I think this was what those little Chumby devices were attempting to do for people, but they've never seemed to be that popular. https://www.chumby.com/
Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
21–30 of 92 posts
Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
#22> I realized I was asking Google Assistant the same questions over and over again. Like What’s the current weather? or What’s on my calendar for today? So I set out to build a small dashboard for my Raspberry Pi that I could check instead. Why not use a widget on the home-screen of your phone?
Phones are multi purpose. You do a lot with it and having every piece of information crammed into layers of applications is not the best design. Some pieces of information, specially those regarding productivity like calendar or a kanban board are better delegated to solutions designed just for that. A whiteboard, a dedicated LCD screen, an eink dashboard controlled by a raspberry pi... Take your pick, as long as it…
I have the hope that AR fixes this with new glasses and arranging virtual dashboards around the house.
The AR technology is already there, only the glasses are missing.
Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
#23> I realized I was asking Google Assistant the same questions over and over again. Like What’s the current weather? or What’s on my calendar for today? So I set out to build a small dashboard for my Raspberry Pi that I could check instead. Why not use a widget on the home-screen of your phone?
Every time I pick up my phone to check a piece of information or complete a simple task, I am presented with some other distraction that threatens to sidetrack me. When I don't want to be distracted, I often leave my phone in another room, turn it off, put it in a bag or even leave home without it. I've often thought of creating my own eink devices with focused purposes to help me get the information I need, while avoiding the distraction of a multipurpose device like a phone.
Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
#24I almost bought this eink yesterday to test it out, but as I'm seeing here and I thought, it seems a bit small. I am also considering getting a kindle and just putting a small html page on it so I don't have to get down to the pixel-level. I remember when I tried to use my now-defunct kindle that JS was giving some funny errors, probably should be treated as an old browser. Been holding out to see if a usb-c kindle c…
There are some Android-based e-ink readers (including some of the Nook models and various Chinese brands) that have modern-ish browsers, you can make a page and wrap it in a webview or write a normal Android app.
Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
#25> I realized I was asking Google Assistant the same questions over and over again. Like What’s the current weather? or What’s on my calendar for today? So I set out to build a small dashboard for my Raspberry Pi that I could check instead. Why not use a widget on the home-screen of your phone?
Every time I pick up my phone to check a piece of information or complete a simple task, I am presented with some other distraction that threatens to sidetrack me. When I don't want to be distracted, I often leave my phone in another room, turn it off, put it in a bag or even leave home without it. I've often thought of creating my own eink devices with focused purposes to help me get the information I need, while av…
> Every time I pick up my phone to check a piece of information or complete a simple task, I am presented with some other distraction that threatens to sidetrack me.
Feels like a very good use of ML on the part of the mobile OS makers would be to decide, based on place and time and activity history, which of your active widgets should appear above the fold on the lockscreen of your phone.
(E.g., when near a bus stop, next-bus times should appear. First thing in the morning after the phone has been inactive all night, the "summary of the calendar events for today" widget should appear. Weather should appear ~5 minutes before you usually leave the house, if-and-only-if there's something useful to know, e.g. rain predicted for today. Etc.)
I know iOS has "Siri Suggestions", which is similar, but these are activity-history-corrleated tap-to-open links for apps, not specific actionable at-a-glance information.
I think Google Glass tried to do this?
Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
#26> I realized I was asking Google Assistant the same questions over and over again. Like What’s the current weather? or What’s on my calendar for today? So I set out to build a small dashboard for my Raspberry Pi that I could check instead. Why not use a widget on the home-screen of your phone?
Every time I pick up my phone to check a piece of information or complete a simple task, I am presented with some other distraction that threatens to sidetrack me. When I don't want to be distracted, I often leave my phone in another room, turn it off, put it in a bag or even leave home without it. I've often thought of creating my own eink devices with focused purposes to help me get the information I need, while av…
I would challenge the notion that the information is really needed.
Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every time I pick up my phone to check a piece of information or complete a simple task, I am presented with some other distraction that threatens to sidetrack me. When I don't want to be distracted, I often leave my phone in another room, turn it off, put it in a bag or even leave home without it. I've often thought of creating my own eink devices with focused purposes to help me get the information I need, while av…
> Every time I pick up my phone to check a piece of information or complete a simple task, I am presented with some other distraction that threatens to sidetrack me. Feels like a very good use of ML on the part of the mobile OS makers would be to decide, based on place and time and activity history, which of your active widgets should appear above the fold on the lockscreen of your phone. (E.g., when near a bus stop,…
I'm pretty sure Android puts these in the soft notifications area with the right settings.
Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
#28I almost bought this eink yesterday to test it out, but as I'm seeing here and I thought, it seems a bit small. I am also considering getting a kindle and just putting a small html page on it so I don't have to get down to the pixel-level. I remember when I tried to use my now-defunct kindle that JS was giving some funny errors, probably should be treated as an old browser. Been holding out to see if a usb-c kindle c…
Inkplate may be what you’re looking for, though it isn’t shipping yet: https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6
I have my eye on that one. One of the creators just did an AMA on Discord an hour ago: https://discordapp.com/channels/571093131651448852/703384583...
I think I'm going to hold out for the Inkplate 10 (9.7" screen), which he mentioned when someone asked about upcoming plans.
Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
#29> I realized I was asking Google Assistant the same questions over and over again. Like What’s the current weather? or What’s on my calendar for today? So I set out to build a small dashboard for my Raspberry Pi that I could check instead. Why not use a widget on the home-screen of your phone?
I ask Google Assistant the weather every night just to get it to turn on the little LEDs. They light up the room enough to see where I am walking.
With smart lights and the assistant, I actually do this as "Hey Google, lights to red".
Re: Hacking Together an E-ink Dashboard
#30I almost bought this eink yesterday to test it out, but as I'm seeing here and I thought, it seems a bit small. I am also considering getting a kindle and just putting a small html page on it so I don't have to get down to the pixel-level. I remember when I tried to use my now-defunct kindle that JS was giving some funny errors, probably should be treated as an old browser. Been holding out to see if a usb-c kindle c…
The html browser on e-ink kindles is absurdly terrible (I think intentionally to discourage using the 'free' 3G for surfing). You may be able to get it to work, but godspeed. While not e-ink, I bought a handful of cheap used iPad-minis and mounted them on the wall. Serve them a little HTML UI from a raspberrypi in the closet. I tried a cheapo kindle fire, but it wasn't possible to get the browser to go "full-screen".…
To me, the appeal of e-ink is the fact it completely blends in with your room. There is no glow, no distraction when watching television. It's lit by your room. Also it doesn't feel "wasteful" to have it lit up when no one is in the room.