tap on the “Off” selection when you make the table lamp off task later). Tap on “Next” in top right corner, then tap “Save”. You should now see a message pop up saying “Routine successfully Created”.

Now with your Recent Apps tab on the navigation bar, tap on it and go back to AutoVoice, the tap on the tick icon in the top right corner. Tap the back button, tap the Icons square and choose a relevant icon to use. Now tap on the task test icon and the smart plug should now switch on. Tap the Back button the tap the tick icon. Now, run through the above process again, but this time naming everything “Table Lamp Off” and choosing the “Off” selection in the Alexa app I mentioned earlier. Finish off by pressing the back button to full back out of Tasker.

All that is left to do is to link the two smart switch tasks to a button on your launcher. Follow the steps found on step13. The only difference with this button is we want to swipe up to turn our smart switch/table lamp On, and swipe down to turn it off. While editing your button or text element, when you tap on the play icon to chose an action, scroll down to “Swipe Up” and select the Task Shortcut option, then tap on the Table Lamp On task. Then go to and tap the “Swipe Down” option, Task Shortcut, Table Lamp Off, then tap the Back button to exit the screen then Back again to come out of the element edit mode. Test your button to make sure it works as expected. And that is. You could even add separate Turn On and Turn Off sounds to the button as a cool button press confirmation. And as the button “press” option is not assigned to anything as we are swiping up and down, you could add the smart plug app to it. And with that, we are done with this Tasker step.

**Please note, the placement of icons, buttons and menu options of the apps I have mentioned and used were correct at the time of writing this 21/03/2025, and are subject to possible changes due to updates, redesigns and new features added, made by the developers of the apps.**

With my table set up, I can now control my smart devices using my voice with Alexa, a tap or swipe of a button I made on a custom dashboard laid out and looking the way I want, and I can even use my ChatGPT AI assistant (still a work in progress), using natural language and a custom assistant voice. The ChatGPT option is a Tasker project available to install and customise on the Taskernet website which is a suppository of Tasker projects made by the developer and other users. I won’t share the ChatGPT option here as it is not my project and was created by the Tasker developer, but if you want to check it out for yourself, head over to Taskernet and look for the “ChatGPT Task Caller” project under Public Tasker Projects.

A quick mention about the tablet. The Fire HD8 tablet I am also using is loaded up with all of the Google services and Play Store to unlock it’s fullest potential. It also has Tasker and Total Launcher set up as well as all of the other apps, but I made the user interface to be easily used and seen on the tablet rather than making everything smaller to look better on the smart tables screen. This is because the tablet is the actual physical user interface, so it had to be easy to see and use, especially on an 8” screen. Earlier, I referred to the tablet as being a wireless touchpad, mouse and keyboard which it kinda is, but all it actually is doing is casting a smaller screen to a larger one. So if you end up doing something similar, this is something to keep in mind.

The following are some links to some of the software resources I used and what worked for my project...

Total Launcher:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ss.launcher2&hl=en_GB

Tasker:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en_GB

Bluestacks Android Emulator:

https://www.bluestacks.com/

MSI App Player:

https://www.msi.com/Landing/appplayer

Rainmeter:

https://www.rainmeter.net/

Rainmeter skins:

https://visualskins.com/

Android Police... Installing Google Services onto Fire Tablets:

https://www.androidpolice.com/install-play-store-amazon-fire-tablet/

And we are done. Table built, computer loaded with Android, a custom launcher of your my design, and some shortcuts and smart home device control… all ready to use. I have had a lot of fun and learnt a few thing doing this project, and if you have the opportunity to do one yourself, I highly recommend jumping in and giving it a go. Even just using my table as a table with some cool still, video and GIF wallpapers running on the screen, it makes a great and unique talking point, and when you download some simple games like air hockey and run it full screen while either kneeling on the floor or having a couple of chairs at each end, the table also makes a great entertaining party piece.

Well, after nearly 5 days of putting this Instructable together, it’s time to wrap things up as I think I have written enough lol. Yes, this is quite a long Instructable, but I hope I have broken it up so it is easy to follow, and I really wanted to cram in as much information that I felt would be useful so other fellow makers don’t encounter some of the issues and learning curves I faced. I hope that you have enjoyed and/or taken something useful away from this, and I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on my project. And if you do decide to make one yourself, I would also love to see what you come up with. And if you have any questions, I will try my best to answer where I can, because at the very heart of this Instructable, is to share and to be educational. Take care dear reader, and happy making.

An interactive multimedia touchscreen smart coffee table… I wonder what could I do with my sofa? ;-)