MP90-Panel

Weather and clock display for the built-in screen on the Blackview MP90 N100 Mini PC.

What It Does

mp90_panel.py drives the MP90 front display over USB HID and continuously renders a portrait dashboard:

• current time in the Europe/Berlin timezone
• current date
• tomorrow's Mannheim forecast for 09:00 and 17:00
• temperature, weather condition, and precipitation probability

Weather data comes from the Open-Meteo forecast API for Mannheim. The script refreshes weather every 15 minutes, redraws the display once per minute, and sends a heartbeat packet to the panel between redraws.

Hardware

The code targets the MP90 front TFT exposed as a Holtek USB HID display.

Current local device path:

1-8:1.1

The display is treated as a 320x170 RGB565 framebuffer. The script switches the panel to portrait mode and sends framebuffer chunks using the panel's HID command protocol.

Requirements

• Linux with access to the MP90 HID device
• Python 3.14 as installed by Linuxbrew at /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/python3
• Python packages:
  • hid
  • Pillow
  • requests
• DejaVu fonts:
  • /usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf
  • /usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf

The included systemd unit currently runs as root, which avoids HID permission setup. For a non-root deployment, add a udev rule for the Holtek HID device and adjust the service user.

Run Once

From this directory:

/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/python3 ./mp90_panel.py --once

This fetches the forecast, draws one frame, sends it to the panel, and exits.

Run Continuously

/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/python3 ./mp90_panel.py

The script reconnects after HID or network failures and keeps retrying until stopped.

Deploy With Systemd

Copy or link the service file:

sudo cp mp90-panel.service /etc/systemd/system/mp90-panel.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now mp90-panel.service

Check logs:

journalctl -u mp90-panel.service -f

Restart after code changes:

sudo systemctl restart mp90-panel.service

Service Notes

mp90-panel.service expects this checkout at:

/home/acidburns/.openclaw/workspace/mp90-panel

It also sets PYTHONPATH to the local Python 3.14 package directories used on the MP90 host. Update the unit if the checkout or Python environment moves.

Configuration

Most settings are constants near the top of mp90_panel.py:

• HID_PATH: USB HID interface path
• MANNHEIM: latitude/longitude for weather lookup
• TZ: display timezone
• OPEN_METEO_URL: forecast API endpoint
• FONT_REGULAR / FONT_BOLD: font paths

Troubleshooting

• OSError on HID open: confirm the panel path with lsusb, hid.enumerate(), or /sys/bus/hid/devices, then update HID_PATH.
• Blank or stale panel: restart the service and check journalctl -u mp90-panel.service.
• Weather fetch failures: confirm network access and Open-Meteo availability.
• Text rendering errors: install DejaVu fonts or update the font constants.