Over the summer, I played around with the idea of an always-on display showing a livestream of a different location on the globe. The inspiration came from Michael and Laura, who have been keeping me up to date with the Brooks Falls stream on YouTube, as they watch the bears in their pursuit of dinner.

Using a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, coupled with an Adafruit PiTFT Plus 320x240 2.8" TFT + Capacitive Touchscreen, I showed a YouTube livestream of Kabukicho, Tokyo. It was fascinating to simply glance over and see the goings-on half-way around the globe: it really brings a much greater sense of presence and connection with a place.

In the future, I hope to create something more permanent, making use of an LG LP097QX1 - iPad 3 / 4 Retina Display and a suitable HDMI controller. Unfortunately, the stream itself does not seem to be available any more, but I’m sure other options will present themselves.