Agree on the design concerns that other people have raised... I'm also a little concerned that you seem to only have one calendar with relatively few events on it as your example. Weekly views with 5+ distinct calendars on them get unusable pretty fast (and often the same event showing up on several of the calendars) so make sure you have a decent solution for that if you're planning to market this as a "family" calendar.
Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
101–110 of 169 posts
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but even at 10K you’ll be looking at $50 per unit at best. eInk displays are expensive as fuck thanks to patents.
> eInk displays are expensive as fuck thanks to patents. Citation please.
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#103it has a power chord?
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#104Don't make the important information so hard to read.
I don't think the black background needs to be a thing. If you have to distinguish blocks judt thicken the border a wee bit. You'd be surprised how little you need.
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#105How well does it handle double and triple bookings in the same time slot?
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank for the tips on the woodwork. I am not sure if a darker color would make the screen look brighter or darker. I had noticed those gaps in the frame as well. I agree they look poorly made :) I think they are mostly from the fact that this was cut with a hand saw, and the cut wasn't even throughout the Z axis. I am hoping that I will be able to fix this as I go from a prototyping process to a more refined producti…
Re CNCing the wood: I'm not a woodworker, but given the simplicity of the cut, I'd dare say that miter sawing the planks using a guide would more than suffice.
I'm both an amateur woodworker and a professional CNC programmer, and this is right. Frames like this are made with routers to carve the profile, and miter saws to cut the corners.
Personally I'd love to buy the guts and make my own frame, to personalize the gift with a nicer frame than I'd want to pay someone else to make.
Give me a good dimensioned drawing or a 3D model (or both!) of the display panel and the electronics that drive it, I'll chop some scrap into a mockup of the screen, craft a custom frame around it, and then swap in the real guts when I'm done.
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#107IMO, the bezel is way way way too big for how much screen space there is. Instead of red oak, I'd suggest looking at walnut or cherry -- something with more color and a little less texture might help the screen to take focus. You could also look at separating the screen from the bezel with some kind of mat board or something (another commenter linked to an instructable that did this). I'm also not super clear on the…
The wood is actually beech, though this particular batch I got for the prototypes had a surprising amount of texture. I am planning to use lighter colors in future. Regarding your second point: I'd love to support a multitude of layout options some day.
Or split the difference and stain with a gray stain to create wood grain that matches the grays of the screen.
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh. Alright then. Either way, I'd recommend leaning toward a less textured, richer/darker color and species of wood. If you go lighter, it's going to look a little washed out IMO. Also, in your quality control for the wood bits, make sure that those mitered corners all line up evenly across the entire joint (examples of what I'm talking about highlighted here: https://monosnap.com/file/MkTzAjJhx7v7DkL5kOKypQNFKVyrNU…
Thank for the tips on the woodwork. I am not sure if a darker color would make the screen look brighter or darker. I had noticed those gaps in the frame as well. I agree they look poorly made :) I think they are mostly from the fact that this was cut with a hand saw, and the cut wasn't even throughout the Z axis. I am hoping that I will be able to fix this as I go from a prototyping process to a more refined producti…
CNC sounds like kind of a bad fit unless you're going to mill the entire frame out of a solid piece of wood -- you'd lose a lot of material to the router bit and still have to do a fair amount of finishing by hand. For mitered joints like this, there are computerized saws that can feed and cut the lumber pretty precisely, but those are very expensive.
I'm not super clear on whether or not you're doing all of this by hand or working through a factory. If it's the latter, I would recommend just setting your expectations for the final product very clearly and then make sure that the end product is meeting those expectations. If you're doing it by hand, practice makes perfect! Go to your local lumber yard store and get some construction grade pine or fir boards and cut several dozen miters by hand (you can also invest in a compound miter saw -- that's generally useful for any woodworking that you'd want to do down the road as well and you can find them used for ~dozens of dollars or brand new for ~100-500 depending on features, size, power, etc -- just make sure you've got a good, sharp blade with lots of teeth for a nice smooth cut). You'll get the hang of it. For soft woods, clamping pressure and even glue distribution matters too -- you can clamp them a little tighter and the wood fibers at the boundaries between the boards will crush down a bit and help to even out the joint. That doesn't work so well with hardwoods though - you'll have to be pretty precise to get those done right.
Depending on the thickness of your wood, you might be able to do something with a laser cutter, but you'll need to figure out how to square up the edges appropriately (since laser cut edges on thicker lumber are rarely perfectly square).
If you're particularly lucky, you might be able to find somewhere that will give you some time on a water jet. Those edges will be perfectly square and everything will be cut perfectly -- just make sure to thoroughly dry your parts before assembly.
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#109This would be nice for old timers like me whose eyesight was ruined from years of staring at screens. I avoid doing scheduling on my phone due to the form factor, but have my schedule in google cal (others may use exchange), so this would be a better form factor for meetings than the phone, but without taking up valuable monitor real estate.
I would maximize screen real-estate, so I would stick it on my desk and occasionally glance at it, thus it would be nice if the box for the next meeting changed color a few minutes before the meeting so that I'd know immediately that I had a meeting coming up just with a quick glance. It would also be nice if I could tell roughly how many meetings I have in a day and when they are just with a glance. If you want to know something super awesome, have it very slowly scroll through the day. E.g. in the morning you might see
9 am (empty box) 11 am (shaded box for meeting) 1 pm (empty box) 3 pm (shaded box for 3 pm meeting) 5 pm empty box
Then, as you approach 11 am the shaded box turns black, maybe it even says "meeting in 10 min". By that time, the 9 am box has been scrolled off the screen.
At 1pm, the 9 am meeting has scrolled off, and I only need to see the 3 pm box. close to 3, that one turns black. etc.
Another option is to magnify what's coming up:
small box for things in past big box for things right now medium box for hour after that small box for everything after that
Point being, you just want to get all the info you need -- what's coming up -- without squinting at the frame or spending a lot of time looking at it.
Re: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product
#110You're going to be displaying information on a paper like reflective surface. You've probably already thought of this, but check out paper organizers and calendars. Especially take not of what works, for instance light text on dark background. What works for active screens probably won't for passive screens.