So I received an official 7" touch display for xmas. Even though it's $60, it brings my total cost over 200$ for the project. But I thought it would be an awesome addition to the project because you don't have to whip out your phone just to control everything. I's a pretty sweet 800 x 480 10 point capacitive touchscreen display all you need to do is connect the DSI ribbon cable and feed ground/5v from the Pi's GPIO pins. Im thinking starting the browser in kiosk mode should suffice once I finish the node.js interface. The only issue I havent resolved was to power down the screen fully when the Pi shutdowns. If anyone knows how to let me know.