Yeah, I think e-ink is super cool, being able to use it in full sunlight is fun and the battery life is pretty cool too… but the cost is just yikes.
I did get myself a used amazon kindle (the older model with physical buttons to turn the page. why anyone would actually want to chafe their fingers swiping is beyond me) and it is actually pretty decent. But I wouldn’t mind being able to use one as like a unix terminal too… just the price is yikes.
the display is $1500, and they won’t sell it to you unless you’ve got a certain amount of clout. I’m eagerly awaiting for someone to steal their manufacturing process and eat their lunch.
so the front page of a newspaper is designed to sell you the paper. The idea is you see a story you actually want to read when it is sitting on the stand and then buy it to read more on page A-5 or whatever.
I guess it might be an amusing art display but saying “the best user interface is none” strikes me as silly. If you actually see anything you care about, you are gonna want to read the whole article but there’s no way to actually do that without a UI of some sort!
It would be cool to have a remote control that runs on your computer or phone (or even better, a dedicated actual handheld remote control with only two buttons: forward and backward). That way, the display can stay completely void of any buttons, which would ruin the aesthetic effect. It already has wifi, so it’s connected.
Also, does anyone find this really depressing?
E-Ink’s NDA prevents me from sharing the source code, but you get the idea.
I would too, but I would love it if I could have a thing like this displaying all the slow-to-refresh things that we rely on screens for: the weather, bus schedules, et cetera. This really needs to be scaled up so it doesn’t cost $2K a unit.
I did something along these lines but at a fraction of the cost, here is my eink display. It’s 7” and controlled by a RaspberryPi Zero and shows me the latest news, weather for the week, and public transport info.
I’m considering getting one of them, actually. I have several Raspberry Pis that I can use, but I’ve just been hesitant to buy one because I don’t know how the interface between the Pi and the display works. If it supports HDMI, that’s familiar to me; however, many of these seem to use SPI, which I don’t think I’ve ever used before. If I get one, I want to know that I can actually write a program that can communicate over this connection (and I want to know there are programming language options other than just Python, which most libraries I’ve found seem to be written in).
This is super cool from a hardware perspective, but I would find it wildly stressful to have the day’s news plastered on my wall all day.
yeah, I can see that.
but our phones do that anyway, and a static frontpage, with a few stories, wouldn’t be as bad (I think).
Also that display is ~$1500 :/
Yeah, I think e-ink is super cool, being able to use it in full sunlight is fun and the battery life is pretty cool too… but the cost is just yikes.
I did get myself a used amazon kindle (the older model with physical buttons to turn the page. why anyone would actually want to chafe their fingers swiping is beyond me) and it is actually pretty decent. But I wouldn’t mind being able to use one as like a unix terminal too… just the price is yikes.
You don’t swipe on the newer models. You just touch the screen on the left or right side to turn the page. It’s honestly a very nice experience.
the display is $1500, and they won’t sell it to you unless you’ve got a certain amount of clout. I’m eagerly awaiting for someone to steal their manufacturing process and eat their lunch.
And you need the v5 board to use it (mandatory) that is another $500.
so the front page of a newspaper is designed to sell you the paper. The idea is you see a story you actually want to read when it is sitting on the stand and then buy it to read more on page A-5 or whatever.
I guess it might be an amusing art display but saying “the best user interface is none” strikes me as silly. If you actually see anything you care about, you are gonna want to read the whole article but there’s no way to actually do that without a UI of some sort!
It would be cool to have a remote control that runs on your computer or phone (or even better, a dedicated actual handheld remote control with only two buttons: forward and backward). That way, the display can stay completely void of any buttons, which would ruin the aesthetic effect. It already has wifi, so it’s connected.
Also, does anyone find this really depressing?
Cool idea: do this, but instead of displaying today’s news, display the front page from this day 50 years ago.
I would too, but I would love it if I could have a thing like this displaying all the slow-to-refresh things that we rely on screens for: the weather, bus schedules, et cetera. This really needs to be scaled up so it doesn’t cost $2K a unit.
Really love the aesthetics of this—I would buy one and never actually read it, to be honest.
I want this but as a calendar: it syncs family calendars, and cycles through family photos and/or other image galleries
ah yes, much more functional.
I did something along these lines but at a fraction of the cost, here is my eink display. It’s 7” and controlled by a RaspberryPi Zero and shows me the latest news, weather for the week, and public transport info.
I eagerly await the day when these things become affordable as a computer screen.
This one looks interesting https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch-e-paper-module-b.htm?___SID=U
12” with three colors. Also if you look closely at one of the photos is that a raspberry pi under it?
The WaveShare link seems to point at a regular screen, not an e-ink display.
Woops sorry updated! They have a lot of displays btw https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm
I’m considering getting one of them, actually. I have several Raspberry Pis that I can use, but I’ve just been hesitant to buy one because I don’t know how the interface between the Pi and the display works. If it supports HDMI, that’s familiar to me; however, many of these seem to use SPI, which I don’t think I’ve ever used before. If I get one, I want to know that I can actually write a program that can communicate over this connection (and I want to know there are programming language options other than just Python, which most libraries I’ve found seem to be written in).
Yeah it is SPI and for my usage I use Python with a little forked lib. I’m not sure if there are any eink displays with HDMI.