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I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard

hawksley.org

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Re: I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard

#171

Post by michaelsalim »

guide42 wrote: post #14
bengale wrote: post #6

I’m always surprised how much people seem to want to constantly know the weather.

Same. You can always tell how is going to be the weather by yourself. Depending on how much time have you lived in the same place you can predict the weather for the day when you get up or, if you are a completely stranger to the environment, at least half an hour before.

While this is true in many places, i believe it is also quite untrue in many more. For example where I live, it was snowing last week. Quite cold but you can't tell csuse the snow already disappeared by the morning. And then suddenly it was sunny a few days after. Today, it was as sunny as the past few days, but the temperature was quite warm. Couldn't tell just by looking outside.

Re: I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard

#172

Post by dddgghhbbfblk »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #103
dddgghhbbfblk wrote: post #93

This is really cool. With a newborn in the home I've been really thinking about projects like this recently. When you have a newborn things are so busy and hectic that it's easy to get overloaded and for things to slip through the cracks so I've been really wishing I had a dashboard like this somewhere to remind me that we need to take the dogs out or show how long it's been since the baby last ate or whatnot.

You have a newborn, and you think spending time installing and maintaining something that displays the calendar around the house is a good use of time?

I said "thinking about"... I have been thinking about many other things I wish I had time for too, like "getting eight hours of sleep" or "responding to a growing pile of emails that need attention".

And while your rude, completely unnecessary comment displays a lack of the basic human empathy that may be necessary to understand this, it is precisely during a time when my life and home are so busy and chaotic that I would most appreciate having them be better organized, yes.

But how dare I simply leave a comment saying I liked a project that someone shared.

Re: I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard

#174

Post by anjel »

medstrom wrote: post #70
anjel wrote: post #59

The cost differential between ePaper displays and the comparatively cheap jumbo tablets will offset higher current consumption for a good long while: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808694032679.html

I don't see that TFA claimed any cost savings. That is not the reason people go for e-paper.

Easy now, I wasn't saying they did make that claim. I simply provided a comparatively low-cost alternative for the very expensive display for those for those for whom the display would otherwise be cost-prohibitive.

Best Buy sells 24" touchscreen displays for $339 right now. So you can spend $3000 on a display that sips current or spend 10% of that and you get $2700 to pay towards the higher electric costs.

I call that an interesting trade-off. YMMV

Re: I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard

#176

Post by Barrin92 »

bluGill wrote: post #163
AuthAuth wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy spent months working on this. He was working for technology.

Not anymore - that was months ago when he did all that labor, it is no a sunk-cost. We can debate if it was worth the investment though.

Literally every person I know who is obsessed with home automation has spend thousands of bucks and hundreds if not more hours on automating things that take a second or cost two bucks for a paper version that doesn't use electricity

The article is about a 2000$ eink display that shows a calendar and the weather. Your phone does that for free and you don't need to walk to the hallway every time.

This is basically anti-technology. It takes more time, money and effort than just buying something from the dollar store that does the same thing

Re: I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard

#177

Post by connorshinn »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #48
connorshinn wrote: post #23

This is really cool, thanks for sharing the journey so far. One potential idea - it might be worth looking at overseas manufacturers to see if they can offer a similar display at a better price point. I did a bit of digging on Alibaba, for example, and found a 25" E-ink display with the same resolution as the Boox for around $1000 (and the price goes down to $500 if you order 100 units or more): https://www.alibaba.c…

Have you seen any that include a touchscreen? Would be nice for extremely simple home controls (e.g. thermostat, music).

Agreed! I was able to track one down (at least I think): https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/31-5-e-ink-13-3_16013...

A bit more expensive than the one I linked previously at $1,400, though it's a full color display. It's unfortunately missing a description, so the only evidence that it's a touch screen is in the title itself. Would obviously require some due diligence with the manufacturer.

I'm sure there are other options as well (the breadth of vendors on Alibaba is pretty impressive actually)

Re: I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard

#178

Post by tuananh »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #153

This is almost the only kind of application that makes a 'fridge with a gigantic screen on it' make sense. But do said fridges have the ability to display useful information like this? Someone I know has one of these fridges and the screen is just a toy. Doesn't really show anything useful for day-to-day life. Although it provides amusement when it detects bald heads as eggs.

as long as they can do website in fullscreen, that should work.

Re: I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard

#179

Post by hipjiveguy »

jofzar wrote: post #170
danielheath wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a similar thing with a regular backlit computer screen. It automatically shuts off after 30 seconds of inactivity. I added a $3 webcam, and use openCV to detect motion. If three consecutive frames (sampled 0.5s apart) are each sufficiently difficult from the previous one, it attaches a virtual USB mouse, then moves it one pixel. This wakes up the display whenever you walk past, then puts it back to sleep again…

You can probably just use a cheap motion sensor instead of the webcam if you wanted to. There so many now

If you have some to suggest, I'd love to hear it... TIA!
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