I found this guide to converting an old Kindle 4 to display anything from the web super useful. <a href="https://matthealy.com/kindle" rel="nofollow">https://matthealy.com/kindle</a> I bought another 3 used kindles for $20 each after getting it to work.
If this kind of device would come in 'off the shelf' ready to go, I'd buy one. I think e-Ink screens are really attractive to be hung on the wall.<p>I hope we're going to see such device come to life; my bet is some successful kickstarter followed by an amazon clone with alexa built-in :vomit-face:<p>+1 for a simple device that does one thing, and does it well.
The Urban Workshop in Helsinki Central Library mentioned in the article is quite a cool place (as is the rest of the Library):<p><a href="https://www.helmet.fi/en-US/Libraries_and_services/Helsinki_Central_Library_Oodi/Urban_Workshop" rel="nofollow">https://www.helmet.fi/en-US/Libraries_and_services/Helsinki_...</a>
> Many existing projects used lower level libraries such as Python Imaging Library, but I opted for HTML and CSS. The development is fast when you can edit the HTML and immediately see the result without rendering a raster image after each iteration.<p>I'd like link to Slint [<a href="https://github.com/slint-ui/slint" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/slint-ui/slint</a>]
It has a live preview mode so you can iterate fast on the UI, and it is much more lightweight than HTML, so you could even run it bare metal on a Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2040)
>The picture is from the library's electronics room which has cool gear such as laser cutter, 3D printer, and much more.<p>Amazing! I've never seen anything comparable in a U.S. library. What a wonderful resource. How do they maintain it?
Mentions battery life but does not say in the end how long between recharges with the 12000mah battery.<p>Would really like to know power usage and how long between charges and more details about getting the pi to wake up once a day then sleep the rest of the time. Because if my maths right a Rpi zero running normally would drain the battery in less than full day.
Very cool. Shamelessly linking my own weather display: <a href="https://github.com/Mrjohns42/WeatherDash" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Mrjohns42/WeatherDash</a><p>Supporting EINK on mine could potentially help make it more visually compelling like yours, but I've done other EINK display projects in the past (see <a href="https://github.com/Mrjohns42/DoggieClock" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Mrjohns42/DoggieClock</a>) and screen burn-in was definitely an issue.
I recently built something similar with a 4.2" panel based on these instructions: <a href="https://georgik.rocks/weather-display-for-lilygo-ttgo-t5-4-7-e-paper-esp32-deployed-using-arduino-ide-2-0/" rel="nofollow">https://georgik.rocks/weather-display-for-lilygo-ttgo-t5-4-7...</a><p>I think I might have seen that link here, either here or Reddit.<p>I tweaked a few things but it's basically the same code still. I slapped a 3500 mAh 18650 in it and it's been running now for a month and a half while still showing 89% battery remaining. If that pace holds up it'll be in the ballpark of a year of operation before it actually needs to be recharged.<p>Once an hour it wakes up, connects to WiFi, retrieves the information, updates the display, and then goes back to deep sleep. It's awesome, other than it being too small to comfortably read where I want to put it. Eventually I'll upgrade to a larger display, but I haven't seen any offered as reasonably priced standalone modules with a WiFi capable MCU attached out of the box like this one.
I have no idea how this is not get a commercial product. Our Google Nest Home Max Hub Whatever screen that I got free from CES is garbage at displaying useful information. The weather info can’t sync at least once per week, requiring a restart. It’s literally just our bathroom clock / Bluetooth speaker because that’s all it’s good for. It cannot sync to Google Apps (business account) calendars. The proposed solution is to use IFTTT to duplicate GApps accounts to your personal account, then sync it to that. That is, frankly, embarrassing for Google IMO.<p>I built a MagicMirror-based Pi setup with a little 7” Lilliput screen and it works so much better, but it’s sad that over the past few decades we still haven’t solved this problem of a customizable smart home dashboard that actually works and yet does not require a CS degree to operate.
Looks great! I built a similar system a few years ago as a dashboard for a home weather station, and ended up using Joan Home devices instead of assembling the hardware from components. Highly recommend e-ink as a format for these sorts of low-key displays around the home.<p>Some notes on my approach: <a href="https://github.com/schwartzie/weather-joan" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/schwartzie/weather-joan</a>
As much as I like e-ink and DIY projects, those "weather displays" or "smart mirrors" always feel like a wasteful solution to a non-problem.
Fun hacks in 2022 should be bottom drawer first? Sustainably powered?
It could just be my brain compensating for my own e-waste guilt.
cool, but these : <a href="https://www.homedepot.com/pep/La-Crosse-Technology-Atomic-Digital-Wall-Table-Clock-with-Temperature-WS-8008U-IT/205208076" rel="nofollow">https://www.homedepot.com/pep/La-Crosse-Technology-Atomic-Di...</a> are super cheap, last forever and don't require an internet connection. Sure you don't get multi day weather but that's what the weather widget on my phohne is for.
I built a little e-ink display that sits inside my gaming PC recently. It shows the CPU and GPU temperature, the time, and a pretty fractal picture (because the tech part of the project was fun and then I couldn't be bothered with the design part!)<p>It was a really fun build, I used a 5.3 inch black/white/red panel from aliexpress and a waveshare rp2040 to drive it, hooked up to a spare internal usb header. Circuitpython made life pretty easy for the firmware, though I am thinking of rewriting it in C. This is mostly because circuitpython seems to get 'stuck' in a weird state, the host PC won't recognise it, and I have to open the case and hit the reset button. Every boot.<p>What's missing really is a 3d printed frame.
eink displays are such a great media for calm tech. It is a shame that it doesn't go down to a reasonable price, otherwise there would be a ton of cool devices with use cases like this.
Awesome! I love to reading about this projects. I built my own a while back and every post somehow explores the design space slightly different.<p>My version[0] uses the 7.5 b/w ePaper that the author replaced, renders using LaTeX and addresses the bw font uglyness by rendering without anti aliasing in an okayish looking font. Looks good to me from a couple of meters away.<p>[0] <a href="https://irq0.org/hacks/epaper-calendar.html" rel="nofollow">https://irq0.org/hacks/epaper-calendar.html</a> <a href="https://github.com/irq0/comporellon" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/irq0/comporellon</a>
Looks great! You inspired me to want to do something similar, perhaps in a photo frame on my desk with a to-do list.<p>I was shocked at the price of the e-ink display though. $200?! I could buy a whole Kindle for that price.
I wish there was a weather station I could purchase that would do 2 things:<p>Give an hourly (or 2 hour) 24.. or even 12 hour weather forecast, in 6-12-24 chunks. Allow natural scrolling to see hourly forecast for further than 12/24 hours.<p>Give a 7 day weather forecast. No need to connect with a wind direction sensor or anything fancy, just pull from the weather.com api or anything similar<p>It would also not show me ads or try to track me or crash. I would even be ok dedicating a full time iPad/other device to display this.
Sweet, very nice.<p>I made a 'skyfield' widget for home assistant that shows the current position of the sun, moon and some planets as well as the summer and winter solstice paths. I really think it would be awesome for an e-ink display in the home. I've been planning to kick off that project at some point. This is inspiring.<p><a href="https://github.com/partofthething/ha_skyfield" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/partofthething/ha_skyfield</a>
Is it possible right now to program a bare e-ink screen for an application with lots of text and scrolling? I see plenty of e-readers out there that appear to have good refresh rate, but I always wonder if they are using special drivers to achieve this or if it's as simple as using an off-the-shelf screen with included driver that has a `scroll_down()` function.
I got a 7.5 inch wave share displaying my todos from todoist, today. Very easy. A few gotchas.<p>I ended up ordering a case from thingiverse because the case wave share sells doesn't fit the HAT model.<p>My goal is to not look at my phone in the morning, so having my todos on eink is nice. When I used paper I ended up with paper lists in 7 places.
Very nice! Surprised how good that IKEA frame looks. I have a similar hobby project [0] using an Inkplate 6 [1]<p>[0]: <a href="https://hash.jordanscales.com/" rel="nofollow">https://hash.jordanscales.com/</a><p>[1]: <a href="https://inkplate.io/" rel="nofollow">https://inkplate.io/</a>
To lower current draw, one could use i.e. an AVR and a UART radio bridge (Bluetooth or similar).<p>Then, the battery could be a lot smaller and the device would be sleeping most of the time.<p>That's possible since e-ink only draws power when updating.
I'm looking for a good e-ink display with touch input. I want to setup an eink calendar that can show the view for the current week, month and year and allow clicking on an event to see notes if there are any.
Really cool. I wanted to make an 3-4 inch NFC eink screen for my phone so I can read books on the go without an e reader. Anyone got expreince that could help out?