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Show HN: Physical Pomodoro Timer with ESP32 and e-paper screen

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Re: Show HN: Physical Pomodoro Timer with ESP32 and e-paper screen

#3
I love this project! The UI feels so delightful and well thought out. I guess I found another weekend (multi-week?) activity.

If you're looking for hackathon projects, the E-ink ecosystem is well developed enough that they're pretty easy to program against and Claude/the AIs can pick up the API surface. Plus, people generally don't know what they're looking at -- you have to say "kindle-style screen" -- but people (me? but also guests) do seem to prefer having a e-ink screen in the living room over a backlit display because it's so much less intrusive.

FWIW, E-ink [0] AND pomdoros [1] are each a whole thing of mine.

[0] https://sambroner.com/posts/raspberry-pi-train

[1] https://sambroner.com/posts/personal-analytics-2024

Re: Show HN: Physical Pomodoro Timer with ESP32 and e-paper screen

#5
I love this! I’ve been playing around with browser extensions to achieve this, and it always seems to get lost in the clutter of my busy workspace. A physical timer for this is a brilliant idea.

Another thing I’ve been contemplating is a “do not disturb” signpost on my desk when in focus time; might be that this timer could also double as that.

Re: Show HN: Physical Pomodoro Timer with ESP32 and e-paper screen

#6
Very interesting, I've been thinking on how to make physical pomodoro timer (or just display for one), but with circular screen and preferably no exact time remaining visible. as for me it is both distracting and anxiety-inducing. I've been using Visual Timer app [0] on my android phone and it has mostly been great, but putting phone away would obviously be better.

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.cwiesner.an...

Re: Show HN: Physical Pomodoro Timer with ESP32 and e-paper screen

#7
Lasering in on the three different use cases (rather than just one generic 25min focus time) and also providing statistics are both cool additions. Nice.

It would be a good addition to your write up to mention, for the uninitiated, that pomodoro is of course named after a physical timer with a rotary encoder!

https://medium.com/@thejinxes/ditch-the-tomato-timer-d8bbf01...

If you ever get around to your goal of having a red e-ink screen, that would be a fun alternative to Pepe.

Re: Show HN: Physical Pomodoro Timer with ESP32 and e-paper screen

#9
Every time I see something pertaining to a pomodoro timer, I'm reminded of interviewing with a YC founder in downtown san mateo in the early 2010s (he was working on websockets + slide deck/prezi-like tech iirc), and half our interview consisted of him hyping up this technique. The company went under within a year, and I could never respect this technique afterwards

Re: Show HN: Physical Pomodoro Timer with ESP32 and e-paper screen

#10
post #6

Very interesting, I've been thinking on how to make physical pomodoro timer (or just display for one), but with circular screen and preferably no exact time remaining visible. as for me it is both distracting and anxiety-inducing. I've been using Visual Timer app [0] on my android phone and it has mostly been great, but putting phone away would obviously be better. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at…

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