Hi Thomas - Really cool project and website. Just wanted to give you an unsolicited pat on the back to keep doing amazing things!!
A WiFi color eInk picture frame
31–40 of 89 posts
Re: A WiFi color eInk picture frame
#32Wow! There's a dynamite product in here that pairs a daily nagging app and one of these displays so that people are reminded to take a new picture, ever day, and have it show up on someone's (or all subscribed) photo frame. I'm thinking, like, "take a photo of the kids so it will show up on Grandma's frame" kind of functionality. Though, obviously, it would also be used for porn, so there's a market there, too. Anywa…
We don't have anything to nag us, but the grandparents and aunts and uncles all have Nixplay[0] frames that we regularly update with photos of the kids. [0] https://www.nixplay.com/
That's cool. Do you know if these are hackable at all? Or do you have to use their service to push pics?
Re: A WiFi color eInk picture frame
#33Wow! There's a dynamite product in here that pairs a daily nagging app and one of these displays so that people are reminded to take a new picture, ever day, and have it show up on someone's (or all subscribed) photo frame. I'm thinking, like, "take a photo of the kids so it will show up on Grandma's frame" kind of functionality. Though, obviously, it would also be used for porn, so there's a market there, too. Anywa…
This display offers a simple API to build applications for it:
https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale...
https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/ma...
It's black-and-white, but dithering allows to show surprising detail and it brings its very own old-school aesthetic.
The API doesn't require any special knowledge about e-paper displays, it just expects an image URL in the correct resolution and will then render it to the display.
An app can be made public, such that other people who own the display can install it as well.
If you are interested in building an app, contact me at info@invisible-computers.com for a developer account :)
Re: A WiFi color eInk picture frame
#34Re: A WiFi color eInk picture frame
#35Or you can buy Soldered's: https://soldered.com/product/inkplate-6color-with-enclosure-...
Or this one, which has less of a hacker aesthetic. https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale... It also comes with software out of the box
That frame makes it look like ancient technology rather than 'picture frame'.
Re: A WiFi color eInk picture frame
#36I wonder if we’ll ever see significant improvements in e-ink contrast, which is still very poor. There hasn’t been much progress over the last decade. I’d love to have laser-printer-level e-ink.
For sure, my biggest question is if there are even any theoretical ideas about how to achieve it.
Color is currently dark and so faded-looking, and even the "whites" are so muddy gray, because of the color filter technology. You can improve the number of intermediate color levels and improve the refresh rate, but the contrast and darkness is just an inherent limitation of putting color filters on top of what is otherwise just a regular monochrome e-ink display.
Achieving true CMYK color would require each capsule to contain not just two pigments (white and black) but five (white, black, cyan, magenta, yellow). Two pigments we can do because there exist two electric charges -- the white pigment is charged positive and the black is negative.
But is there any kind of theoretical technology that could toggle five sets of pigments between the top and bottom of each capsule? And indeed, do so in "subcapsules" at a small enough scale to enable perceptual color mixing, the way subcapsules do for levels of gray now?
The only thing I could imagine is if instead of using pigments inside of capsules, we used actual microscopic physical cubes, since their 6 sides would allow for 5 colors. But how you could assemble and electromagnetically control microscopic cubes 180° along two axes of movement that were suspended in some way... I can't even imagine.
Re: A WiFi color eInk picture frame
#37I wonder if we’ll ever see significant improvements in e-ink contrast, which is still very poor. There hasn’t been much progress over the last decade. I’d love to have laser-printer-level e-ink.
For sure, my biggest question is if there are even any theoretical ideas about how to achieve it. Color is currently dark and so faded-looking, and even the "whites" are so muddy gray, because of the color filter technology. You can improve the number of intermediate color levels and improve the refresh rate, but the contrast and darkness is just an inherent limitation of putting color filters on top of what is other…
There are multi-pigment color e-ink displays that don't use a filter array. E-Ink's ACeP range uses four pigments (CMY+white). The white pigments are reflective, the others are transparent, and you basically sort of sort/stack them with different drive voltages, combining different pigments above white while leaving others below the white layer.
I think OP is dissatisfied even with greyscale e-ink panels, though.
Re: A WiFi color eInk picture frame
#38Impressive DIY project. Still, as a person with no intention to DIY, I’m looking forward to a simple eink photo frame product. Crucially, something that works out of the box and is shipping now (so: no Kickstarter, no need to write custom scripts, etc).
Might be waiting a while. What are you willing to pay for that product?
Personally, I'd like to see more products that repurpose old phones and tablets while scratching that "new object" itch.
Re: A WiFi color eInk picture frame
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
For sure, my biggest question is if there are even any theoretical ideas about how to achieve it. Color is currently dark and so faded-looking, and even the "whites" are so muddy gray, because of the color filter technology. You can improve the number of intermediate color levels and improve the refresh rate, but the contrast and darkness is just an inherent limitation of putting color filters on top of what is other…
There are multi-pigment color e-ink displays that don't use a filter array. E-Ink's ACeP range uses four pigments (CMY+white). The white pigments are reflective, the others are transparent, and you basically sort of sort/stack them with different drive voltages, combining different pigments above white while leaving others below the white layer. I think OP is dissatisfied even with greyscale e-ink panels, though.
That’s right. I could live with pastel colors for graphics (or with grayscale) if at least the white was white and the black was black.
Re: A WiFi color eInk picture frame
#40Solar power? Could enough energy be stored from indoor light to power the daily download? That's about the only improvement I can think of.