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E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

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Re: E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

#151

Post by nisegami »

jaidan wrote: post #30
WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #4

Can’t explain why but all these E-Ink projects are so awesome and attractive to me. I’m surprised I can’t just buy a bunch of E-Ink style gizmos from some company to decorate my home and office. My wallet would be wide open to it constantly. Great work and congrats on this!

I’m sorry to have to let you know your wallet may empty if you have not seen this already: [edit: 4.7” ESP32 based epaper display with touchscreen, built in battery and expansion ports] https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5paper-esp32-development-...

This is incredible for something I have in mind. Going to do a bit more reading, but the price and size are ideal for my use case.

Re: E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

#152

Post by SavantIdiot »

KaiserPro wrote: post #128
SavantIdiot wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what a colossal kludge. what you're trying to accomplish is basically embedded programming 101: sleep mode + wakeup timer. RTC? pff.. even any MPU on-board oscillator with no crystal has good enough PPM and lower power than an RTC. your solution is like hunting quail with a nuke.

yes, but trying to generate a nice rendered image on a stand-alone uProcessor is pretty hard. I don't like that it takes headless chrome to render, but it _works_ and fills a need for the maker. I'm pretty sure they looked at the stuff they'd need to write (A layout engine, a anti aliasing library, a calendar parsing library, an image handling library) and thought "fuck that, lets use a pi". It terms of time thats we…

> trying to generate a nice rendered image on a stand-alone uProcessor is pretty hard.

Did you see the rendering? It is very simple, and does not require PIL. There are plenty of embedded GUI libraries that are specifically for this kind of application (uFX, Qt). Why not learn something new?

I want HN to be a place where experts critique ideas, not a Facebook/Instagram like-fest ego-stroke. I was proposing a deeper dive to the OP so that s/he could develop better skills. I wasn't mocking OP, but I was mocking your bad idea because you didn't make anything, you just threw out a naive suggestion.

Did you come here to learn or to get some karma for a dopamine hit?

Re: E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

#153

Post by blacksmith_tb »

adiM wrote: post #78
chadd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i bought the 6" display from eink.com to build a small personal art project - an infinite scrolling procedurally generated landscape based on this project - https://github.com/LingDong-/shan-shui-inf A few gotchas: 1. some of these eink boards are hard to procure as a consumer. the vendors want you to be a company 2. the driver boards are purchased separately, are definitely required, and sometimes have windows softw…

This is very interesting. Do you have a write up on the procedurally generated landscape part?

It was posted recently, so there's some discussion here[1]

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23469233

Re: E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

#154

Post by riobard »

robinsoh wrote: post #148
riobard wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please tell a bit more about the volume-side of story? Somehow I feel that E-ink is at this weird point on the cost/volume curve because it is a fundamentally flawed display technology: monochrome or a couple of dull colors at best, very slow refresh rate (with ghosting/leftover on partial refresh). LCD/OLED displays were also very expensive initially, but because they're so much appealing universally, load…

Please search my comment history for what I posted about electrophoresis and physics. I don't think they'll be able to get past the physical limitation. To summarize, you either move ink fast but end up losing bistability, or move ink slow, as it is currently. Most people don't realize electrophoresis has remained at about 700ms for an update over the last decade. Tricks like A2 sure with the Dasung, but nothing subs…

Thanks a lot!

VC money is unlikely the source for this kinda of industrial research and bumpy road to scalability.

LCD/OLED panels got so cheap largely due to Korean/Japanese/Chinese government subsides. I doubt any of them will do so for e-ink.

Re: E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

#156

Post by lijogdfljk »

konschubert wrote: post #99

Hey man, this is so cool. I hope it’s okay to plug here: I am working towards releasing a similar product for sale: https://www.invisible-computers.com/ Unfortunately the display isn’t as big as the one you chose and it isn’t battery powered. But I am starting to ship the first units, so there is that :)

This looks great! Two questions if i may:

1. Any plans to release some general purpose version of this? Ie i'd love to buy this and hook it up to an HTML webpage i generate or something. Then it's flexible to whatever i want to show on my dashboard.

2. Any plans for how consumers should power this hanging on a wall? Since it's wired it looks like.

Re: E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

#157

Post by teddyh »

9935c101ab17a66 wrote: post #141
teddyh wrote: post #104

• Displays one month • Needs battery change more than monthly I.e. it’s still less work to have a paper calendar and flip a page every month.

Do you feel this comment has contributed anything to discussion around this post?

Yes. The continual obliviousness which product makers (and buyers) have towards battery life is very annoying. I used to have a wristwatch which was the most technically advanced watch I could find, and it had a touch screen and various applications. Its battery consistently lasted for more than two years after each battery change. Eventually the touch screen wore out, and I stopped using it.

I can’t stand all this modern hardware which must all be charged after a few hours of use. It’s a continual stress factor to keep track of the charge of all your various devices.

Re: E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

#158

Post by konschubert »

lijogdfljk wrote: post #156
konschubert wrote: post #99

Hey man, this is so cool. I hope it’s okay to plug here: I am working towards releasing a similar product for sale: https://www.invisible-computers.com/ Unfortunately the display isn’t as big as the one you chose and it isn’t battery powered. But I am starting to ship the first units, so there is that :)

This looks great! Two questions if i may: 1. Any plans to release some general purpose version of this? Ie i'd love to buy this and hook it up to an HTML webpage i generate or something. Then it's flexible to whatever i want to show on my dashboard. 2. Any plans for how consumers should power this hanging on a wall? Since it's wired it looks like.

re 1:

In principle that’s something that I could enable eventually. It’s a nice idea. I’ll think about it.

re 2: There is a standard usb plug at the far end of the cable. It can be plugged into a usb charger.

Re: E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

#159

Post by freemint »

dsr_ wrote: post #34
gedy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be cheaper to put a printer on top of your fridge and automatically print calendar every morning into a plexiglass holder :-)

Hundred dollars for the printer, probably 20 cents a day for the consumables (paper, toner, electricity). The paper is recyclable. At one page a day, I would guess lifetime will be dominated by mechanical lubrication or degradation of capacitors, dust clogs, etc.

Hundred dollars for the printer, I think Zou are absolutely over spending here. Electricity can be saved by having shutoff and turn on with a timer.

Re: E-Ink Magic Calendar that runs off a battery powered Raspberry Pi

#160

Post by TaylorAlexander »

robinsoh wrote: post #142
mannykoum wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't seem to ever provide any evidence for his claims other than a repeated "I work in the display industry"..

I think you've misunderstood my comments. I saw this recurring theme on HN that electrophoretic panels were expensive due to patents and evil misdeeds by that most evil corporation called E-Corp. I thought, hey, I work in this bloody display industry myself where everything is about volume, volume and more volume, and I hangout with their guys at conferences and events, and I've never heard such a thing as them using…

I mean, as long as they have patents they don’t need to “attack” others. A patent is enough on its own to prevent others from innovating. That’s the function of a patent after all!
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