A good way to recycle old hardware: turn a Raspberry Pi (model 3 or 4) hooked up to a TV into a digital picture frame. Photos only, no video, with a simple web UI to upload and manage images from your phone or laptop.
tvbox is a set of scripts you run from your Mac or Linux machine over SSH. They install and configure on the Pi:
- Picframe – slideshow on the TV (pi3d-based, with MQTT/HTTP control)
- FileBrowser – web UI to upload and manage photos (port 8080)
- Samba – optional network share so you can drop photos from Finder or Explorer
- LightDM autologin – no login screen on boot
- Nightly apt updates – automatic at 3:00 AM
Optional extras: a CEC channel switcher so you can use the TV remote (HDMI CEC) to switch between “channels” (e.g. slideshow vs weather), and a custom boot splash.
All configuration is via environment variables or script arguments (host, user, password). No manual editing of config files on the Pi. After installation you get:
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Picframe web control | http://<Pi-IP>:9000 |
| FileBrowser (upload photos) | http://<Pi-IP>:8080 |
| Samba share | smb://<Pi-IP> |
Photos you put in the Pictures folder (via FileBrowser or Samba) show up in the slideshow on the TV.
Repo and full docs: github.com/ettoreboy/tvbox. MIT license; builds on Picframe by Helge Erbe, FileBrowser, and others.