Since you're announcing it at an heavy traffic like HN it is quite likely there are already 200 companies in ShenZhen reading your post and and planning to sell it for one tenth of what you're asking.
Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
21–30 of 169 posts
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#22It needs to support Office 365 or some sort of connector.
Yea, for sure, that's something I'd like to have as well!
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#23I really like this idea, but I agree with others that the bezels look a bit too large (do you need them to hide the components?) and the price seems relatively high.
I also thought that the calendar looked a bit grey/dull in the image you show. Is this just about the lighting or is the display not very high-contrast?
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#24The frame overshadows the display. You might: - reduce the size of the frame - mount the display flush to the front of the frame The contrast in the photo does not look great. Perhaps use hatching or shading instead of the solid black areas? In any case, you'll want to be able to separate out different calendars. Other display modes? "Today", "Clock/Calendar", "Now and Next"? How do you control it?
Thank you for the feedback.
You're right, the display is smaller than I'd like... for sure.
I'll also see what can be done on a black-and white display with regards to the stark contrast.
> Other display modes? "Today", "Clock/Calendar", "Now and Next"?
Yes, that's do-able, I "just" have to code it.
> How do you control it?
In the App. I should make that clearer on the website for sure.
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#25The frame overshadows the display. You might: - reduce the size of the frame - mount the display flush to the front of the frame The contrast in the photo does not look great. Perhaps use hatching or shading instead of the solid black areas? In any case, you'll want to be able to separate out different calendars. Other display modes? "Today", "Clock/Calendar", "Now and Next"? How do you control it?
I think the idea is the display comes directly from Google calendar and you don't have much control over it.
Nope, it just gets the events from gcal. The layout is whatever I make it.
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#26You want some feedback? Here is some: it’s too expensive. 200€ for a display-only calendar? Thanks, I’ll pass.
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#27The frame size to screen feels unbalanced to me. I would reduce the frame width and consider using a solid CNC’ed price of wood instead of using picture frame construction. Unless you can get those seams very tight, it looks a little cheap (which your price point isnt).
Yea, fair point!
Interesting idea with the CNC'd wood - I'll look into that for sure!
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#28Hi HN! I am trying to develop an e-paper smart display as a consumer product. The first available layout will be a calendar. I'd love to have HN's input on this: Do you think it's viable? Does it look okay? What would be a good selling price?
I know someone who needs this.
The price seems high, but it might work as a christmas/birthday present, and probably wouldn't ultimately stop it from being purchased in this case.
It would be replacing a paper calendar that shows 3 months ahead. A nice feature would be to be able to move between views of today, this week, 3 months. Much bigger would be nice too. Again not having these would not stop a purchase.
The wood bezel is pretty big.
Most likely to stop a purchase is the ugly wire hanging from it. If it didn't need charging often, then having it have a powerbank (swappable?) in it would be better from my point of view, although how often it needs to charge would be a factor.
There was a beautiful concept epaper calendar I saw a while back, https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/22/15028600/m... but I don't think it ever made it to sale, and if it had, it would have been frighteningly expensive, but that is what I would really like...
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#29It would be useful to show a list of the day's next events and to-do's. Is iCloud sync even possible?
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#30I actually like the heavy frame, although I see why some might find it a bit heavy, given that the apparent goal of most screen designers is to eliminate the bezel entirely. My biggest sticking point here is price. 200 euros is a no-go; given the limited nature of the device, I wouldn’t even consider 100. 50 is the absolute max I’d pay for something like this. It’s a very nice product, and your target audience might…
Thank you for the feedback. Getting the price down is definitely one of my priorities.