[HN Gopher] A WiFi color eInk picture frame
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A WiFi color eInk picture frame
Author : thomasjb
Score : 197 points
Date : 2023-04-24 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spritesmods.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (spritesmods.com)
| fnordian_slip wrote:
| I didn't even know there are decent e-ink colour displays
| available. I have to admit that I've been wanting to do something
| similar for a while, but I've always been too lazy to start, so
| kudos from me for that project!
|
| I love e-ink in general, it's a shame that it's still so rarely
| used. My fossil hybrid hr watch uses it, for example, but though
| the watch itself is incredible, the app is pure garbage. If that
| weren't the case, I'd recommend it to everyone.
|
| I wonder if there aren't a lot more cases like that, where it
| seems like costumers don't like the technology, even though they
| mainly resent the paired implementation of the big players who
| thought that the technology alone was enough of a selling point,
| and therefore neglected the software.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Panels like this have been available on Waveshare for a while.
| They are fairly inexpensive (sub $100 range) but the refresh
| time is super slow. For example:
|
| https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/7.3inch-e...
|
| Looks nice, but the full refresh time is like 30s.
| sho_hn wrote:
| You can also order many of the same panels directly from the
| online store of the E-ink company BTW. Not that the prices
| there are very nice. But it's useful to look up parts and
| then search for other distributors.
| sho_hn wrote:
| > I didn't even know there are decent e-ink colour displays
| available.
|
| There's a few gotchas here. A lot of those color e-ink displays
| don't work like a LCD does, where you have R/G/B subpixels per
| pixel and get to mix final colors out of different intensities.
| Instead, a "7 color display" really means each pixel can only
| be one of 7 pixels.
|
| Another gotcha is that in some implementations, the screen
| refresh will go color by color, so for multi-color content, the
| refresh time is quite long (as in, you don't have a pixel
| flipping to blue and another flipping to red concurrently).
|
| This is just to manage expectations -- the result is still very
| cool.
| hmlwilliams wrote:
| Don't know whether you're on Android but Gadgetbridge[0] might
| be the answer to your Fossil app woes
|
| [0]https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/wiki/Fossil
| ...
| layer8 wrote:
| I 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.
| crazygringo wrote:
| 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
| 180deg along two axes of movement that were suspended in some
| way... I can't even imagine.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| I think theoretically you could use different voltages to
| 'move' each pigment up and down maybe?
| sho_hn wrote:
| 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.
| layer8 wrote:
| 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.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Oh wow, TIL. Thank you. Hadn't realized that was a new
| development. Just looked it up and the physics behind it
| sounds... extremely complicated.
| phkahler wrote:
| Solar power? Could enough energy be stored from indoor light to
| power the daily download? That's about the only improvement I can
| think of.
| catapart wrote:
| Wow! 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.
|
| Anyway, very good DIY proof of concept. I hope it's productized
| with some of the more recent E-Ink updates soon!
| konschubert wrote:
| 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 :)
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Is this for sale still? It shows sold out on the site.
| konschubert wrote:
| I will hopefully have stock again soon.
| leipert wrote:
| I think it'd be a little more honest if the first sentence
| started with ,,I offer a display with a simple API".
|
| https://www.invisible-computers.com/imprint.html
| konschubert wrote:
| > If you are interested in building an app, contact me at
| info@invisible-computers.com for a developer account :)
|
| It's not like I am hiding it? I just didn't think it
| mattered in that context that this is me.
|
| But I see your point.
| andygcook wrote:
| If the grandparents enjoy getting physical mail and like hard
| copy photos to have around the house, then https://nanagram.co
| is a good option[1] You just text in your photos and they
| printed and shipped once a month. We use it for my mom to send
| baby photos and she loves it.
|
| [1] Full disclosure: my older brother built this service, but I
| don't have an affiliation other than being a proud brother and
| happy customer.
| c22 wrote:
| 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/
| johnla wrote:
| this won't be a popular suggestion but it works for us: We
| got the grandparents Nest Home Hub display. It's LCD and
| there's a switch to disable mic and camera but it works
| really well for photo sharing.
| mthoms wrote:
| That's cool. Do you know if these are hackable at all? Or do
| you have to use their service to push pics?
| dexterdog wrote:
| That is the key on a product like this. $5+/mo for a
| service to occasionally update photos on a device that is
| already sold at a profit is robbery.
| c22 wrote:
| If you're pushing to fewer than 5 frames per account then
| their free tier works fine. They used to cap the free
| tier to 1000 photos (we just deleted older photos to keep
| the collection fresh) but now the free tier supports
| unlimited photos. I'm sure some day they'll go bust or
| get bought and it'll stop working but I feel like we've
| already gotten our money's worth out of it.
| c22 wrote:
| Honestly I considered trying to hack one but just never
| managed to put it on the schedule. Early models had some
| quirks but now they're reliable enough that I haven't found
| any pain points that would compel me to open one up so if I
| ever get around to it it'll be just for funsies.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| I bought one for India. My parents don't have a wifi but they
| have a smart phone with a data plan. Hoping they will be able
| to enable access point on their phone to sync photos.
| sigmar wrote:
| Would absolutely buy a product like this if it had maybe one or
| two more colors in the display
| Takennickname wrote:
| That title is nerd porn.
| McGlockenshire wrote:
| The entire site is nerd porn.
|
| If you haven't read the one where he installs Linux on a hard
| disk, here it is: https://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack
| skinkestek wrote:
| On one of the hard disk controller chips that is..?
| svachalek wrote:
| Oh cool. Reminds me of the Commodore 64 days; there was a
| floppy disk copy program that could run using the drive's
| controller. Since the floppy drive had its own power supply
| that meant you could actually turn the computer off and
| copy floppies. It was pretty pointless but just a cool
| trick.
| jhoelzel wrote:
| For a minute i had my hopes up there! I actually tried to build a
| wall of those and a motion activated picture wall for me and my
| fiance in order to have a wall of living memories.
|
| The problem i ran into is that you simply cant get them in decent
| sizes, or with a satisfying enough resolution.
| thih9 wrote:
| Impressive 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).
| jkestner wrote:
| 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.
| thih9 wrote:
| Hard to set a price without knowing the details (screen size,
| UX, etc). Roughly, for a well reviewed product like this, I'd
| be willing to pay something in the iPad mini - iPad pro
| range.
|
| Repurposing here would mean regular screen, i.e. not eink;
| I'm not interested in that.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Thousands of price tags at my local grocery stores use color eink
| screens like this. Not sure how colourful they are but they at
| least have red.
|
| It's a neat idea. To be able to remotely set all tags once
| they've been properly localized.
| andai wrote:
| https://archive.ph/H0log
| notfried wrote:
| Or you can buy Soldered's:
| https://soldered.com/product/inkplate-6color-with-enclosure-...
| spullara wrote:
| How does this look in real life?
|
| 5.85-inch, 600x488 pixel electronic paper with the ability to
| display 7 different colors
|
| Does the dithering work well enough for a photo?
| ycuser2 wrote:
| I have built one by myself with a waveshare display. The
| dithering is visible and the contrast is bad. But from
| distance it is not noticeble.
| smith7018 wrote:
| I've done the same and I'd say that it didn't produce a
| great result. I did it for my father as a gift and while I
| liked the project because of the novelty of 7 color eInk
| tech, the image was low res, dithered, and tinted yellow.
| My father was grateful but he probably would've liked a
| normal LCD display lol
| kfarr wrote:
| Another great option is Pimoroni's combo eink display + pico w
| https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/inky-frame-7-3?variant=40...
| sudobash1 wrote:
| How is the battery life on the Pimoroni? I've used RPi Picos
| before, and I love working with them, but IIRC they are
| comparatively power-hungry, even in deep sleep.
| niko1 wrote:
| Power consumption of the Inky Frames in deep sleep is
| minimal as power to the Pico is cut completely. An RTC is
| kept powered to wake up the Pico on a schedule, or pressing
| any button will wake up the board too.
| kfarr wrote:
| Haven't tested this particular one but using the badger
| eink display has been a blast. Super low power -- you can
| run that one off of a lithium coin cell battery. You can
| control when it wakes. I presume this one will draw more
| with a larger color screen and wireless, but again you can
| control when and how it wakes to balance power draw vs.
| more frequent updates.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Why aren't there any CMYK screens?
| konschubert wrote:
| 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
| leipert wrote:
| You could at least disclaim that you are the CEO, at least on
| your HN profile.
|
| https://www.invisible-computers.com/imprint.html
| bearjaws wrote:
| That frame makes it look like ancient technology rather than
| 'picture frame'.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| It's wood, not exactly something I associate with ancient
| technology!?
| jamiek88 wrote:
| I know, right? What a hideous frame.
|
| It somehow makes the screen look worse!
|
| I smile fondly and lightly jab at hackers complete lack of
| concern for aesthetics.
| konschubert wrote:
| Puh, that's harsh. But you are right, the frame is too
| wide. I am trying to make it narrower.
| jmm5 wrote:
| Looks like it's black and white?
| konschubert wrote:
| Yes, it is!
| squarefoot wrote:
| "... With only 7 colors and a refresh time of about a minute ..."
|
| Ouch, even worse than expected. The project is interesting, but
| I'm totally unimpressed by these numbers; I wouldn't pay a
| premium for a sub par display that is slow as a dead sloth. A
| traditional LED screen plus some tricks to save power would make
| a much better picture frame IMO. I would for example use a
| PIR/microwave sensor (they're cheap!) to detect when someone is
| approaching or stationing near the picture frame to bring the CPU
| back from sleep and turn on the display and backlight. It would
| never reach the same almost zero current draw of a epaper screen,
| but the quality gain paired with the lower cost would probably
| make it a viable alternative.
| sho_hn wrote:
| I made something similar recently, albeit not in color:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/NoTr8XX /
| https://hackaday.io/project/190478-hyepaper
| xiwenc wrote:
| I also created something similar:
| https://www.linkedin.com/posts/xiwen_color-e-ink-photoframe-...
|
| Didnt get a chance to write an article about it. My original
| goal was to create a bunch of these (30x40 units) and hang them
| up on a wall like a large tile screen.
|
| A controller would update this tiled wall dynamically.
|
| Also the look of the frames were intended to disguise as
| regular photo frames.
| SillyUsername wrote:
| This is the same e-ink device I believe that's in the Pimoroni
| Inky Impression.
|
| I've written a Python program that anecdotally fixes the bias
| caused by the display for blues and greens, and dithers using an
| Atkinson dither. The code is based on some older Java
| implementation I wrote, but if you are considering a port to C
| this is more succinct (entry point diffuse_image()):
|
| https://github.com/KodeMunkie/inky-impression-slideshow/blob...
|
| The fix is to define the ink's blue as a slightly different hue
| than the device specifications, which tends to over emphasise it
| - improving it - when it comes to shades like sky blue (which the
| display can't achieve). So instead of (perhaps) being quantised
| to green, which is closer colour match for the actual real hue,
| more blue is shown instead. Whilst this is incorrect for
| photographic colour accuracy, if you don't know what the original
| photo looks like it appears to be correct and better than the
| colour that is typically chosen (green).
| SillyUsername wrote:
| I've not run the code in a while but you can find a screenshot
| here: https://user-
| images.githubusercontent.com/13253888/166610362... (nb. isn't
| of actual display, but gives you an idea of quality)
|
| and a bit of discussion early on about the colour issues:
| https://github.com/pimoroni/inky/issues/115
| sho_hn wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! Atkinson dithering is a great choice for
| these panels. What the result lacks in detail it gains in
| contrast, and since e-ink panels don't have the greatest
| contrast ratios it's a good match.
|
| Sierra dithering is a nice compromise between Atkinson and
| basic Floyd-Steinberg.
| squokko wrote:
| Don't see the advantage of eInk for a digital photo frame.
| Presumably these stay in one spot and can be left plugged in?
| Would think that a bright LED display would give much better
| picture quality.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _left plugged in_
|
| Some people do not like the idea of powering a device they are
| not actively using. If you are not watching the piece, a
| <<bright LED display>> seems like a waste of energy.
| adamckay wrote:
| But you can put them in places in your home where it's not
| practical or aesthetic to run cabling to plug them in (e.g.
| fireplace mantel or hung up on a wall) and have a battery life
| that is measured in weeks or months rather than days.
|
| You'd be right about the superior picture quality, though, but
| as the common use would be family photos that you see in
| passing to make you smile and may be quick snaps, the quality
| of e-ink is likely to be enough when it's a quick photo of your
| loved ones.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Personally I prefer using e-ink panels for my home DIY projects
| because I'm sensitive to light polution - I don't want half my
| home to constantly be glowing at me from every direction. E-ink
| panels are not emissive, so they don't have this problem.
|
| I'm even pretty annoyed at spurious LEDs. I appreciate for
| example that Sonos speakers let you turn off their status LEDs.
| It just makes the ambiance calmer.
|
| The exception is very interactive stuff like
| https://hackaday.io/project/190477-hyelicht where I used an LCD
| for the embedded touchscreen in the shelf, but powered down
| unless you touch it.
| ycuser2 wrote:
| Personaly, I don't like light emitting photo frames because I
| always get the feeling of "that's a display showing a photo,
| not a photo".
| alexose wrote:
| I think the world of homebrow eInk devices is set to take off.
|
| The problem right now is that while the screens have come down in
| price considerably, the driver hardware remains expensive and
| proprietary. If you want to build something for cheap, you'll be
| designing the PCB from scratch (as this author did).
|
| Enter EPDIY, which brings wide support to a variety of screens
| using commodity hardware. It's still under development, but it's
| looking really promising: https://github.com/vroland/epdiy
| anupmm wrote:
| Hi Thomas - Really cool project and website. Just wanted to give
| you an unsolicited pat on the back to keep doing amazing things!!
| thomasjb wrote:
| It's not by me, I just submitted the link when I saw it
| stavros wrote:
| I made something similar with the LilyGo T5 the other day:
|
| https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-the-timeframe/
|
| You can probably adapt the code to drive this display, and it
| displays an image from a remote server, so all you need is an
| HTTP server and you can easily display whatever you want.
| crzysdrs wrote:
| If anyone wants to make a similar project, there is a great Rust
| API to most of the Waveshare displays[0] (I added support for the
| display mentioned in the article, 5in65f).
|
| I also made a project[1] with it that generates art using a
| gameboy emulator and some static images and other transforms to
| show on the display.
|
| [0] https://github.com/caemor/epd-waveshare
|
| [1] https://github.com/crzysdrs/slate
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(page generated 2023-04-24 23:00 UTC)