[HN Gopher] 32" E Ink screen that displays daily newspapers on y...
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32" E Ink screen that displays daily newspapers on your wall (2021)
Author : alexandernl
Score : 419 points
Date : 2023-07-07 08:58 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (projecteink.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (projecteink.com)
| sho_hn wrote:
| I built a smaller, battery-powered version of this idea with Rust
| and ChatGPT: https://imgur.io/a/NoTr8XX /
| https://hackaday.io/project/190478-hyepaper
| 93po wrote:
| I came across this a while back wanting to make my own - thanks
| for this! I wound up deciding to just get an InkPlate because I
| also wanted something to take off the wall and review
| ionwake wrote:
| Thank you this is great, do you have the code in a repo? Maybe
| I need a new project
| emptyspaces wrote:
| It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing this. I have an old idea
| of something similar and maybe I'll use your project as
| inspiration
| herunan wrote:
| Would love it for some greyscale art or comic strips that update
| daily!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| You could build your own and write the code in Python.
|
| Have it display a random XKCD every day....
| slily wrote:
| If it could navigate the rest of the pages of the newspaper and
| was guaranteed to last at least 10+ years or had a long-term
| warranty provided by an established company, then I would
| consider buying this product as an alternative to traditional
| wall art.
| dobin wrote:
| Looks nice, but it's still just more news for the news addicted.
|
| Silly idea dump: How about: A 4k TV in form of a window, which
| displays a live stream of a 4k camera of various places in
| nature. Lets say, in the middle of the forest, or a beach in
| italy. To have a window into another place, for some calm and
| mindfulness.
| marcuskaz wrote:
| This site has feeds of windows around the world:
| https://www.window-swap.com
| dumbfounder wrote:
| Wow, it's like I am living in 1990's vision of the future!
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| You might be a customer for Bob Shaw's fictional 'slow glass':
|
| _Travelling through a remote area, they find a place that
| sells panes of slow glass. This is glass that light takes a
| long time to pass through, even years, so that a pane of this
| glass shows a scene from the past. People buy slow glass that
| has been placed in picturesque scenery so that later they can
| enjoy the view in their homes or workplaces._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_of_Other_Days
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Was thinking about something like that recently -- recalling
| maybe some kind of art piece from a decade or two back?
|
| 1) Place a camera + display somewhere in an urban area of the
| world so that random pedestrians can come and watch the
| display, will be on camera.
|
| 2) Place any number of these identical setups in other areas of
| the world.
|
| 3) Arbitrarily feed the camera from one to the display of
| another (shuffle every 24 hours?).
|
| You get people seeing/reacting to others seeing/reacting ...
| possibly to them, possibly to others who are seeing/reacting
| to....
| rnotaro wrote:
| Like this ? :
| https://www.travelandleisure.com/attractions/lithuania-
| polan...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Interesting. I was remembering something from much before
| 2021 though.
| cfn wrote:
| Wasn't Bill Gates who patented something like this idea many
| years ago?
| michelb wrote:
| Sort of: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-
| 6670934-...
| 762236 wrote:
| Life is so much better without news in it.
| 93po wrote:
| I have a similar smaller project that gives me a daily
| passage, weather, my to do list, calendar items, and daily
| checklist items
| yunusabd wrote:
| Boldly expanding the definition of "art" ;)
|
| Reminds me of the eink calendar concept that has been bouncing
| around the web for some years [1].
|
| There's also this project [2] based on the same concept. It seems
| to me though that these kinds of projects are always held back by
| the exorbitant costs of decently sized eink displays.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KDkFgOHZ5I
|
| [2] https://github.com/speedyg0nz/MagInkCal
| ranting-moth wrote:
| The definition of art has long ago been eroded into nothing.
| Put an empty table in the corner and call yourself an artist is
| perfectly valid today.
| fhsm wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)
| konschubert wrote:
| Yea, I sell a ready-to-use an eink calendar and the display is
| definitely the main cost driver. It's about half of my BOM.
|
| That's also why, admittedly, my calendar has a much smaller
| display than this newspaper.
|
| (It's this: https://shop.invisible-
| computers.com/products/invisible-cale...)
| yunusabd wrote:
| That's really nice, I think HN would love this if it was easy
| to hack and run custom software
| 93po wrote:
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/soldered/inkplate-10#products
| konschubert wrote:
| You can point it to any url that serves an image of the
| right resolution. This way, you can render your own
| content.
| Lysodium wrote:
| That's a really cool product to have on a desk. Are there any
| plans to use color e-ink displays or would that bump up the
| price point too much?
| w-m wrote:
| Buying 455[1] of these and hanging them next to each other
| would be a nice art project. Alas, I'm lacking the $1.1M, and
| the space to hang them.
|
| [1] https://www.freedomforum.org/todaysfrontpages/
| yunusabd wrote:
| I think that's the wrong link, but I get the idea. Actually
| it might qualify as art even more, because in terms of
| functionality it would be borderline useless.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Looking at the cost of 32" displays, this one is actually on
| the low end of what devices meant for professional use go for.
|
| Still a lot, but not "even pricier than a colour-accurate
| monitor for creators" a lot.
| brentcetinich wrote:
| I have the same thing, gitlab job scheduled every 12 hours
| refreshes it using the visionect docker image, I have google
| calendar at the bottom, and currency exchange over the top left,
| localized weather on the right, countdowns to holidays, F1
| schedules ect... I decreased the heartbeat timer and battery
| lasts about 2 months. I can't find an asian or european news
| paper that gives a good high res front page like the NYT. Waking
| up to read the US centric world view of the NYT gets old and the
| headlines are not so entertaining anymore without trump. Let me
| know if you find a more global news source that has a good high
| res reliable front page dump without advertisements. There has
| only been one time where NYT had on the front page over ~2 years
| and that was some fake diamond company took out the entire front
| page.
| AdamN wrote:
| Maybe set your calendar back 50 or 100 years and get NYT from
| the archives? Image quality might be just as high.
| aembleton wrote:
| Would be good to be able to build one from Google News.
| sdfghswe wrote:
| Aesthetically I think it looks gorgeous. But otherwise, if
| there's one thing I don't want more of in my life is "news".
| croes wrote:
| And suddenly the Apple Vision Pro doesn't look expensive at all.
| hnarn wrote:
| EUR2,783 ($3,025) for this might seem like a lot, until you
| realize that the price of the 31.2" screen[1] alone is at least
| $1,200 + $200 shipping within the US. Wow.
|
| [1]: https://buy-lcd.com/products/largest-312-inch-e-ink-big-
| scre...
| MissTake wrote:
| It is a lot. Period.
|
| I could pay for this and notice very little difference in my
| financial life.
|
| But I balk heavily at the $3k price tag and ask myself "what do
| I _really_ get out of this?"
|
| The answer is "nothing of value except a reminder of how much I
| spent on something of very little life value.
| steren wrote:
| The price tag is definitely higher than expected.
|
| Also, I would need strong guarantee in Long Term Support and
| reading that it uses a proprietary backend doesn't seem to go in
| that direction.
| prmph wrote:
| Couldn't one use an old iPad for something similar?
|
| I have this idea for some time: a simple SaaS where you create
| widgets (News headlines, Weather, Stocks, FX rates, Clocks, etc)
| in your account, then load a special page optimized for viewing
| on tablets from a few meters away, which is updated periodically.
|
| Then you can find another cool use for old iPads by pointing them
| to this page, and mounting them on the wall.
| mrklol wrote:
| Maybe something like a kindle? But a custom firmware on it and
| ... maybe it works. No clue.
| criddell wrote:
| It really wouldn't be similar at all.
|
| What you are describing is closer to Panic's old Status Board.
| hawski wrote:
| You kinda can, but there are no 32" iPads and none will look
| like E-Ink.
|
| The closest I think you could go for is to have a monitor with
| precise brightness control and measure the wall brightness and
| adjust the monitor brightness to fit. Something like this was
| posted once and I'm sure it was done by more people, but here
| is an example: https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-
| pixels
| ilaksh wrote:
| The point of e-ink displays is that they only use power when
| changing what's displayed or refreshing, so they can stay on
| the wall for several months on just a small battery. And they
| look more like paper.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Can I just get the 32" eink display without any of the
| bespokeness though?
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Yeah. They're sold online. A 31 inch monochrome runs about
| $1500. $2500 for a 42 inch.
|
| https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product?sort=hight
| masalah wrote:
| Can this screen show ads instead? I feel we're not getting enough
| of them.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| I do love E-Paper displays, but the price just makes it
| unrealistic for most projects unless you have a tiny screen.
| ildon wrote:
| I love the concept and I'd be willing to pay for the high price
| no questions asked if the device included all the backend needed
| to display images. Given the high price I'd expect this to be
| self sufficient. I truly hope a soon to come interaction of the
| product will include such a feature, so that setting the target
| URL by connecting to the device (via localhost or similar) will
| make this work.
|
| My best scenario would be: - plug it the first time, a new wifi
| network is made available - connect to the wifi and visit the
| locally hosted config page, which includes the wifi network to
| connect to and the URL to fetch - the screen restarts and
| connects to the wifi and, if internet works, fetches the URL - at
| any time, the screen can be configured if connected to the same
| wifi network (might require an app) - a physical button resets
| the screen to the factory config
| GenericDev wrote:
| Same. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of ownership with the
| device.
| formvoltron wrote:
| except that nobody reads the newspaper any more.
| criddell wrote:
| And that's why as a piece of active art work, this is pretty
| compelling. If you saw newspapers everywhere, why would you
| want one on the wall?
| Joe_Boogz wrote:
| this is a project my girlfriend said yes to buying immediately.
| Until she saw the price. Its about $2250 too expensive. I know
| its cost and whatever. But to make this feasible for your average
| person it'd have to come down in cost ALOT.
| Timja wrote:
| I would love a battery powered 32" E Ink screen that does nothing
| on its own, but lets me send it images to display.
|
| But for that I guess I would have to give that thing access to my
| wifi? I wouldn't want that.
|
| Any ideas if such a product exists and how one could use it
| shielded from the internet?
| cydmax wrote:
| A possible DIY way is to use a e-ink display connected to a
| Raspberry Pi and build a script to display content stored on a
| usb-stick connected to the USB-Port of the Raspi.
| Brosper wrote:
| I hope there is more cool eink projects.
| intpx wrote:
| It's been 16 years since the Kindle was released and I am super
| bummed that e-ink/e-paper is still so friggin expensive and
| esoteric.
| 93po wrote:
| Screens up to about 11 inches are decently affordable when you
| buy the bare hardware and attach it to an arduino or whatever
| of your choice
| dsiegel2275 wrote:
| Why would I want to stand next to my wall to read the newspaper?
| rrustema wrote:
| [dead]
| squishy47 wrote:
| love the ultra modern look combined with the nostalgia of a
| monochrome newpaper. this makes me look forward to cheaper large
| format e-ink displays used in society. side note - I could
| totally see this in some cyber-dystopian-future film set.
| graiz wrote:
| I published this article about how I made my own version of this
| using docker and some open source code to get the same effect.
|
| https://gregraiz.com/posts/i-made-an-eink-newspaper/
| gataca wrote:
| Yes! I remember your post here on HN about this project, super
| well done.
| sytheveenje wrote:
| I like this idea very much. I saw this concept in real life
| during a podcast event in "De Rode Hoed" in Amsterdam. I was
| amazed by the quality of the screen. It's a little expensive, but
| I'm sure there is a market for this.
| ilyt wrote:
| Ah, yes, propaganda on my wall, so much "art".
|
| But I wouldn't mind big reasonably priced piece of e-ink on the
| wall that I can put stuff relevant to me on.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Looks great. How do you get the print version of your newspaper
| of choice?
| alexandernl wrote:
| Most newspapers publish a PDF of their most recent front page.
| We make it easy to find those in the companion app.
| kanarian wrote:
| [dead]
| momirlan wrote:
| "News" is really bad for the soul. A daily comic might be better.
| The hardware seems good otherwise.
| alexandernl wrote:
| I'm a news junkie, and the power and allure of a newspaper's
| front page have always fascinated me. When I stumbled upon an
| article written by a Google engineer who had built an e ink
| device with the front page of his favorite daily newspaper
| prominently displayed on his wall, I was a bit jealous. So, I
| worked with a e-ink company called Visionect in Slovenia to build
| a version that comes shipped ready to put on your wall. The
| screen isn't cheap ($2500) because it's a huge 32" e-ink display.
| The beautiful glass screen is connected to wifi and we made it
| easy to choose your favorite newspaper frontpages to put on
| display. It's a bit like an ever changing artwork.
| westurner wrote:
| Why do larger e-ink screens cost more to produce?
|
| Something like this for (e.g. Kanban card-based) project
| management would be cool, though the contrast at a distance.
|
| The PineNote is a 9" eInk development device; 3287cm/3 for
| $400. https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineNote
|
| But it's not going to look as nice as a 32" e-ink display on
| the wall.
|
| Is there a yellow backlight, or a blueish backlight?
|
| Is there a low-cost way to make a solar roof that varies in
| solar reflectivity? FWIU e-ink only requires voltage to cause
| the e-ink particles to flip over?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink
| shultays wrote:
| Smaller market and (I assume) patents and probably some price
| fixing
| smolder wrote:
| > Why do larger e-ink screens cost more to produce?
|
| Last I knew the bulk of cost for e-ink displays was just due
| to the patent holders decision to charge a lot, which is
| disappointing, but can't go on that much longer...
| Qwertious wrote:
| This is a myth that people keep repeating. E-ink prices
| have very little to do with patents.
|
| E-ink displays are more expensive because they are _utterly
| niche_ compared to LCD screens (there are over 6 billion
| smartphone users in the world right now, and plenty of
| people own a smartphone, laptop, desktop, TV, tablet,
| smartwatch, then use a computer at work, interact with a
| self-checkout kiosk at the supermarket, etc).
|
| There are basically two common use-cases for e-ink right
| now: e-readers (and nowadays 'e-notes', which have stylus
| input), and smart-pricetags in supermarkets. Neither of
| these require large e-ink screens, so there's no existing
| production line to feed these 32" monitors off. The 32"
| screens are created by hand-fusing 4 16" screens together,
| IIRC. This isn't automated because there's not enough
| demand to automate it.
|
| The reason there's no demand for e-ink screens is that the
| technology just isn't very useful - I love e-ink, but it's
| not particularly flexible and can't be used in general-
| purpose devices that need to display video. It has its
| niches, but they're _niche_.
|
| It's lower battery usage is due to low refresh rate, which
| is inherently incompatible with displaying video -if an
| e-reader refreshes once per minute and an LCD screen would
| have to refresh 60 times a second, then the LCD needs to
| refresh 3600x more often which means e-ink saves power even
| if the e-ink screen takes 10x or 100x the power per
| refresh. But if the e-ink screen plays video at 60FPS, then
| by definition it's refreshing 60 times a second and thus
| will use 10x or 100x the power of the equivalent LCD screen
| playing the same video.
|
| If we want prices to drop substantially, we need more use-
| cases for e-ink. There's hope here, as the recent fast-ACEP
| tech (the Gallery 3) is color-tech that doesn't sacrifice
| half of your contrast and resolution (like Color Filter
| Arrays do), but is fast enough for an interactive device
| and is almost as fast to refresh as a monochrome screen
| (previous ACEP screens took min 7 seconds to refresh the
| screen, the new tech is amazing). With some refinement, it
| might be enough to bring e-notes _somewhat_ into the
| mainstream.
|
| So, all that said: e-ink screens that are 6" or less aren't
| really any more expensive than an LCD. It's only when you
| get outside of normal e-reader sizes that the price goes up
| like crazy.
|
| ...not to mention, e-ink isn't the only "e-paper" company -
| ReInkstone are making their DES screens, which dodge at
| least some of the patents on microencapsulated
| electrophoretic displays as their cofferdam tech doesn't
| use microcapsules at all and instead integrate the seals
| into the display.
| westurner wrote:
| Volume, Demand, IP, power utilization per real second
|
| FWIU _non_ -e-eink flexible display tech has advanced
| considerably.
|
| Maybe there still is a market for huge broadsheet e-ink
| newspaper devices? How many flexible broadsheets of
| display would approximate the ux of a real newspaper?
| konschubert wrote:
| I make a similar product, with a smaller screen and at a lower
| price point.
|
| It's very cool what you have done, let's maybe collaborate or
| join forces?
|
| My product is an e-paper calendar:
|
| https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale...
| franciscop wrote:
| Is that an eBook with custom software and a frame? The price
| point is indeed very tempting.
| konschubert wrote:
| The screen is off-the shelf, but the rest is all custom,
| including the PCB that's driving the screen, the wooden
| frame and the brass back plate.
| [deleted]
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| Quick question: brass looks fantastic but on a back
| plate..? Why that material choice? (I'm sure there was a
| good reason, just curious)
| konschubert wrote:
| Plastic is actually more expensive in small numbers...
| and I want the thing to have a bit of a low-tech, retro
| feel. Plastic wouldn't work for that.
| garvield wrote:
| Hi! This looks like a useful product at a good price point.
| Are you based in Germany? How come you only ship to
| Australia, Canada, China, India, UK and USA?
|
| Also, you should look through your privacy policy. Its
| straight up copy/pasted from Shopifys template now with all
| the "ADD CASES THAT APPLY FOR YOUR STORE", "REMOVE THIS TEXT
| IF THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO YOUR STORE" text remaining. And
| apparently you sell your customers information to display
| targeted ads?
| konschubert wrote:
| No, I don't sell my customers information.
|
| I will fix the privacy policy.
|
| Selling in the EU comes with very expensive compliance
| needs. CE alone costs 10000 Euro.
|
| I would love to do it but since I'm bootstrapping I need to
| earn some money first.
| garvield wrote:
| Thanks for the answers! I hope that you will be able to
| sell in the EU. CE is good consumer protection but it is
| unfortunate that it creates such a hurdle for small
| companies to sell their products.
|
| Please let us know if/when you can sell it locally. I'm
| very interested in getting one for my kitchen wall.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| Can it display arbitrary stuff? Maybe whatever is streaming
| over the network?
| konschubert wrote:
| You can point it to any url on the web, with a JPEG or a
| PNG of the right resolution.
|
| It will poll that URL a few times per minute and display
| the image.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Can you disable the online integration features? Ie no
| google login, just be dumb and display what i tell it?
|
| Second question, any thoughts on if this could run off of
| battery? Eink tends to be so low power, i'd love this
| type of product with a wallhang and periodic charge.
| Thoughts?
|
| The price point is great!
| konschubert wrote:
| You still need to in to the companion app because the
| device needs the online backend for computing the render.
|
| But on iOS you can log in with apple. And there is no
| need to pair with google calendar if you use the image
| url feature:
|
| https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-
| calendar/image...
|
| -----
|
| Batteries drive up the cost for certification and
| shipping. I think a battery works better together with a
| bigger, more expensive display, where these costs are
| less of a concern and which you cannot place on a stand.
|
| (Even though you can definitely hang my display up on the
| wall and if you don't have a socket nearby, you can plug
| it into a battery pack)
|
| Sorry if that's a lot of text but I think about this
| stuff every day :D
|
| Hard decisions!
| unshavedyak wrote:
| > You still need to in to the companion app because the
| device needs the online backend for computing the render.
|
| Right, but that could be fully in my network if i
| understand correctly.
|
| > But on iOS you can log in with apple. And there is no
| need to pair with google calendar if you use the image
| url feature:
|
| This works, but i'd _really_ like a way to do this
| without any cloud-y features. As dumb as possible.
| Especially for low cost devices like this where i 'm
| paranoid of it being "cheap because they sell my data"
| sort of thing.
|
| > (Even though you can definitely hang my display up on
| the wall and if you don't have a socket nearby, you can
| plug it into a battery pack)
|
| This is exactly what i was hoping for! I don't mind
| buying the battery pack separately. I just wanted to make
| sure it wasn't hard wired to a wall plug, etc.
|
| In the future if you could try to allocate space or hooks
| or anything to support this use case that would be
| amazing. Ie some little hooks on the back where a user
| could ziptie a battery back to it would be great!
|
| I think i'm going to give one of these a try. If it works
| well for my headless use case i'd probably love a handful
| of these things, they're very close to what i've wanted
| for years. A lot of little low power displays around the
| house that work like picture frames. A hybrid to "modern
| life" and "old life" if you will. I love Eink
| botplaysdice wrote:
| I believe many people hate that power cable... Why not
| leveraging the low power consumption of eink? I hope you
| guys plannign one with battery.
| throaway920181 wrote:
| Very much want (especially at that price point.) I've signed
| up to be notified!
| konschubert wrote:
| Thank you for your comment, it made me notice that I sold
| out. I just added some more inventory, but it may take a
| little bit longer to ship than usual, because I still need
| to assemble those units...
| limuc wrote:
| I really like it! And it's affordable too.
| [deleted]
| GlacierFox wrote:
| Looks really cheap too.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Hmmmm, trying to see your point of view, what I would do
| differently....
|
| If one is going to use plywood for the frame, maybe a nice
| "multi-ply" plywood (Europly, Apple Ply, etc.). The
| Japanese kids make speakers from plywood and love to show
| off the "plys" because they use the good multi-ply stuff.
|
| Frame could be cut with more CNC precision? (Looking at the
| inner cut in particular).
|
| Maybe the stand should be cut from extruded aluminum of
| some interesting cross section rather than the Scrabble-
| tile-holder-like block of wood.
|
| Given those changes I would raise the price as well to $199
| and think nothing of that.
|
| (Also, would like to dial down the refreshes -- or at the
| very least, not refresh if the pixels are unchanged. Unless
| somehow they are able to do invisible refreshes on the
| e-ink display -- 'cause e-ink refreshes sure can be
| distracting and ugly.)
| konschubert wrote:
| Hi, those are nice ideas, thank you!
|
| The refreshes definitely only happen if pixels change -
| did I write something somewhere that suggested otherwise?
| If you let me know I can fix it :)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| A comment about it polling every so many minutes or so. I
| misinterpreted that as refreshing.
| shultays wrote:
| The cable looks cheap indeed, although otherwise you have
| the trouble of keeping it charged. But other wise
| "cheap"/simple look imo is a selling point.
| konschubert wrote:
| :D
|
| It's a matter of taste I guess
| shultays wrote:
| Sounds like an interesting project, how/where does it fetch the
| data from?
| martinclayton wrote:
| Eg. https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/07/07/nytfrontpage/s
| can...
| naikrovek wrote:
| whoa this is awesome.
|
| any other examples? I've been wanting to find a source for
| front pages.
| kian wrote:
| Is there a way to reach out to you?
| cydmax wrote:
| There are cheaper e-ink displays by Waveshare. e.g. the
| WaveShare 13.3inch e-Paper e-Ink Display HAT For Raspberry Pi
| for 500EUR. You can build a box to house the display and the
| Raspberry Pi for under 100EUR... Add some scripts to download
| and display the news PDF and you can enjoy it for 1/4 of the
| price...
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| It's the size that'll make it feel like a newspaper.
| lopis wrote:
| Is that really worth it, though? The 13 inch screen from this
| company is 899EUR and already comes in a proper enclosure,
| and is wireless which seems important for this product. If
| your goal is to quickly manufacture reliable devices,
| partnering with someone that already sells a proper device
| seems totally worth the extra cost.
|
| Not to mention that OP wants a big poster-size screen, so
| your suggestion comes a few inches short.
| cydmax wrote:
| It is absolutely worth it! The Visionect display require a
| subscription to run properly:
| https://www.visionect.com/software/ . 60 Euro / year to run
| a display that I paid almost 1k for is not for private use.
|
| I guess that's why the price for the 32 inch display is so
| high, the subscription is priced in.
| alexandernl wrote:
| We built our own CMS, so no need for a subscription
| zauguin wrote:
| Could you give a few more details on this? While the 32''
| screen is a bit too expensive for me, I would probably
| find interesting usecases for he 16'' version if there
| weren't the subscription requirement. I don't mind
| writing my own CMS as long as that's possible.
|
| What are the requirements to make a system work with
| these? Do you at the end stream bitmaps to the device?
| Something else? Is there a documented interface?
| sgc wrote:
| I am simply not interested in that sort of limitation on
| a display device, regardless of the available work
| arounds. Just sell me an eink monitor and be done with
| it. This is digital sign technology as can be seen at
| https://www.visionect.com/products/, and has very little
| place in the home. It is a waste of resources in that
| location.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I don't think you can buy a large eink screen as a
| consumer anywhere because of the shenanigans of the
| company that owns the eink technology. I forgot the exact
| details, but it was discussed here several times in the
| past.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| It seems reasonable for OP to pay 4x given:
|
| - the display size is 6x
|
| - no need to DIY
| deltarholamda wrote:
| It's kind of sad that the newspaper format--which gradually
| developed over many many years due to how a human interfaces
| with the medium--is now so... quaint?... that it has entered
| the realm of "art."
|
| All that inverse-pyramid, "Five Ws and an H," Journalism 101
| stuff developed in part because of how newspapers were
| designed, typeset and printed. Now it's kind of like a Thomas
| Kincaid print?
|
| I feel really old now.
| Tepix wrote:
| That's pricey. Perhaps using a normal 4k monitor is a better
| option? It could even display video. You could couple it with a
| motion sensor to turn it off and save power when noone is
| around.
| sytheveenje wrote:
| No. That would become another screen in your house. I think
| the power of this concept is it begin e-ink.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| That sounds like a very different product from what they're
| offering here.
|
| Eink feels close to paper, regular LCD's or OLED's do not.
| pipo234 wrote:
| There is probably some break even point, as a typical 4k
| monitor draws considerably more power.
| ZiiS wrote:
| If you only update the paper once a day with a new
| newspaper you can probably run a OLED for about 1 second
| per day on the same power budget.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| The e-ink newspaper project comes up from time to time and I
| keep waiting for the prices to come down to Earth.
|
| Guess I'm still going to have to wait, ha ha.
|
| I did play around with an affordable (smaller) display and
| liked the result though (but since it was small I did not ry to
| emulate a newspaper but rather a vintage Mac).
| naikrovek wrote:
| yeah the displays are where the cost is, here, and until the
| company that makes these giant panels starts pricing them
| sanely, there won't be any products built with it which are
| priced sanely.
| Gasp0de wrote:
| For 2500 bucks I can probably pay the person who delivers my
| daily newspaper to come inside and hang it on the wall for me
| for at least 10 years.
| sgt wrote:
| For 2500 bucks I can build you a 32" ink display. Just tell
| me which newspaper you would like and which date it should
| show.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| No you couldn't.
| konart wrote:
| Depends on country we are talking about.
| Pyramus wrote:
| Okay, then please propose a concrete example with costs
| of labor, premium for print subscription etc.
|
| Happy to be proven wrong, but USD 2500 seems unrealistic.
| akagr wrote:
| I live in India. My newspaper costs [?]230 a month.
| That's [?]2,760 a year and [?]27,600 for a decade (not
| factoring inflation). At today's conversion rates, that's
| $333.58 for entire decade.
|
| If I pay the remaining amount of $2166.42 to the delivery
| person over 10 years, that's about [?]1493 per month,
| which is over 6 times the cost of newspaper subscription.
| For that amount, yeah, they'll be happy to hang the paper
| on a wall.
| oefrha wrote:
| $250 is a tad lower than the median monthly salary in
| India. I bet you can find hundreds of millions of people
| willing to earn a cool $0.7 a day doing something as easy
| as this. That's a meal or two for a poor person.
| swores wrote:
| I've just done that in reply to your previous comment,
| but will add here: they said "pay the person who delivers
| my daily newspaper", so it's $2500 on top of an existing
| delivery, not $2500 including paying for a new
| subscription & deliveries.
|
| edit: oops I noticed the other comment I replied to
| wasn't you, but anyway -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36629620
| Pyramus wrote:
| No worries, appreciate your concrete calculation.
|
| I would argue it's just one more convenient assumption
| that leads us away from a realistic estimation.
|
| It seems to me USD 2500 is an idealistic best case
| scenario.
| konart wrote:
| Someone already used India as an example.
|
| With millions of people living in conditions where even
| safe drinkable water is not something you are guaranteed
| to get - 250$/year equivalent seems wild.
| swores wrote:
| Depends on the person but it doesn't seem completely
| impossible - ignoring inflation, $250/yr for <5mins a day
| (part of an existing delivery route, so no worrying about
| the commute time except from front door to wall hanging
| location - realistically could be 2 mins rather than 5 but
| say 5 to be conservative) is ~30hrs for 365 days, so
| ~$8/hr.
|
| If they can manage it in 3min rather than 5, it's up to
| $13.70/hr.
|
| Where I am (UK) I think most newspaper delivery people are
| aged 13-18, and while there's far less of them about than
| when I was a kid, I wouldn't be surprised if >50% would be
| willing to do it to earn an extra $4.80/week.
|
| Of course, you also need to trust the person to come into
| your house every day, either giving them a key or being
| available to let them in each time; and while I skipped
| over inflation it's likely that $250 in ten years has
| devalued a lot - but maybe you could get a yea for just
| $150-200/yr at the start to have room for annual
| increases...
|
| So I don't think your curt dismissal adds much to the
| conversation.
|
| And that's feasibility thinking about US/UK people, as
| konart points out in their comment there are countries
| where $250/yr stretches much further than in wealthy, high-
| CoL countries.
| IndigoIncognito wrote:
| You should become a quant analyst, seems like you enjoy
| math
| swores wrote:
| Heh I just had a bored few minutes outside with a
| cigarette, but I didn't find writing that comment
| interesting enough to want to turn it into a new career
| :)
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| A curt dismissal is entirely appropriate for a suggestion
| that's absurd on its face.
|
| No one's actually going to pay some random mail delivery
| person to come into their house every day and hang up a
| newspaper for ten years.
| swores wrote:
| When I was 13 I delivered newspapers, two of the people
| with subscriptions on my route, both >70 (not sure exact
| age), one asked me to take their bins out to the street
| once a week, the other wanted company and hoped I'd come
| in for a drink every time. They both offered to pay, my
| mum wouldn't let me accept money from them but I was
| still happy to go inside both of their houses each week
| to be friendly. I'm pretty sure I'd have said yes to
| hanging the front page every day for whatever was worth
| $5 of 2023 money back then a week extra!
|
| Sure, most people wouldn't want that, and most people
| wouldn't want to spend $2500 getting a newspaper they'd
| already paying for to be hung on the wall. But that's not
| the same as "no you couldn't [do that at all]".
| kybernetikos wrote:
| Yes, it's absurd. But for most people paying this amount
| of money to get a single page of a newspaper on their
| wall for however long the screen and cloud service work
| is also absurd. Despite looking extremely cool, it's a
| pretty small group of people this is targeting.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Then let them have their fun? I'm not sure what the issue
| is here. Just seems like folks working on their tight 5
| and announcing to everyone how shrewd they are for
| declaring how dumb they think this product is. Feels like
| I'm back on reddit already lol
| swores wrote:
| The person you're replying to was just making a sensible
| observation that was relative to the conversation - I
| don't see any problem with what they said, nor relevance
| to Reddit's typical comments.
|
| You on the other hand haven't added to the discussion but
| instead broke one of HN's guidelines:
|
| > _Please don 't post comments saying that HN is turning
| into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the
| hills._
|
| Maybe worth checking the whole page out, then you can
| help keep HN comments as high quality as possible to
| avoid other people feeling the need to compare to Reddit!
| <3
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Appreciate the input. And you're right, I shouldn't have
| made the Reddit jab. It's as childish as what I've been
| seeing here.
| swores wrote:
| We all make childish or otherwise foolish comments
| sometime (most of us probably quite often - I definitely
| do), worth trying not to as often as possible but no big
| deal slipping up :)
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Very few people are going to add a 5 minute stop to their
| day to make an extra $8 every fortnight.
| swores wrote:
| I think you're massively underestimating a) the amount of
| poverty even in the US (or whatever country you're
| thinking of) yet alone in places where the mean salary is
| only a couple of hundred bucks, and b) the limited
| options for making more money for the type of person who
| does paper rounds (often but not always <18yo, but always
| in a situation where they need/want the work of
| delivering newspapers for a low hourly rate and for
| likely less than a few hours a day).
| barefootcoder wrote:
| I think you've overlooked the realistic useful lifetime
| of the product, and how long the novelty factor would
| last -- if you price it according to that duration I
| think that you'd find the hourly rate to be far higher.
| Yizahi wrote:
| Also, in my country minimal salary this year is
| 180$/month. So I can realistically find a person to
| change newspapers full time every workday for a year, for
| those money. I rather think there will be a a queue of
| candidates for this, as compared to loading cargo or or
| giving out flyers on the street for the same sum. :)
| Pyramus wrote:
| You have conveniently left out the cost differential for
| the printed edition, and you are conveniently pricing the
| trust/risk/hassle that comes with it at 0. And even in
| this case I doubt the USD 5 pw is the market price, you
| are basically assuming there is a kid, who values extra
| pocket money.
|
| So all in all, USD 2500 seems unrealistic.
| swores wrote:
| The assumption about a kid for pocket money is relevant
| because a) lots of people doing the job of delivery
| papers _are_ kids already and b) even if they 're not,
| they're some doing the same job for minimum or less than
| minimum wage so presumably have similar desire or need
| for earning money for simple work.
|
| And as mentioned, the person who suggested it being
| possible was talking about using an existing physical
| subscription not paying for that within the $2.5k
| Daviey wrote:
| My 13 y/o son delivers newspapers, he earns PS24 per week
| for 6 mornings. He delivers around 16 newspapers a day.
| (PS24/16)/6 days = PS0.25 per paper.
|
| 365 days per year at PS0.25 per day is PS91.25 per year.
|
| The most popular printed newspaper is the Daily Mail, I
| have no idea what the wholesale cost is, but the retail
| price is PS30.33 per month So, worst case is PS363.96 per
| year - but my expectation is that it is half that.
|
| $2500 USD is currently PS1946.66
|
| PS91.25 + PS363.96 = PS455.21
|
| So, you totally can get the paper delivered by a 13 year
| old boy for ~4.25 years, by which time he'll retire off to
| college. However, if my premise is that wholesale cost of
| the paper is half what I thought it is, then 10 years
| sounds about right.
|
| EDIT: I checked with him, and if you live close enough he'd
| be willing to come in and stick it on your wall every day,
| as long as he can get home in time for school.
| jacknews wrote:
| It does look cool, but I think the last thing I want on my
| wall is yet more 'news'.
|
| I was about to say something similar about the price; for
| that money I can just stick the newspaper itself up on the
| wall.
|
| OTOH if the display is already 2300EUR, I can't see how the
| OP can possibly make any money on this, especially with free
| global shipping, returns, etc, etc.
| zauguin wrote:
| > OTOH if the display is already 2300EUR, I can't see how
| the OP can possibly make any money on this, especially with
| free global shipping, returns, etc, etc.
|
| I don't think they are making money out of this. The
| display is 2300EUR without VAT and the OP is selling them
| with 2783EUR with 21% VAT, so it's exactly the same price.
| MattRix wrote:
| I assumed that they are able to buy the displays at some
| kind of wholesale/discounted price?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| You may be missing the purpose of this item. The price is
| high, but it is really not for a picture of the paper. It is
| for the 'look','old feel, while still clearly being very
| modern'. In other words, it is trying to be closer to art; so
| its about being cool in an understated way with unnecessarily
| expensive things.
| bsjaux628 wrote:
| Also the fact that it can be anything that fits the
| aesthetics. I have been drawn to this E-ink concept for
| many year and other than waiting for a drop in price, I
| would love it to be available in color and use it to
| dynamically change between vintage movie poster, hell maybe
| even pull the one for the movie that I'm watching in my
| media server.
| thih9 wrote:
| > 2500 bucks
|
| Other commenter [1] mentioned that there's a subscription
| required. I found no pricing link, but saw a subscription on
| the parent page [2] listed at 60 per year. So if we're
| talking 10 years, then it's closer to 3000.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36629864
|
| [2]: https://www.visionect.com/software/
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Why is the first sentence of this comment literally a copy
| paste from the article? This feels bizarre.
| GenericDev wrote:
| I would love to buy this so I can put up classic newspapers and
| read them. Such a cool idea.
|
| A bit of a side tangent, but I have been trying to locate
| newspaper archives, and I just can't find them anywhere for
| download outside of newspapers.com, and even then they rate limit
| the hell out you. There is not effective way to bulk download
| these artifacts so I can peruse offline, which is typical :(
|
| Does anyone know where to find bulk old newspaper downloads?
| hau wrote:
| This screen comes with a subscription based cloud CMS. The only
| way to pass image to this display semms to be through a
| proprietary application which is this so called CMS. There are no
| other connectivity options mentioned.
|
| You are unable to use this screen if:
|
| - subscription is not paid
|
| - company decides to terminate your subscription under any
| condition of your contract
|
| - company decides to sunset software or a product
|
| - company doesn't exist anymore
|
| - CMS isn't compatible with your device anymore
| ar_lan wrote:
| Hey, isn't this the Peloton model?
| paulcole wrote:
| That's OK though right? As long as you know that going in you
| can decide if it's worth it for you. Personally, I'd rather
| have something that works out of the box in exchange for a bit
| of money and risk that the company will go out of business one
| day than something that I have to spend time tinkering with to
| get and keep working.
| brentcetinich wrote:
| I have taken a look at the protocol between the software and
| the display and it is straightforward to hack, but the docker
| image is lightweight and reliable enough that I don't see the
| need to.
| thih9 wrote:
| > As long as you know that going in you can decide if it's
| worth it for you.
|
| But it looks like there's no way to know that going in? I
| have checked the product page and found no information that
| the CMS is paid.
|
| Based on the current description ("Comes with personal online
| portal to set up and change the content of your screen." [1])
| I wouldn't expect an additional subscription.
|
| [1]: https://projecteink.com/products/e-ink-newspaper-art-
| display...
| hau wrote:
| It's not OK in my opinion to have perfectly capable hardware
| and software be obsoleted by circumstances outside of your
| control. I consider it to be wasteful and unnecessary. It
| don't have to conflict with convinience and services provided
| by cloud CMS. As we've figured out in other thread this is
| not an issue with this particular display - apparently, you
| could make it work without touching external networks, and
| it's decently supported by Visionect way of doing things.
| stavros wrote:
| If you prefer something more hobby-grade, I made a similar
| thing with an ESP32-based screen:
|
| https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-the-timeframe/
|
| It fetches images from HTTP every half hour and shows them.
| thih9 wrote:
| Is there a link to a page that shows subscription pricing?
| jayvoordemensen wrote:
| Hey! It's Jay, I'm a journalist _and_ developer and I 've done
| most of the work on the front and backend of Project E Ink.
| Happy to answer your questions!
|
| So what we've done: we're indeed running our own Visionect
| servers these devices connect to. We've build a friendly and
| news-centered frontend so the display shows news, updates on
| new editions (or a user-set timeframe), or forgets about
| newspapers altogether and displays HTML on any URL you provide.
|
| If we were to sunset or go MIA or anything else unforeseen and
| unlikely you will still have an awesome display that you can
| configure to connect to any other Visionect server in the
| world. And indeed: these servers are Docker-images you can
| deploy yourself https://hub.docker.com/r/visionect/visionect-
| server-v3/
|
| So the deal is: a screen and our software. If you don't like
| our software you'll still have an awesome screen that'll work
| as long as there's Docker and TCP/IP ;)
| hau wrote:
| Hey, thanks. Yeah it seems it could be run just fine without
| some cloud based third party paid services, and the suite is
| nice and accessible, that's cool. I am just really confused
| by Visionect product page I guess.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| > connect to any other Visionect server in the world
|
| Okay but what if, like a sane person, I _don 't_ want to give
| it direct internet access and have my own data I want to put
| on the wall? Can I pay less to get less (e.g. just the screen
| with an HDMI or DP connector so I can connect it to literally
| any raspi, picture frame, nuc, etc. etc. in my house)?
| infotogivenm wrote:
| A pi in hostapd hotspot mode should work fine, right?
| Anyways I would guess most of the ("insane?") target users
| of this device probably don't want to mess with any of
| that.
| junon wrote:
| I don't think I'm your target demographic but I always
| appreciate folks who make their hardware accessible like
| this. Thank you :)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Who is the target demo? I'm old enough to have had actual
| newspapers appear on my doorstep. I ever saw anyone mount
| them on a wall, at least not in a private home. I would
| think a table/tablet orientation would be more appealing
| than an awkward wall mount. Is this thing meant to be art,
| a bit of faux-nostalgia decoration?
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I think people definitely do mount significant newspaper
| and magazine covers. The advantage of this, of course, is
| that it changes daily.
|
| It's part function, part art piece imo. I can imagine
| somebody who's fairly well off drinking their morning
| coffee whilst reading this on their wall. A statement
| piece for the guests at their fashionable dinner parties
| too.
| kbenson wrote:
| Yeah, my initial thought when someone said people don't
| mount newspapers was that yes, they do, even if not
| always in a personal or home context. It's exactly the
| type of thing you might see at certain bars, and there's
| no shortage of interesting famous front pages to
| display[1]. They're often about disasters, but there's
| notable very positive ones as well, such as the
| announcement of peace and the end of WWI and WWII, the
| famous newspaper announcing we arrived at the moon, etc.
|
| Or you could just have it cycle through the most
| outlandish front pages from the Weekly World News about
| the latest exploits of Bat Boy[2]. Or switch to whatever
| your tastes are for the day! :) 1: https:
| //www.google.com/search?q=famous+newspaper+front+pages&tb
| m=isch 2:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=bat+boy
| junon wrote:
| I think it's clear this isn't supposed to solve a
| problem. The article describes it pretty clearly as more
| of an art piece than something of function.
|
| There are definitely people who would like this in their
| homes. Probably multiple.
| Popeyes wrote:
| You could tie it into a calendar app and have it as a
| family organiser sitting in the hallway.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| If it is going to be art, I'd use some more creative
| content than daily newspapers. A series of fictional
| newspapers would be better. I would much rather it
| display a the front page of the Gothem Times with the
| latest Batman v. Joker news. Even realworld historical
| headlines would make for a better conversation piece.
| Older monochrome front pages would also probably look
| better on such as display.
| junon wrote:
| That's your opinion I guess.
| happytiger wrote:
| I think it's not that dissimilar to people who have a
| rotary telephone in their kitchen in 2023, use records,
| play tapes, hack Commodore 64 systems, or who use old
| Panasonic handhelds. There's a degree of personal
| expression in vintage technology that exceeds mere
| nostalgia.
|
| I can't speak for this creator, but often these niche
| products serve a community of like-minded, or in fact are
| the mechanism or way to find and connect with a community
| of like minded people.
|
| I think of folks doing projects around old technology
| paradigms as similar people to those who grew up building
| hot rods and find building cars to be greatly satisfying.
| Hacking a newspaper on your wall is similar, but in more
| of a dick tracy watch ethos.
| infotogivenm wrote:
| I would guess people who spend a lot of money on interior
| design. It's a nice statement piece IMO.
| unholythree wrote:
| I've seen newspapers hung above urinals as reading
| material. Generally the front page or the sports page
| under glass.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Harry Potter fans possibly :)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| If they got the actual newspaper animations and such from
| the movies, THAT would sell. An e-ink Harry headline, or
| wanted poster, would be something that any potter fan
| would seriously consider.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Why doesn't it have a way to directly push an image to the
| screen like a $30 router from worst buy? It looks like the
| software to push an image to a display can be run on your own
| device but then you need an $80 box and if I read this right
| you need to pay $72 a year forever.
|
| https://www.visionect.com/software/
| redroyal wrote:
| Well if you're sold on paying 2000 euro for the display
| it's a drop in the bucket. Who reads newspapers in 2023
| anyway? Why not just get a subscription to a newspaper for
| like $50/yr? Then you can sit and read it instead of
| standing facing a wall. I don't get this product. A
| solution in need of a problem
| michaelmrose wrote:
| If you or some future buyer want to keep it for 20 years
| and want to run your own hardware to deal with it you
| will probably end up sourcing at least 2 single board
| computers for around $160 and paying $72x20 adjusted up
| for inflation or 1440-2160. You will spend at least 30
| minutes picking out a machine and some number of hours
| over the years managing each machine.
|
| This is of course assuming it doesn't actually stop
| working or some aspect of the process isn't broken.
|
| All this so you can run a docker container with postgres
| instead of pushing an image to an endpoint on the local
| network. It's both bad and unimpressive engineering.
|
| Furthermore if it did need central management for
| business purpose THAT would be something that consumes
| the same simple process for showing something on the
| screen.
|
| <COMPLEX SOFTWARE> => posts image => shows image
|
| This would trivially allow you to build on the simple
| process if that is all you need. It's not so much bad
| engineering as gross engineering its engineered to be
| complicated to they can insert themselves into the
| process to stick their hand in your wallet.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Because the Visonect devices and software are meant for
| commercial and business customers as information displays
| that are centrally managed, not for use as a consumer
| product, and is designed around those use cases. That
| somebody bought one and repurposed it for a hobby art
| project doesn't change that.
| tohnjitor wrote:
| I once designed some outdoor bezels for your 13" and 32"
| displays. nice pieces of hardware! Wish eink prices were
| lower in general.
| eli wrote:
| Is that compliant with Visionect's licensing? Their site says
| "A license is needed for every device." I don't doubt that it
| technically works.
| kian wrote:
| Is there an email I can reach you at about something related?
| veegee wrote:
| If Docker is in any way _required_, it's still a dealbreaker.
| javajosh wrote:
| That's an extremist view.
| c0balt wrote:
| Docker is not magic, just extract the contents an OCI
| image[1] and run it with your favorite container runtime,
| like cri-o[2]. Or use the docker or OCI inage with
| podman[0].
|
| And if containers are the problem then unpack the image
| into it's contents, take the binary, relink it and run it
| on bare metal.
|
| [0]: https://podman.io/ [1]:
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73961256/how-to-
| convert-... [2]: https://github.com/cri-o/cri-o/tree/main
| callalex wrote:
| Docker is never required by anything, it just makes
| communicating software dependencies simple and concise.
| danderoo wrote:
| You like to have it signed by RMS personally?
|
| (Nothing against the FSF, but "dealbreaker" is a very
| relative concept.)
| [deleted]
| p10jkle wrote:
| No, this isn't true. I run the Visionect software suite
| (https://docs.visionect.com/VisionectSoftwareSuite/index.html)
| on a Raspberry pi and the screen talks to it over localhost. No
| outbound connectivity or subscription is needed.
| muki wrote:
| I would like to caveat that a bit. I'm running two Visionect
| screens at home (I really do love them, hardware-wise
| especially) from a similar setup (local Visionect server
| running on Raspberry Pi).
|
| As far as I understand though, they have stopped offering
| support for non-subscribers, and they also seem to have
| stopped producing builds for ARM devices a couple of years
| ago (but the server software works even with new firmware
| versions). I am still betting on them supporting local
| installs for a while (based on my understanding that at least
| some of their corporate clients would want an on-prem
| solution), but am a little bit worried it might not be as
| openly available forever. I am therefore slowly researching
| my best migration path from a Raspberry Pi to some affordable
| and reasonably low powered x86 thing. Suggestions welcome.
|
| P.S.: The biggest selling point for me compared with some
| other (more open) E-ink screens is the battery. I keep mine
| on the fridge with a magnet and can't really use one that
| needs to be plugged in all the time in the same place. If
| anyone knows of anything similar and controllable locally,
| I'd be very interested to read about it.
| BeefySwain wrote:
| > some affordable and reasonably low powered x86 thing
|
| https://www.digital-loggers.com/api.html
| hau wrote:
| Thank you. I think their product page is pushing cloud
| subscription too hard, they call subscription the same way
| they call display itself, and subscription is paid and cloud
| based. Product page says: "Place & Play devices work on a
| subscription basis. Select a plan here.", and "A license is
| needed for every device." while describing software suite.
|
| I'm still confused about the way it presented, but
| documentation and suite itself look quite decent.
| beheh wrote:
| You may be confusing purchasing hardware and cloud
| subscription from the vendor producing the e ink display
| (Visionect) with the Project E ink device itself, which
| merely sources it's hardware from Visionect. The linked
| page is about the Project E ink device
| (https://projecteink.com/products/e-ink-newspaper-art-
| display...).
|
| The only place that page mentions a subscription is in
| reference to news paper subscriptions.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| hau might have followed the Visionect link, then clicked
| "software":
|
| https://www.visionect.com/software/
| hau wrote:
| https://www.visionect.com/shop/place-play-32/
|
| This is a product page I looked at. Hard to interpret
| "Place & Play devices work on a subscription basis.
| Select a plan here." near "Add to cart" button.
| eli wrote:
| It's not clear that is still supported (or indeed legally
| licensed) or that it will be in the future.
| shrx wrote:
| This looks neat at a first glance but who actually wants to read
| the newspaper standing up facing a wall? I personally prefer to
| do it sitting down in a comfortable sofa or outside on a park
| bench.
| 93po wrote:
| I think it's more for the headline and aesthetic.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Michael Scott?
| amelius wrote:
| Also, people have different heights.
| Someone wrote:
| Very nice. Apart from the price, there's _"The device is equipped
| with [...] a cloud-based content management system"_.
|
| Does that mean this device can completely stop working on the
| whims of a third party?
| gmzamz wrote:
| They offer a docker you can run locally as well.
| Animats wrote:
| (2021)
|
| The display is still expensive. $1500 for the panel, $500 for the
| driver board.[1]
|
| As a status symbol, it probably has a limited lifespan. When Bill
| Gates built his first big house, he had big CRT monitors embedded
| in the walls to display art. Had to have working corridors behind
| the wall for that. Now, anybody on here could have that, but the
| result would look like a sports bar.
|
| [1]
| https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/31.2''Monochrome...
| akaru wrote:
| But he had fun doing it and enjoying it in the mean time I'd
| hope. Most tech is quickly dated. Most any decor is as well.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Previous discussion (as linked to in the article)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25063726
| Julesman wrote:
| "News"
| wilg wrote:
| I did a project with one of the Art Frames from Frame Labs:
| https://framelabs.eu/en/
| yakcyll wrote:
| That display looks great actually, I've been looking for
| something similar to build a home dashboard. It is unfortunate
| that it does not have a touch screen; are there large e-ink
| screens (>15") that do? Alternatively, can Visionect displays be
| reprogrammed?
| skrebbel wrote:
| I love the website design. Took us a century or so but long form
| copywriting for selling products really is back, isn't it!
| gumballindie wrote:
| If i had an eink display for writing code i would be so happy.
| Tepix wrote:
| I've tried it and it sucked. Scrolling will require a full
| refresh and it takes too long.
| sgc wrote:
| Refresh is certainly the spec we are all watching to see when
| this becomes possible. It is getting closer every year, it
| seems like we are about 3 years away right now.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, a documentation copilot might be a nice use though.
| chayesfss wrote:
| [dead]
| ilaksh wrote:
| This one is not very big but is only $200 something:
|
| https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804712947613.html
| aembleton wrote:
| And it supports red. So you get, black, white and red pixels.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| I think I'd probably go for this one[1] - smaller (12.5" vs
| 10.3") but just over double the pixels (1872x1404 vs 1304x894)
| and 16 grayscales for about the same price.
|
| [1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004037729951.html
| simonjgreen wrote:
| I use a lot of Visionect products for quite a few years now. I
| have deployed easily hundreds to many many office environments as
| both digital signage and meeting room occupancy displays. They
| are a fantastic company. They have b2b direct brand called Joan,
| check out getjoan.com.
|
| I'm curious what URL serves the current front page of a given
| newspaper though that you can point these at.
| mechhacker wrote:
| Would be interesting to me to have something like this, but in
| landscape mode, and with slowly changing blueprints of aircraft,
| rockets, ships, cars...
|
| Example:
| https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Portals/14/EasyGalleryImage...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That would be cool. And simple to do in Python with a small
| display. There are a number of projects on GitHub that can be
| easily modified to pull this off.
| [deleted]
| LittleNemoInS wrote:
| Something like the Samsung Frame ?
| https://www.samsung.com/us/tvs/the-frame/highlights/
| 93po wrote:
| I wish this wasn't so expensive. $600 for 32", $1000 for 42,
| up to $2600
| mholm wrote:
| 55" regularly goes for around $1100, which is only mildly
| pricey for a 4k QLED premium panel. Bonus for the mount
| being included, and the external input controller.
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| If it didn't cost as much as a car I'd be interested in that
| rcarr wrote:
| > E ink is the perfect technology for wall art
|
| Call me old fashioned, but I'd say that good old fashioned canvas
| or paper is the perfect technology for wall art. Do we really
| need to mine the Earth of god knows what just so the wall doesn't
| look bare? If everyone who bought this thing spent the money on
| some art from a local artist not only would the artist be over
| the moon, they'd help sustain their local creative scene and most
| likely make their communities a better place.
| dmos62 wrote:
| What have you learned about einks when working on this?
| austinbv wrote:
| Would this work with magic mirror?
|
| https://magicmirror.builders/
|
| If so I will order right away
| ale42 wrote:
| Probably not, given that ePaper is reflective and not emissive.
| austinbv wrote:
| The mirror (reflective) is not what matters. Magic mirror is
| just a OSS dashboard with lots of modules designed to go on a
| screen. My question is can you load Javascript and things
| that refresh on this screen.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Are (large) e-ink displays expensive because of lack of scale in
| manufacturing? Or is there something inherently expensive about
| them? This display is literally almost ten times the cost of a
| generic 4K monitor, which has color, a higher resolution, and a
| 60 hertz refresh rate.
|
| The only advantage here is the reflective display and the ultra-
| low power consumption. I'm not saying that there aren't use cases
| where those could be critical/decisive, but given the cost
| differential it seems like the decision between the two is
| effectively automatic: the products don't compete, in the same
| way an SUV doesn't compete with a Cessna: if you need to fly, you
| buy the plane; otherwise the car is a no-brainer.
|
| I ask because I would love to have a second monitor like this
| display: easy on the eyes, distraction-free, etc. But at this
| cost it's a ridiculous non-starter for that purpose.
| eli wrote:
| I chatted with the guy from Visionect about this once and he
| said that it was basically all about scale. There is massive
| demand for the panels that go in those generic LED monitors and
| many huge factories dedicated to making them.
|
| The eink display looks gorgeous, by the way. But it's not a
| computer monitor and doesn't claim to be.
| fmajid wrote:
| You'd think there would be a large market for signage, and
| the process for manufacturing electrophoretic e-ink screens
| isn't that different from web printing (rotary presses),
| which is both mature and scalable (in size).
| dirtyid wrote:
| I think eink does not perfrom well in freezing temperatures
| which removes a lot of large format addressable signage
| market. Otherwise I'd expect economics to drive cheaper
| large format eink screens
| dbttdft wrote:
| To be fair it will have a good viewing angle even better than
| IPS as well as not shining a flashlight in your face with a
| terrible spectral power distribution but I don't expect a real
| analysis by someone who compares 2 watt power savings as if
| this is the bottleneck of display tech or anything close to it.
| dbttdft wrote:
| >The Place & Play 32-inch screen is pricey (2300 euros ex VAT),
| but an exquisite piece of hardware. It is made of stainless steel
| with sharp edges and a glass panel on top. The USB ports are
| discretely concealed, and the device feels sturdy.
|
| Thank you for confirming my first impression which is that this
| is just a massively overpriced novelty item (which I concluded
| when seeing how much work was put into the video after skipping
| over the content-free article, and especially noticing the high
| level of moire meaning it must be very low DPI but for some
| reason the word resolution is not mentioned anywhere on the page
| lol).
| janitor61 wrote:
| How long do we need to wait until whatever patent encumberance
| that's keeping e-ink displays at these ridiculous prices expires
| and we can start to see affordable e-ink displays?
| Qwertious wrote:
| The price isn't caused by patent encumbrance, but by lack of
| demand for 32" e-ink monitors. They're hand-fused from 4 16"
| panes because there's not enough throughput to make it worth
| automating the process.
| billy_bitchtits wrote:
| Does anyone make a decent e-ink monitor yet?
| zyberzero wrote:
| Nice looking screen! Is there a way to run it without the
| subscription though? Or any alternative? The 32" was a bit too
| pricey for me, but the 13" was more wallet-friendly (899 EUR excl
| VAT)
| swores wrote:
| I'd love a 32" eink display for my wall, but even if the price
| halved that EUR60/yr subscription would put me off - hell, even
| a EUR6/yr would put me off since at the price of the screen
| (even if it were half the current price) I'd care more about
| not being stuck trusting a company keeps offering the
| subscription for it to work than about the annual cost itself.
| donkeyd wrote:
| Interesting, another project by Alexander Klopping
| (coincidentally also OP). I guess this guy is the definition of
| serial entrepreneur. He's founded (and sold) Blendle, which is
| kinda related to this product, but before that he'd already
| started tons of companies. He's somewhat famous in the
| Netherlands as he's often invited to explain the newest tech
| stuff on TV.
| bobse wrote:
| >One month of free cloud license is included with every device
| purchased. What is this crap?
| Luctct wrote:
| Great stuff. Who needs beautiful art when you can instead adorn
| you wall with an endless string of shameless propaganda and false
| narratives?
| flybrand wrote:
| 51 intelligence community experts identify your comment as
| having all the hallmarks of Russian propaganda.
| Luctct wrote:
| Privet, tovarishch!
| changxin wrote:
| Nice project! is it possible to display HN frontpage, and update
| frequently?
| chillbill wrote:
| The screen is so expensive it destroys any idea of indie use of
| this.
|
| You'll only see it at the offices of companies that want to
| pretend they're indie and hackery.
| pringularity wrote:
| I've been following the last 3 or 4 posts of people that have
| created these over the last few years, and I'm insanely
| jealous...so cool. I do agree with others that I already have too
| much news in my life and I don't think I'd really get real
| utility from this (which is important at a $2K+ price point). One
| thing that could be a really cool alternative is a version that
| displays a random Wikipedia article, or whatever Wikipedia
| article is "Today's Featured Article". Put that in front of your
| toilet, and it could be an evergreen source of entertainment.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| It would be cool if it was Archive.org scans of newspapers from
| 100 years ago. But I'd pay nearly as much as this costs to not
| have current news beamed into my brain by my home furnishings.
| maxbbraun wrote:
| https://nytimes.ink
| duckqlz wrote:
| What an amazing project. I will be copying or becoming a customer
| in the coming weeks. Lots of comments about the high price, I do
| wish large e-ink displays would come down in price the but for
| ~$3k this will look good on my office wall , how could I resist.
| It's art it is not just tech.
| repple wrote:
| I feel like this DIY project needs its own DIY to build a cheaper
| 32" e-ink screen.
|
| Sarcasm aside, thanks for sharing! The largest display I've seen
| has been 11" until now.
| asimpletune wrote:
| Discovered the PDF of the NYT front page through this project.
| asimpletune wrote:
| Reading the front page now shows me how good that kind of
| interface is. I can scan with my eyes for what's interesting to
| me, and then I can immediately start reading. Something about
| the haphazard grid too makes the process of searching a lot
| easier and more satisfying.
|
| When I compare it to their digital front page there's really no
| comparison.
|
| For the scan, the size of each item on the grid naturally draws
| your eyes to what are the most important things of the day. The
| text preview of the articles are a lot bigger. Just in general
| the actual newspaper uses the available space a lot better.
| It's huge! With that space they can do so much more. I love how
| the "snippets" aren't blurbs, it's simply just the actual
| article, along with an index to keep reading. That lets me read
| a little bit of all the important stuff before theoretically
| continuing.
|
| The digital front page has huge empty margins on my monitor.
| There's much less indication to what is important from an
| editorial standpoint, because everything is the same size. I
| guess stuff at the top is supposed to be the most important,
| but it really seems to be what is just happening "live", so
| most recent.
|
| Seeing them side by side really makes me think that maybe the
| problem with news isn't that people don't want to pay for it,
| but that the product just isn't there yet. It's honestly
| garbage in comparison to the analog newspaper. I would love for
| something digital in the same format as their actual news paper
| if there were hyperlinks, and it was no more than $5/mo.
| amelius wrote:
| My newspaper is in color.
| XFrequentist wrote:
| This display with regularly-rotating high-quality pencil art
| could be a neat business. The comparison to wall art makes the
| hardware price look more reasonable, and you could offer a
| subscription to curated pieces or a network of artists' output.
| p10jkle wrote:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3SYn_SXIAYAIlI?format=jpg&name=...
|
| I actually replicated this myself, with one extra feature; I got
| the screen framed . The 'trick' is that there's no glass section
| of the frame, the wood just boxes the screen and hides the fact
| that the bezel is not all the same width. This only cost another
| PS100 at a framer, and I really recommend it.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| Same screen?
| p10jkle wrote:
| I believe so. Visionect 32"
| appleflaxen wrote:
| Cool project!
|
| I worry though, because IMO newspapers aren't dead because of the
| medium; they are dead because journalism itself is dying.
| mholm wrote:
| Hmm, I wonder how much of this could be recreated with a
| Remarkable 2 or equivalent tablet. Build a nice decorative
| enclosure with the charging port embedded in the frame, it has
| wifi out of the box, and you can change the screensaver with scp
| when it's awake. Perhaps just set a cron job to grab the latest
| image every 24 hours from a designated url? Obviously much
| smaller, but you get a tablet out of the deal too, at 10-15% of
| the cost.
| closetkantian wrote:
| Reminds me of the glass cases containing the sports section that
| bars occasionally put above urinals. Maybe that could be a good
| use case for a very fancy bar somewhere.
| bluepuma77 wrote:
| I think a really interesting project would be an Arduino/Pico/ESP
| controller and driver for the $1500 display.
|
| Open source, wake-up timer on set interval, connect to Wifi,
| fetch URL, display image, go back to sleep.
|
| Or have it permanently connected to Wifi and POST a URL to the
| controller any time to fetch a new image.
|
| That way you could control the full stack and do not need any
| subscriptions or rely on external companies.
| Tepix wrote:
| I can't help but notice you are using " (U+201C
| : LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK {double turned comma quotation
| mark})
|
| instead of '' (U+2033 : DOUBLE PRIME {seconds,
| inches})
|
| in the headline.
| JadeNB wrote:
| I didn't know there was a Unicode code point for that! I'd
| always thought one should just use straight quotes for inches.
| Thanks!
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Straight quotes are acceptable too:
| https://practicaltypography.com/foot-and-inch-marks.html
| alexandernl wrote:
| I apologize for the grave mistake.
| zauguin wrote:
| It's really more an acute mistake.
| alexandernl wrote:
| I apologize for the acute mistake.
| harperlee wrote:
| Just in case some people don't get the joke:
| https://blog.duolingo.com/french-accent-marks-
| pronunciation/
| mikkelam wrote:
| I love hackernews
| no_wizard wrote:
| This is pretty awesome!
|
| On an unrelated note, we been seeing the promise of high fidelity
| color E-Ink displays for years. Anyone know what the hold up is
| on that? I'd love to see something like this that can actually
| display color
| molly0 wrote:
| Would fit nicely in a hotel lobby.
| [deleted]
| foobarian wrote:
| Do e-ink screens require periodic refresh to keep the image? I
| was wondering if it's possible to load an image and remove power.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| No. I have a hacked kindle that's been sitting in a drawer for
| years. The custom image it's displaying looks the same as when
| I set it.
| macintosh-hd wrote:
| Nope. I've had a tiny one connected to a raspberry pi that is
| still displaying an image over a year after I unplugged it.
| sktrdie wrote:
| Seriously? $2500 when you can get a cheap LCD for 50 bucks?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| As someone reminded me on a very downvoted comment on another
| post, you're missing the point. :) It's about presentation or
| artistic value, not the contents of the image.
|
| You can use an LCD panel to get a similar effect, but you'd
| need a reflective or transreflective display. Those aren't
| cheap either.
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