How to run your mosque screen on a Raspberry Pi

Write Raspberry Pi OS to a card, run our installer once, and restart. The Pi then opens the prayer times in full screen at every start, also without internet. You choose the mosque on the screen, with a keyboard or by scanning a code with your phone.

Two things first.

1. We have not tried this on a real Pi yet. Test it before you rely on it, and tell us how it went at support@salahpoint.com.
2. A battery clock is required if your mosque may run without internet. Without one, a Pi that loses power starts at the time the power went off. The screen then says "Time not confirmed, check the clock", and the times stay wrong until it is online again. The Raspberry Pi 5 has the clock on the board: add the official RTC battery. A Pi 4 or 3 needs a DS3231 module.

What you need

• A Raspberry Pi 5 (our pick, for its clock), or a Pi 4 or 3 B+, with at least 1 GB of memory. A Zero 2 W has too little: Raspberry Pi's kiosk tutorial asks for 1 GB.
• Its own power supply from a wall socket, not the TV's USB port.
• A microSD card of 32 GB or more from a known brand, and a computer with a card reader (Raspberry Pi's getting started guide).
• A micro-HDMI to HDMI cable for a Pi 4 or 5.
• Internet for the first start: a network cable, or Wi-Fi.

Step 1: Write the card

Install Raspberry Pi Imager on your computer and open it.

1. Choose your Pi, then Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit), then the card.
2. In the settings, set a hostname such as salah-screen, a user name and password, your Wi-Fi (skip it with a cable) and your country, and turn on SSH.
3. Write the card, put it in the Pi, connect the TV to HDMI0 (the port next to the power socket) and plug in the power.

Step 2: Run the installer

From another computer, connect with ssh your-user-name@salah-screen.local, or open a terminal on the Pi. Paste this one line. It downloads the installer, checks that it is exactly our file, and runs it:

curl -fsSLO https://tv.salahpoint.com/pi/install-1.0.sh && echo "d1ce68bd2af774edf4228b88d258e0aa0b1face7253cd2874bb5503990371e1f  install-1.0.sh" | sha256sum -c && sudo bash install-1.0.sh

It asks three questions: press Enter to choose the mosque on the screen, say whether a battery clock is fitted, and whether the screen is upright. Then it restarts. You can read the installer before you run it.

What it sets up: Chromium in full screen at every start, with the options from Raspberry Pi's kiosk tutorial; no screen blanking; fewer writes to the card; 1080p on a 4K TV; the battery clock; and the salahpoint-config command. It stops if the overlay file system is on, because that would lose the stored times at every start.

Step 3: Choose your mosque

After the restart the screen shows a search and a QR code.

• With your phone: scan the code, search for the mosque and confirm. No account is needed. The screen opens it within seconds.
• With a keyboard: type the mosque's name, city or postcode, and press Enter.

Leave it online for a minute, so it stores the app and your times. It remembers the mosque from then on.

Step 4: Test it

Unplug the network, then pull the power and plug it back in: the times should come back. With the network still out, leave the power off for 10 minutes, start again and compare the clock with your phone. Without a working battery clock, the screen should say "Time not confirmed, check the clock".

Change it later

• The mosque: press Enter or M on a keyboard, or click with a mouse, and choose Change mosque.
• By command: salahpoint-config shows the settings. sudo salahpoint-config address your-mosque sets a fixed mosque, resume goes back to choosing on the screen.
• From any computer: put the card in a computer and save a file salahpoint.txt on it with your mosque's link inside. It wins over the settings.
• Upright screen or speed: sudo salahpoint-config rotate 90 (or 270), sudo salahpoint-config reduced-motion yes for an older Pi.
• Battery clock fitted later: sudo salahpoint-config battery-clock pi5 or ds3231. For the Pi 5 this turns on charging, which is off by default, as Raspberry Pi's documentation describes. A DS3231 module must go online once to learn the time. Check either with timedatectl.
• Remove it all: sudo salahpoint-config uninstall, then restart.

A change by command takes effect at the next start: sudo reboot.

If something goes wrong

• "Time not confirmed, check the clock": no internet since the start and no working battery clock, or the clock is more than 2 minutes off. Connect the internet, or fit a battery clock. timedatectl shows the time.
• "Connect this screen to the internet": the very first start needs internet. It goes on by itself once connected.
• It asks for the mosque again: choose it again. If it keeps asking after every start, the card may be failing, or salahpoint.txt says choose.
• No picture: use HDMI0, and check the TV's input.
• It goes black after a while: turn off the TV's own eco or sleep setting.
• Slow or jerky: sudo salahpoint-config reduced-motion yes.
• No adhan sound: it is off until your mosque uploads a recording and turns it on. Check the TV's volume.
• A lightning bolt, or crashes: the power supply is too weak.
• To reach the desktop: salahpoint-config stop. A restart brings the screen back.
• It does not start at all: the card may have failed. Pulling the plug can damage a card in the end, so put the Pi on its own socket, not on the TV's, and keep a spare card.

What was tested

• The installer, in Debian containers with Raspberry Pi's own packages and settings tool, for the current Raspberry Pi OS (Trixie) and the older one (Bookworm), desktop and Lite: a first run, a second run that changes nothing, every setting, and an uninstall that puts every file back as it was.
• The screen in Chrome on a computer: the search, choosing by phone, the menu, the clock note, and starting with no internet.
• Not tried on a real Pi: the start from power on, the picture, smoothness on each model, the battery clock with the power off, a TV switched off and on, and the adhan over HDMI.

Written by the Salah Point team. See also: all devices, running a screen offline.

Raspberry Pi is a trademark of Raspberry Pi Ltd. Salah Point is not connected with it.