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The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

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Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#81
post #66

Products like these make me realize that a standard e-reader has the perfect general purpose e-ink display. The Kindle for example is about the same size as this but much sleeker, is backlit, multi-tone, has a battery, wifi, bluetooth, all for less than half the price. I wish there were more mainstream jailbreaking projects and alternative operating systems to really unlock their potential.

I dont have the link handy, but there's a company that sells 6-8 inch eink screens that are just recycled kindle parts with a more hobbyist-friendly interface attached

Sounds interesting! I found the following (below); was it that?

https://soldered.com/product/soldered-inkplate-6plus-with-en...

> What is especially interesting is that Inkplate uses recycled screens taken from old e-book readers (...)

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#82
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing a product from one of the largest companies on earth with an upstart. and even the cheapest ad-supported Kindle is only 2/3 the price of this in US?

The cheapest Kindle is routinely on sale for $60-70. And spec wise there is really no comparison. The Kindle has a backlight. 1448x1072 resolution (compared to this one's 800x480). Battery that can last a month. USB-C. 16GB storage. Bluetooth. It's a very capable device. The fact that this one is made by an "upstart" means nothing. You have to compete on price and quality to be successful. Plus if this company goes o…

Tracking on keepa lowest price is 95$ (https://keepa.com/#!product/1-B0B92489PD) and it's the 6inch. The 6.8inch has not been under 120$.

Anyway yes the Kindle has better spec but as you mentionned in your first post the fact that it's locked is the whole point. Amazon is not making money on the device ...

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#83
post #66

Products like these make me realize that a standard e-reader has the perfect general purpose e-ink display. The Kindle for example is about the same size as this but much sleeker, is backlit, multi-tone, has a battery, wifi, bluetooth, all for less than half the price. I wish there were more mainstream jailbreaking projects and alternative operating systems to really unlock their potential.

Yea, when you make like a million of these you have different economies of scale, plus an ability to negotiate with suppliers.

This is the power of making a product at huge scale.

The amount of technology I can buy in a $90 Android phone is mind boggling.

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#85
post #7

I don’t really understand how it is still trendy to pretend that everyone uses Google for email and calendar. I get that the SF crowd was all about it, but if the last few years have taught us anything it is that there’s more to the techie world than VC free money startups. I reckon there are far more people who need this and who might buy this who are using Outlook/Office 365 either alone or in some combination than…

That's true. I had a touch display for a pi laying around and started a personal dashboard project. Thought about Google calendar to synchronize the calendar between different devices... It was too much of a hassle. I ended up serving my own caldav server on the pi and everyone's device could easily synch the calendar, no matter if PC, iPhone or Android phone. No need for Google

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#86
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creator here. That's exactly what happened.

Creator: If you decide to move this to a full-fledged startup, it should: 1) Have a touch screen 2) Integrate with Outlook calendar and multiple Google calendars 3) Integrate with smart home features (e.g. lights, temperature, etc) 4) Integrate with other data sources (e.g. news) At $150, be open-source and open-hardware (at a lower price point, I'd do without). I'm looking for something like that. Until then, neat p…

I could tell you a story of a pi and a touchscreen and just some HTML, CSS and Javascript to make it :)

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#87

I love e-ink displays, and I wish there would be more options out there for creartive use, like this one by Invisible Screen (hello Konschubert, thanks for creating this!) What I'd love is a large, high-res, perhaps color, e-ink display that I can use either as a second screen, or as an indipendent computer. I read hours every day on an LCD screen, and most of that reading would be much better on an e-ink.

They're very expensive, but I've heard good things about Dasung's e-ink monitors for this purpose

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#88
post #66

Products like these make me realize that a standard e-reader has the perfect general purpose e-ink display. The Kindle for example is about the same size as this but much sleeker, is backlit, multi-tone, has a battery, wifi, bluetooth, all for less than half the price. I wish there were more mainstream jailbreaking projects and alternative operating systems to really unlock their potential.

Kobos are pretty trivially jailbroken if you're looking for a similar competitive device.

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#89
post #70
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how it's implemented. Take a look at: https://www.home-assistant.io/ They have customizable dashboards. What I'm really looking for is something I can use as a sort of command center in a few places in my house. It allows me to control the things I care about, shows my upcoming schedule, and whatever else is relevant. By my work desk, the #1 thing I care about is upcoming meetings. Other places, I care…

Yes, but, as you say, reimplementing Home Assistant wouldn't really be that valuable. What you might want is a (very dumb) e-ink display with a touch panel, which can maybe display an image and register touches. Then, that can interface with Home Assistant to make touch panels. That would be much more manageable as a project, and very useful. Bonus points for physical buttons. I might do this myself, hmm.

If you do, I'll buy one :)

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#90
post #89
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but, as you say, reimplementing Home Assistant wouldn't really be that valuable. What you might want is a (very dumb) e-ink display with a touch panel, which can maybe display an image and register touches. Then, that can interface with Home Assistant to make touch panels. That would be much more manageable as a project, and very useful. Bonus points for physical buttons. I might do this myself, hmm.

If you do, I'll buy one :)

I've already done half, I just need to find a digitizer to go over it:

https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-the-timeframe/

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