[HN Gopher] Vestaboard - A smart display to connect and inspire
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Vestaboard - A smart display to connect and inspire
Author : duck
Score : 100 points
Date : 2021-11-24 05:22 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vestaboard.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vestaboard.com)
| dcminter wrote:
| I was looking at these the other day - in the process of browsing
| around the subject I found this maker-project to create custom
| ones:
|
| https://github.com/scottbez1/splitflap
| scottbez1 wrote:
| Let me know if you have any questions about the project or
| split-flaps in general!
|
| I built a big one for a City of Palo Alto art festival recently
| which was a lot of work but really rewarding:
| https://youtu.be/g9EPabcxBsM
|
| There were some comments about the Vestaboard cost elsewhere in
| this thread so I figured I'd mention, my raw BOM cost for that
| display (108 modules, 40 characters each) was about $2700, so I
| actually don't find their pricing _that_ crazy when you
| consider what 's happening mechanically inside the display.
| (short video from inside mine: https://youtu.be/4rBKxy0gwNI)
|
| They're not completely comparable of course - my display was a
| one-off build without economies of scale from stamped or
| injection-molded parts, much larger physically, and I had
| substantial parts of it manufactured in the US - but generally
| there's just a lot of pieces that add up quickly in cost.
| dcminter wrote:
| For me personally it was mostly idle curiosity of a "what
| would it take..." kind, but it's a very nice write up!
| tjwds wrote:
| Fastmail has one of these in the entryway to our Philadelphia
| office. It's been a lot of fun playing with the API -- so far,
| we've made an integration with our company's chatbot [1] to
| manage "board tokens" [2] which allow folks to post to it
| (without clobbering each other's designs); a web UI to create
| designs which can be posted using the bot; and a 'vesta show'
| command, which creates a composite image of each cell of the
| board to represent the current board state (e.g. [3]) so that our
| colleagues in Australia and elsewhere can participate.
|
| It's a lot of fun!
|
| [1] https://github.com/fastmail/synergy
|
| [2] Token in the "arcade token" sense, not "authorization token"
|
| [3] https://dev.joewoods.dev/img/vesta-show-20211124.png -- note
| my sloppy normalization of the brightness of the cells
| mmcclimon wrote:
| Just to second this...Joe has done lots of great work at
| Fastmail, but 'vesta show' might be my favorite.
| vander_elst wrote:
| Solari [0] was once one of the leading companies in this sector.
| Their boards were all over the place. They are struggling now to
| keep it up with the new technologies.
|
| [0] https://www.solari.it/
| agys wrote:
| We sourced some Solari alphanumeric split flap elements from
| the Roma termini train station... they are a beautiful piece of
| engineering!
| tiepoul wrote:
| Is this programmable? Like you're going to change the text for
| this specific time frame and return to the original text after
| the programmed schedule?
| tibyat wrote:
| For that price you could glue 8 ipads to your wall and still have
| enough left over to rent out a giant billboard downtown if all
| you want is to send someone a cute message.
| djbusby wrote:
| I know three people who have these. They never let the kids near
| them, complain about the price. How to have fun with it?
| Gys wrote:
| > "I am always very happy with the team from Vestaboard when
| we're in touch." Wolfgang Florke, Germany
|
| It is meant as a recommendation but I wonder why he in touch with
| them often? It should just work?
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| The split-flap board by Solari di Udine at the TWA Hotel at JFK
| is fantastic. The building was designed by the famous architect
| Eero Saarinen and opened in 1962.
|
| http://blog.solarilineadesign.com/en/a-touch-of-italian-desi...
| willeh wrote:
| While certainly beautiful, this type of needlessly contrived
| product is a waste of our natural resources. Buyers need to ask
| themselves is this a morally defensible use of resources, would
| and LCD be better would e-Ink be better or should we just go
| without.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| What natural resources are being wasted, IYHO?
| pdav wrote:
| Why stop there? Buyers should ask themselves if they need or
| want anything at all. The responsible course of action would be
| to buy and use nothing--after all, we wouldn't want to
| accidentally pollute more than all the fossil fuel industry or
| something.
| kuratkull wrote:
| Well, this is a toy we are talking about, it's not something
| you _need_ by any stretch of the imagination.
| pdav wrote:
| You're right of course, but my point is that you can
| endlessly chastise people for buying things they do not
| strictly need under the guise of "not being wasteful" but
| it comes off as crotchety. Let people enjoy things.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Ultimately, anything above basic necessities (food,
| shelter, clean drinking water) are toys, or supporting the
| creation of toys.
| Angostura wrote:
| I mean, yes. I think you are trying to be ironic, but reduce,
| reuse, recycle is in that order for a reason.
| kensai wrote:
| I like it, but the price is simply too much for most personal
| uses. Post a news entry again when it is around EUR500-600, if
| ever.
| gregoriol wrote:
| You most likely don't want such a device at home: it likely
| makes quite a lot of noise, takes quite a lot of space, and is
| not really useful as an individual. Its use-case is more for a
| public/semi-public space, for a group of people to see.
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| Blargh. I went to the site, saw what it was, immediately wanted
| one, clicked the "Shop" button, saw the price, sighed deeply, and
| closed the tab.
|
| I can understand why it's so expensive, it just bums me out that
| I can't justify said expense.
| lovelyviking wrote:
| Don't worry, I think terminal would work poorly with it and
| even then 22x6 only? not too many
| nanis wrote:
| > Order two Vestaboard displays and receive $400 off.
|
| I saw that before my eyes located the price and I knew :-)
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This is really cool. I saw they emphasized that they were a
| winner of the "Red Dot Design Award" so I looked up the Red Dot
| award to find more cool products.
|
| However, the Red Dot website shows 16,844 "winners" in the
| Product Design category over the past 10 years (Source:
| https://www.red-dot.org/search ).
|
| Then I looked at their Fee Structure page, which shows
| registration costs betweene 300 and 650 Euros. You also have to
| send them the product (for free, of course). If you "win" you
| have to buy the 3950 Euro "Winner Package": https://www.red-
| dot.org/pd/participate
|
| Not a bad business for them. Kind of funny to brag about this
| pay-to-play award on your website, though.
| Psillisp wrote:
| > Kind of funny to brag about this pay-to-play award on your
| website, though.
|
| That is why the award exists.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Huh, interesting; flip boards like these used to be all over
| things like train stations, but they had to replace them with
| screens (big challenge, they deal with extreme weather /
| temperatures) after the company that made and maintained them
| went under and they ran out of spare / replacement parts.
| duiker101 wrote:
| I wonder what's the maintenance cost on these, both in terms of
| time, money and skill required. 8448 flaps is a lot of moving
| parts.
| wink wrote:
| Some years ago our local chapter of the CCC got hold of some
| old flipdot panels that originally hung over the Autobahn[0]
| and they've since been repurposed and with the help of other
| spaces improved for display, pics at [1] and you might have
| stumbled over them at the Chaos Communication Congress or
| other events.
|
| They're actually pretty robust and most obvious malfunctions
| can be rejiggered manually and it's just one of the magnets.
|
| But yes, the replacement parts are kinda finite unless
| another stash of old traffic sign hardware is discovered.
|
| [0]: https://wiki.muc.ccc.de/flipdot:start#einfuehrung
|
| [1]: https://wiki.muc.ccc.de/flipdot:start
| agys wrote:
| We worked on several split-flap art projects: mostly with sourced
| pieces...
|
| We managed to get our hands on the old main display of the Zurich
| train station (a beast of 7 tonnes). Most of the elements aren't
| alphanumeric but larger words with the destination and departure
| station names written entirely. The readability was excellent as
| the text was silkscreened on the PVC blades.
|
| We reprogrammed it and created a choreography without altering
| the elements (we just measured the "width" of each word to be
| used as graphical elements) [1]
|
| The new display in the station is now obviously LED based and has
| many graphical errors and a much sloppier layout (mimicking the
| old one). The worst part is that now 1/4 of the panel surface is
| dedicated to advertisement... [2]
|
| [1] https://vimeo.com/224913612
|
| [2]
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zuerich_HB_tabellone...
| agys wrote:
| Assembly time-lapse at the museum [1]. The elements just slide
| into place... They can be pulled out for maintenance even when
| the display is running.
|
| [1] https://vimeo.com/220072274
| hobo_mark wrote:
| Ah, MuDA! Too sad the place shut down before I ever had the
| chance to visit...
| sorokod wrote:
| [1] is awesome!
| xtiansimon wrote:
| RARARARA.. Brilliant. Such physicality and noise. I wish I
| could be there to experience it.
|
| I live in the NYC metro area and PENN station changed their
| display in 2017.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/nyregion/penn-station-dep...
|
| Looking for the date, I found this nice article about an Amtrak
| sign in Baltimore which was replaced in 2010:
|
| https://www.baltimoresun.com/features/bs-xpm-2010-03-22-bal-...
|
| _"In January, Penn Station said goodbye to the old sign - known
| as a Solari board after the Italian company that introduced the
| machines in the 1950s. Like so many other familiar inventions
| of the Industrial Age, the flip-flapping signboards are going
| the way of the steam engine in rail stations around the
| world..."_
| agys wrote:
| To clarify: the split-flap elements used by the Swiss railway
| (SBB/CFF/FFS) were produced by Omega Electronics and had the
| controlling hardware embedded on each element, controlled via
| RS-485; the older Solaris needed an external controller that
| drove the stepper motors.
| subpixel wrote:
| Wow, those sounds bring back memories of traveling Europe by
| train in the 80s. Is it just me or do I smell some stale urine
| and some pretzels?
| treyfitty wrote:
| What use case does this try to solve for? "Connect and Inspire"
| sounds hand wavy, generous, and quite frankly cheesy. There are
| many ways to connect and inspire, and a board with many flipping
| pieces doesn't sound like a solution.
|
| This product sounds like it's just a nostalgic gadget more than
| anything.
| leokennis wrote:
| Looking at the site, the use case seems mostly "hip and
| happening company with too much money who want to display some
| text for all the office to see but think a cheap flatscreen tv
| looks too cheap".
| naikrovek wrote:
| I'm no hipster, and there is a non-zero amount of "charm" (or
| whatever you want to call it) in a display like this.
|
| plat panel LED or LCD displays look like shit in bright
| environments; these would look amazing.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| A less dismissive characterization might be that it's a piece
| of tech art.
|
| I really don't think people are buying these because they
| have some text they desperately need to display...
| dillondoyle wrote:
| i would love to have one in my office.
|
| We raise money for political campaigns, could show in near real
| time how much we're raising. Maybe even show top campaigns or
| staff.
|
| But that would buy a laptop, and most of our (relatively few)
| staff don't even come into our office anymore!
|
| A large TV could maybe do both actual real time every second
| update and maybe splice in some news feed or something.
|
| Alas it's just like seeing the amazing Apple monitor. Then look
| at price and think rationally; it's not worth it by how much
| money I make.
| unstatusthequo wrote:
| Yes. I plan to put one in our house more as "tech art" than
| anything else.
| controlweather wrote:
| Stupid crap imo
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >"With its feet on the ground but eyes affixed upward, the
| Vestaboard is a beautiful combination of past and future."
|
| I'm trying to find purchase information for the model with the
| feet because our walls are not very strong, I would like to have
| a standing support.
| stevesearer wrote:
| Oat Foundry is another company which makes split flap displays:
| https://www.oatfoundry.com/split-flap/
| mronetwo wrote:
| Would love to get one. Would love to get one for almost 3kEUR?
| Ooof, I don't think so.
|
| Devices that have some physicality to it are always super cool
| (flip dots). That also makes them very expensive. Super happy to
| see products like these though.
| afandian wrote:
| There's a weird scale thing. Lots of moving parts in a
| mechanical display? Expensive. Lots of microscopic parts that
| can only be assembled in a clean room by machines in special
| locations? Cheap. I guess it's only economy of scale that makes
| the difference, but still mind blowing.
| ProjectBarks wrote:
| I own one and here are my thoughts:
|
| So far it has been an extremely reliable product that was fun to
| get some scripts running on. I use a raspberry pie with a cron
| job to update the board with the weather and my daily schedule.
| Board actually looks extremely repairable for each individual
| character, and have has no issues with reliability in ~6mo.
|
| API currently is through a rest interface which they have
| promised to keep free despite charging for plugins shared through
| their a subscription model. They had promised a native/local API
| but I have not heard anything from that.
|
| Overall would recommend but it falls in the tech art category for
| sure.
| lokar wrote:
| How often can/should you update it? Can you use it as a clock?
| ProjectBarks wrote:
| I use it as an hourly clock but anymore than every half hour
| would be a miserable experience since it is far from silent.
| alias_neo wrote:
| At this price, I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot barge pole
| until local API is a reality.
|
| If their servers shutdown and it becomes abandonware you want
| to be sure it's still functional when you're spending a little
| more than "toy money".
| smoldesu wrote:
| Jesus, no kidding. Only a two year warranty, too? For $3,000
| USD you might think you'd get a little more for your money...
| mobilemidget wrote:
| I was scrolling and thought I want one... now I don't :D
| boringg wrote:
| Sounds like a sweet corporate office buy at that price
| unfortunately. Cool tech art though!
| ProjectBarks wrote:
| Agreed it is a solid risk. I want to spend some time with
| wireshark to see if I can get something of my own going until
| an official local api is released.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I take it the device has WiFi? It would be interesting to
| see what kind of controller hardware is inside.
| spicybright wrote:
| > $2,850
|
| Whoa. And they advertise putting this in your house for your
| family? You could buy multiple really nice TVs for that kind
| of money.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| The font seems a little thin for what it is, no? It's hard to say
| for sure without seeing on in person, but I'd have probably
| picked something bolder.
| ProjectBarks wrote:
| I own one. No issues with readability. In fact I'd say it's
| easier to read than most fonts. Online pictures don't do it
| justice.
| jonnydubowsky wrote:
| This looks beautiful. I love analog tile boards. My favorite
| greeted the students at NYU ITP every day, a wooden tile "mirror"
| by Daniel Rozin. https://youtu.be/kV8v2GKC8WA
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