Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#1

Post by arnemunthekaas » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 12:31 PM UTC

See also: Avian Visitors - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48343424 - May 2026 (20 comments)

Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations
github.com

Re: Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#2

Post by arnemunthekaas » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 12:31 PM UTC

Author here. A mic listens to the sounds in my garden, BirdNET-Go (an open-source BirdNET classifier) detects birds by sound, and the e-ink frame draws a real 1800s natural-history illustration of each one as it hears them. Here’s a live web-demo from my garden in Bergen, Norway: https://fugleramme.arnegiacomo.dev

A few things that might be interesting:

- The screen only redraws when the set of birds changes, and dithers the collage down to six colours for the e-ink display.

- Bigger birds sit toward the centre, scaled by real body mass.

- 800+ cutouts across 400+ species, each cut from a real public domain plate. All art is historic and human-made. Coverage is currently best for the Nordics, Britain and Germany (but other parts of the world are in the works).

- Runs fully local on a Raspberry Pi or your homelab (yes, even the classifier runs great on a RPI)

The e-ink panel is optional and it can run web-only in a container against a BirdNET-Go you already have.

Happy to answer any questions!

Re: Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#3

Post by firmretention » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC

This is such a cool idea and I want to build one. I wish I had this kind of creativity. I can do the hardware/software side, but great ideas elude me.

Re: Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#4

Post by mungoman2 » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 1:10 PM UTC

Now this is why I come here!

Amazing thing, will replicate.

Re: Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#5

Post by jiwidi » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 1:11 PM UTC

Isnt this a fork* of https://x.com/WarnerTeddy/status/2060018688645115964?

https://github.com/Twarner491/AvianVisitors

https://theodore.net/projects/AvianVisitors/

Or maybe im missing to see is the same author? It went viral a few months ago

Re: Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#6

Post by tencentshill » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 1:13 PM UTC

jiwidi wrote: post #5

Isnt this a fork* of https://x.com/WarnerTeddy/status/2060018688645115964 ? https://github.com/Twarner491/AvianVisitors https://theodore.net/projects/AvianVisitors/ Or maybe im missing to see is the same author? It went viral a few months ago

This one seems to be more North European focused

Re: Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#7

Post by jiwidi » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

tencentshill wrote: post #6

jiwidi wrote: post #5

Isnt this a fork* of https://x.com/WarnerTeddy/status/2060018688645115964 ? https://github.com/Twarner491/AvianVisitors https://theodore.net/projects/AvianVisitors/ Or maybe im missing to see is the same author? It went viral a few months ago

This one seems to be more North European focused

Its awful close with no attribution or mention of the original project, which should be the minimum i feel like.

Re: Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#8

Post by carb » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

jiwidi wrote: post #5

Isnt this a fork* of https://x.com/WarnerTeddy/status/2060018688645115964 ? https://github.com/Twarner491/AvianVisitors https://theodore.net/projects/AvianVisitors/ Or maybe im missing to see is the same author? It went viral a few months ago

I agree I would expect a reference. Another difference between this an AvianVisitors is the image sources. AvianVisitors is all AI generated with a consistent prompt, but OP's is using chiefly public domain images with retouching by AI as needed.

Re: Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#9

Post by wccrawford » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 1:23 PM UTC

jiwidi wrote: post #5

Isnt this a fork* of https://x.com/WarnerTeddy/status/2060018688645115964 ? https://github.com/Twarner491/AvianVisitors https://theodore.net/projects/AvianVisitors/ Or maybe im missing to see is the same author? It went viral a few months ago

The new one appears to use real art from real humans, instead of AI art that was fixed.

And just because 2 things do the same job doesn't make one a "copy" of the other.

Re: Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations

#10

Post by KaiserPro » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC

jiwidi wrote: post #7

tencentshill wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one seems to be more North European focused

Its awful close with no attribution or mention of the original project, which should be the minimum i feel like.

true, but we are assuming that the author is aware of the other repo