Lenovo ThinkSmart

The Lenovo Thinksmart device is a nice Android tablet with a nice sounding speaker at a great price.

This set up is not for the faint at heart. You have been warned. I can give moral support but will not provide detailed help as this thing took a bit of my soul away in getting it to operate. Hopefully what I provide here will help lessen the strain on your life.

Special thanks to @mattmon and @endlessvoid on their work on this project and their help and listening ear while I got through this.

Find the original thread here with tons of useful information: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/is-this-the-perfect-standalone-tablet-for-ha/658422

Start by watching this video. I'm setting the link at the install procedure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7CMizEOT-0&t=533s

Download the tools that he provides but DON'T use the ROM he provides in this package: https://bit.ly/49G9dVF

Once you have all the tools installed STOP before flashing the ROM using QFIL. Watch the video for that part so you are familiar with how to use it but instead use the files and the procedure set out from this forum post: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/is-this-the-perfect-standalone-tablet-for-ha/658422/445

Here's the steps for easier access:

Unplug power and then hold vol + and - before plugging it in to boot to edl directly or adb reboot edl
Flash the combined firmware with qfil (Same instructions as flashing debug firmware just use rawprogram0.xml instead of rawprogram_unsparse.xml )
Unplug power and then hold Vol+ before plugging it in to boot to recovery directly
Use volume keys to navigate to the factory reset option and select it
Reboot and after a few minutes you will see the duck boot animation and then the Google setupwizard Features/changes:
Kernel with GPU OC (850mhz), Wifi fix, selinux permissive enabled for now
a11 gogapps GSI with gsm/ims permissions removed
Vendor with updated wifi module, edited fstab to remove resource partition mounting, removed qcom-factory permission
New rawprogram0, patch0, gpt_main0/gpt_backup0 from [@mrhand](https://community.home-assistant.io/u/mrhand) for larger system and userdata partitions
Userdata_1.img as just userdata.img
Stock recovery pulled from newer firmware so volume keys work to move/select Bugs (If you find some let me know and I’ll add): No Auto Brightness currently (Needs a treble vendor overlay to turn it on WIP) Recents button doesn’t work (Needs a treble vendor overlay to turn it on WIP) Download: [https://s3.us-east-1.wasabisys.com/filestash-buk/lenovo-thinksmart-view/combined_kingston_a11_gogapps.7z 43](https://s3.us-east-1.wasabisys.com/filestash-buk/lenovo-thinksmart-view/combined_kingston_a11_gogapps.7z) Qfil flashing instructions [CD-18781Y (Lenovo ThinkSmart View) Bootloader, Firmware, Zoom/Teams Conversion, Normal Android | XDA Forums 26](https://xdaforums.com/t/cd-18781y-lenovo-thinksmart-view-bootloader-firmware-zoom-teams-conversion-normal-android.4426029/#:~:text=Flashing%20the%20Lenovo%20firmware) If you don’t want Go gapps you can replace the system.img with a different gsi. Also be aware this can easily be reversed by flashing the debug firmware again. It will repartition your device back to the stock layout.

and the file download link to the A11 ROM: https://s3.us-east-1.wasabisys.com/filestash-buk/lenovo-thinksmart-view/combined_kingston_a11_gogapps.7z

From this point you should be booted into the tablet. You'll need to make some settings changes.

• Turn off lock screen
• Get developer options and then enter developer options and change min-width text to 600 to improve the scaling
• Install either Wallpanel or Fully Kiosk and IP Webcam as detailed in other section of this wiki
• Do not set any apps to autostart. I had issues where the device would fail to boot after making that change causing a bunch of extra work to get back to where I was before. Use Android app AutoStart Manager and use it to auto launch the applications you will be running
• Install Webview DevTools from Play Store. This will allow for proper display of CSS content

AND YOU KNOW, as soon as I rebooted this thing it went to that Lenovo screen again. I was able to get past it by restarting and banging on the back/home button as the Android interface showed and everything is back to working. This is a really strange bird. This is not stable so you've been warned AGAIN.

UPDATE User @flab offers a suggestion:

Turning off auto connect in WiFi settings seems to solve the reboot to Lenovo logo issue. If you or anyone else does find themselves stuck on the Lenovo logo boot screen, you can get around having to do a factory reset by just leaving the device unplugged for a few minutes and then trying again. Leaving it unplugged seems to give more time in the lock screen dance described at then end of your linked wiki.

Additionally, I've found that after leaving the device unplugged you can quickly turn off the wifi and it will not crash to Lenovo. That may not be necessary either. Perhaps just unplugging for a few minutes is enough.