Touchscreen automation has been the dream of the future for some time. A wall mount and/or stand-up docking station, along with the software is all that needed.
Actually, there have been 7", 9" & larger wall mounted (and dockable) SBC PC touchscreens (single touch, resistive), running Windows CE, with wired ethernet connections available for a few years. The cost was a bit too high to use for HA in general although you might have found a limited market among some of the high-end hardwired and RF systems (e.g. Crestron, who I believe offers one). The names escape me at the moment. I looked at a couple seriously but, in the end, decided they were just too costly ($600 and up) for the typical X-10 user. The volume created by Apple and Android tablets have brought prices down and added features. The AirPad would seem a natural for HA and it's a shame they didn't include an IR emitter which would allow for control of A/V gear, as well. If I were a
real developer, I might take a crack at it.
Hmmm, my poor, ancient, addled brain vaguely recalls sending 38kHz bursts out of the headphone jack on an early PDA using an IR LED mounted to a 1/8" stereo plug. I'll have to do a bit of digging but suspect my records went bye-bye with a NAS crash a few years back. I wonder whether the AirPad audio circuits might be capable of 38kHz and whether there's a way to time the bursts.
Ahhh, I recall that I created .WAV files of the patterns needed, eliminating the need for any timing, with L & R 180° out of phase, connecting L to cathode and R to anode - on a 3V device that gave 6V across the emitter and there was just enough current to work across the average room. With the 16/32GB of available storage using the SD slot or the Lenovo, this will work if the hardware can generate the higher frequencies (which is likely). I already have code to convert several formats to/from .WAV. Also, most IR receivers have about ±5-6kHz bandwidth so we may be able to cheat a bit if the hardware cannot do 38kHz.
I think I'll opt for the Lenovo with GPS and 16GB. Maybe they'll be more welcoming to an
unreal developer.