Raspberry pi/small NUC with a screen, in a digital kiosk mode. Just load a static html file with some js to update the clock. No keyboard, no touch input, no way to break it. Connect to it via ssh over tailscale or wireguard VPN to update the HTML with the notes you’d like to display. This way if internet goes down, the clock still works and whatever was displayed wrt messages stays displayed, and you don’t have to worry about the increased overhead of home assistant changes or updates breaking things. It will remain consistent since it’s just HTML and js. If you want less technical family members to be able to update the display…idk, seems like a headache.

What I’d do is set up a simple website that uses a little JavaScript to rewrite the date and time into the page and periodically refresh an image under/next to it. Size the image to fit the remaining free space of however you set up the iPad, and then you can stick anything you want there (pictures/reminder text/whatever) with your favorite image editor. Upload a new image to the server when you want to change the note. The idea with an image is that it’s just really easy to do and keeps the amount of effort to redo layout to a minimum – just drag stuff around in your image editor and you’ll know it’ll all fit as expected as long as you don’t change the resolution (instead of needing to muck around with CSS and maybe breaking something if you can’t see the device to check that it displays correctly).

There’s a couple issues to watch out for – e.g. what happens if the internet connection/server goes down, screen burn-in, keeping the browser from being closed/switched to another page, keeping it powered, etc. that might or might not matter depending on your particular circumstances. If you need to fix all that for your circumstances, it might be more trouble than just buying something purpose built… but getting a first pass DIY version working is trivial if you’re comfortable hosting a website.

Edit: If some sample code that you can use as a starting point would be helpful, let me know.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

[Thread #513 for this sub, first seen 14th Feb 2024, 21:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

I’m going to just advise you to consider the nature here and if you really want to self host. Unless you really think you’ve put enough effort in to make sure your running HA and are prepared to support.

Consider when you may need this most, in an emergency where you ain’t going to be troubleshooting with a family members health on the line.

IMO, I have zero interest in that level of responsibility.