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Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

macwright.com

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Re: Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

#31

Post by cutoff »

reaperducer wrote: post #13

There seem to be so many people on HN and elsewhere who are interested in ambient data displays, but they never catch on with the masses. My favorite one was called Statusboard. It was an iOS app from Panic (yes, THAT Panic) which turned a spare iPad into an ambient data display. Configuration was easy, and on mine I showed RSS feeds, mail information, weather and more. I used it on an old outdated iPad I had laying…

Our restaurant used to use Satus Board on a 1st gen iPad HDMI’d on a 55” TV to display employees who were clocked in/out that day, along with their hours worked and a bulletin for general announcements. It was useful for monitoring labor, breaks, and avoiding meal period violations, but ultimately buggy due to a custom internal HotSchedules integration.

We’ve since gotten rid of it and use a new scheduling software with a decent enough web interface & mobile app.

Re: Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

#32

Post by kruffin »

awhitty wrote: post #30
kruffin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adafruit offers a starter kit with a microcontroller, 64x32 led matrix, and some other doodads for ~$70 ( https://www.adafruit.com/product/4812 ). It's really easy to tinker with. I made a clock that does some crappy visualizations and open sourced it here: https://github.com/kruffin/matrix_portal_gol It actually looks a lot like this Tidbyt (a box with a dot matrix). The only thing it doesn't have is a RTC, so I jus…

Also bought a Matrix Portal and have had a lot of fun with it! Dabbled in writing a raytracer for it, but I don’t know enough about ARM nor C++ to optimize it for decent frame rates. Now the thing runs a newton’s cradle simulator using Box2D, and that’s been a fun desk toy.

Neat. I'd love to see what that looks like (raytracer or cradle). Found an old Hack a Day from 2014 (https://hackaday.com/2014/11/25/ray-tracing-on-an-arduino/) where someone is raytracing on a 16Mhz micro. Should be faster on the 120Mhz portal, but it took almost 3 days :P

Re: Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

#33

Post by slowraise »

edelhans wrote: post #16

I'be build pretty much the same thing using an esp32 an 3d printed enclosure and a small custom pcb. You can connect via websocket from a browser and upload images, text, ect. I've also managed to implement OTA firmware updates and a similar Wifi based setup as this product has. If anyone is interested I'm happy to put it on Github. https://photos.app.goo.gl/ajAbJ3fqqYQV5sd98 https://photos.app.goo.gl/PHzq1P7uWkJgAtP…

Which RGB library are you using for esp32? I was doing some initial LED stuff with a Pi with hzellers rpi-rgb-led-matrix library, but I am having to switch over to esp. Also that PCB looks really nice for avoiding the pain with wires. Do you plan on releasing the files for that?

Re: Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

#34

Post by kruffin »

jvanderbot wrote: post #29
spoonjim wrote: post #2

I would have bought so many devices like this, Vestaboard, etc. if they had a hardware local control option with completely open docs. I refuse to spend time engineering a data pipeline that’s dependent on someone else’s cloud service.

Adafruit is particularly egregious with their cloud service integration and marketing. It just seems to be the way they're heading.

It does seem that way, however, in none of the AdaBoxes I've gotten from them have I had to sign up for their cloud services. That's where you think they would push it hard, but it just hasn't happened and I'm glad for that. There are usually a few samples that make use, but you always have the option to roll your own code on it and use their base libraries for interfacing with the hardware. It will be a sad (and probably disastrous) day when they bind their code to require cloud services especially considering some micros don't have wifi.

Re: Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

#35

Post by tosihakkeri »

willidiots wrote: post #21
firephonestival wrote: post #14

Am I reading this correctly? It sounds like the product is an LED matrix which requires third-party cloud servers to update the display? That doesn't sound right. Also, the author uses 2x 32x32 panels @$97 each as a price peg, but you can get a raw 64x32 panel from Adafruit (a quite expensive supplier) for $50.

It's an LED matrix which requires third party cloud servers to update the display. I own one. It's great.

> It's great

...until the server goes down

Re: Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

#37

Post by nl »

vosper wrote: post #9
staindk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you weren't aware of it, this watch[1] might interest you. Open-source hardware and software. I'll probably end up getting one for Christmas this year. [1] https://watchy.sqfmi.com/

If anyone has one of these watches I’d be interested to hear your thoughts!

There are plenty of ESP32 watches around now; eg: https://au.banggood.com/LILYGO-TTGO-T-Watch-2020-ESP32-Main-...

or (round face!):

https://au.banggood.com/Open-Smartwatch-Light-V3_3plus-ESP32...

Re: Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

#38

Post by threeio »

So from a hardware perspective I've known the Tidbyt was a stretch (ie: I know I could build it myself for cheaper).. from the software side they've done a great job.

I've sold at least 5 of them with people just going "WHAT IS THAT BEHIND YOU" in meetings.

Its a great little device and I highly recommend it.

Re: Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

#39

Post by edelhans »

slowraise wrote: post #33
edelhans wrote: post #16

I'be build pretty much the same thing using an esp32 an 3d printed enclosure and a small custom pcb. You can connect via websocket from a browser and upload images, text, ect. I've also managed to implement OTA firmware updates and a similar Wifi based setup as this product has. If anyone is interested I'm happy to put it on Github. https://photos.app.goo.gl/ajAbJ3fqqYQV5sd98 https://photos.app.goo.gl/PHzq1P7uWkJgAtP…

Which RGB library are you using for esp32? I was doing some initial LED stuff with a Pi with hzellers rpi-rgb-led-matrix library, but I am having to switch over to esp. Also that PCB looks really nice for avoiding the pain with wires. Do you plan on releasing the files for that?

I'm using this library: https://github.com/mrfaptastic/ESP32-HUB75-MatrixPanel-I2S-D...

And I'll add the pcb files to the repo, good idea!

Re: Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

#40

Post by edelhans »

edelhans wrote: post #16

I'be build pretty much the same thing using an esp32 an 3d printed enclosure and a small custom pcb. You can connect via websocket from a browser and upload images, text, ect. I've also managed to implement OTA firmware updates and a similar Wifi based setup as this product has. If anyone is interested I'm happy to put it on Github. https://photos.app.goo.gl/ajAbJ3fqqYQV5sd98 https://photos.app.goo.gl/PHzq1P7uWkJgAtP…

As promised here is the source code, PCB Gerber file and the STEP files for the case: https://github.com/hanneslinder/esp-pixel-matrix

Hope you find it useful and don't be too harsh with the code quality as this was my first time writing C++ :)

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