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Building an e-ink weather display for our home

kimmo.blog

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Re: Building an e-ink weather display for our home

#61

Post by cocoa19 »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #58

I have no idea how this is not get a commercial product. Our Google Nest Home Max Hub Whatever screen that I got free from CES is garbage at displaying useful information. The weather info can’t sync at least once per week, requiring a restart. It’s literally just our bathroom clock / Bluetooth speaker because that’s all it’s good for. It cannot sync to Google Apps (business account) calendars. The proposed solution…

I'd be happy with a generic e-ink tablet for similar projects, like work/personal calendars, pollution/humidity/temperature monitor and weather station.

I might tinker with a kindle, but I have never owned one and searching online seems to hint at kindles being locked down.

Re: Building an e-ink weather display for our home

#62

Post by jn5 »

possiblydrunk wrote: post #5

>The picture is from the library's electronics room which has cool gear such as laser cutter, 3D printer, and much more. Amazing! I've never seen anything comparable in a U.S. library. What a wonderful resource. How do they maintain it?

I haven't seen anything like it in Europe either. Helsinki's library is incredible. It's also architecturally one of the most prominent buildings and right next to the parliament. It doesn't have a lot of books, though (100k)

https://www.oodihelsinki.fi/en/services/

Re: Building an e-ink weather display for our home

#63

Post by seanp2k2 »

ISL wrote: post #22
keyle wrote: post #20

If this kind of device would come in 'off the shelf' ready to go, I'd buy one. I think e-Ink screens are really attractive to be hung on the wall. I hope we're going to see such device come to life; my bet is some successful kickstarter followed by an amazon clone with alexa built-in :vomit-face: +1 for a simple device that does one thing, and does it well.

I'm super excited to see the price on panels beginning to drop. $200 for a 10" panel is, for an old guy, exciting. Once they're cheap-enough, the manufacturers will come.

Look up “field monitor” on Amazon, there are some for under $100 (usually 7” 720p native res panels). A lot of them have 1/4” or 3/8” stud mounts for mounting as well, some can accept common batteries like LP-E6 for portable usage, some are touchscreens with USB etc etc. Pretty hacker-friendly hardware. I keep a couple around for pis and terminal access to servers.

Re: Building an e-ink weather display for our home

#64

Post by fbdab103 »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #58

I have no idea how this is not get a commercial product. Our Google Nest Home Max Hub Whatever screen that I got free from CES is garbage at displaying useful information. The weather info can’t sync at least once per week, requiring a restart. It’s literally just our bathroom clock / Bluetooth speaker because that’s all it’s good for. It cannot sync to Google Apps (business account) calendars. The proposed solution…

Especially since very low performance eink is all that would be required. One refresh a minute would still be useful for plenty of home dashboard applications.

Re: Building an e-ink weather display for our home

#67

Post by wolrah »

I recently built something similar with a 4.2" panel based on these instructions: https://georgik.rocks/weather-display-for-lilygo-ttgo-t5-4-7...

I think I might have seen that link here, either here or Reddit.

I tweaked a few things but it's basically the same code still. I slapped a 3500 mAh 18650 in it and it's been running now for a month and a half while still showing 89% battery remaining. If that pace holds up it'll be in the ballpark of a year of operation before it actually needs to be recharged.

Once an hour it wakes up, connects to WiFi, retrieves the information, updates the display, and then goes back to deep sleep. It's awesome, other than it being too small to comfortably read where I want to put it. Eventually I'll upgrade to a larger display, but I haven't seen any offered as reasonably priced standalone modules with a WiFi capable MCU attached out of the box like this one.

Re: Building an e-ink weather display for our home

#70

Post by inquirer39243 »

KMnO4 wrote: post #7
mdmglr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jailbroken (and maybe used) older generation eInk kindle?

Better yet, pick up a Kobo. You drop a zip file on the SD card and get a full Linux environment. I picked up a few of them for $10 each (used)

do you have any links on how to do it/what models should we look to get for doing this?
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