[HN Gopher] The Invisible Screen - An E-Paper Smart Display
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The Invisible Screen - An E-Paper Smart Display
Author : spansoa
Score : 80 points
Date : 2023-12-26 17:18 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shop.invisible-computers.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (shop.invisible-computers.com)
| speps wrote:
| Pictures are deceitful, screen is only 7.5", fair price I'm not
| sure, no details on SDK.
| throwaway8877 wrote:
| It certainly appears like 15".
| konschubert wrote:
| Wow, sorry, that was not my intention.
|
| I am going to have new pictures taken anyways, I will try to
| make sure to add some size references.
|
| There are a bunch of photos here. Which ones would you say
| are the most suggestive of a bigger screen size? I can maybe
| re-sort the images to prevent confusion.
|
| Last thing I want is a customer ordering something, them
| being unhappy and me having to process a return. That's
| always a loss for me.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Definitely include a banana for scale.
|
| (But seriously, showing something like car keys hanging
| next to the currently-isolated shots would help a lot.)
| omoikane wrote:
| > no details on SDK.
|
| The "develop your own content" link on the top page links to:
|
| https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image...
|
| I guess being able to display custom images is a plus, but I am
| not sure I would call that a SDK.
| MPSimmons wrote:
| In some ways, it's actually way less limiting than any other
| SDK. You can directly control every pixel it displays, which
| is pretty freeing. I like that idea a lot, but I don't like
| that it's proxied through their server :-(
| chomp wrote:
| I really want to do this with a pi zero w, but with a larger
| screen. 7.5" is barely larger than a door placard.
| mushufasa wrote:
| Seems like this is/was meant to be a door placard for meeting
| room availability.
| ta988 wrote:
| You can find waveshare panels that are bigger, 13.3" for around
| the price of that thing. They are not that hard to drive.
| 0ct4via wrote:
| While what could well be the panel used in this is
| cheaper[1], there's obviously consideration due regarding
| whatever device is driving the panel, making the frame/mount,
| and coding the software to drive it, etc.
|
| You may be able to get a larger panel for the same sort of
| price[2], but there's something to be said for having a
| finished product that's fundamentally plug-and-play... which
| is arguably a different market to a "buy the components and
| make one yourself" crowd.
|
| [1] https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/7.5inc
| h-e...
|
| [2] https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/13.3in
| ch-...
| hmottestad wrote:
| The best displays seem to be reserved for ebook vendors. I'm
| using a boox device with a PWA (webpage that works as an app).
| rattus_rattus wrote:
| I have a similar thing running using a Zero WH and Inkycal. The
| screen I have is the same size (7.5 inches) but you can use
| bigger ones too. I didn't want to shell out more money
| initially for a larger screen, but I may upgrade it later.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| What I'm wondering is how open the device is for being operated
| entirely locally. I want to make sure I can still operate it
| myself so that I don't have to generate e-waste when it becomes
| "obsolete" by the maker.
|
| Otherwise the form factor is really good-looking and I'd put this
| in my kitchen.
| hau wrote:
| Apparently it could be configured to use self-hosted local
| visionect server.
|
| https://hub.docker.com/r/visionect/visionect-server-v3/
| Zetobal wrote:
| Have done the same with a rooted kindle... and you can get them
| for 20$ on the bay. The price really seems a bit high for a
| novelty item.
| newshackr wrote:
| How do you serve your calendar on it?
| Zetobal wrote:
| I used this[0] in the beginning but switched to some custom
| python scripts running on the kindle.
|
| [0] https://github.com/Underknowledge/underknowledge.puppetee
| r-h...
| n8cpdx wrote:
| I don't really understand how it is still trendy to pretend that
| everyone uses Google for email and calendar.
|
| I get that the SF crowd was all about it, but if the last few
| years have taught us anything it is that there's more to the
| techie world than VC free money startups.
|
| I reckon there are far more people who need this and who might
| buy this who are using Outlook/Office 365 either alone or in some
| combination than who use Gmail exclusively.
|
| And yes, Office 365 has an API. Even Alexa works with it.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| I'd imagine the creator uses Google calendar, made it for
| themself, and then decided others might like to have a pre-
| built version. "Trendy" probably doesn't have anything to do
| with it.
| konschubert wrote:
| Creator here. That's exactly what happened.
| blagie wrote:
| Creator: If you decide to move this to a full-fledged
| startup, it should:
|
| 1) Have a touch screen
|
| 2) Integrate with Outlook calendar and multiple Google
| calendars
|
| 3) Integrate with smart home features (e.g. lights,
| temperature, etc)
|
| 4) Integrate with other data sources (e.g. news)
|
| At $150, be open-source and open-hardware (at a lower price
| point, I'd do without).
|
| I'm looking for something like that.
|
| Until then, neat product!
| stavros wrote:
| No offense to you, but this comment sounds like one of
| those customers that are never going to use your thing,
| even if you implement all that.
|
| Find the people who want to use a product _despite_ all
| the lacking features, because the one thing it does is
| exactly what they need, and build on that.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Exactly
| blagie wrote:
| It depends on how it's implemented. Take a look at:
|
| https://www.home-assistant.io/
|
| They have customizable dashboards. What I'm really
| looking for is something I can use as a sort of command
| center in a few places in my house. It allows me to
| control the things I care about, shows my upcoming
| schedule, and whatever else is relevant. By my work desk,
| the #1 thing I care about is upcoming meetings. Other
| places, I care about other things.
|
| Critically, though, I don't want it to glow. I want it
| either e-ink or purely reflective LCD.
|
| This is probably a few devices. Ideally, there'd be small
| / cheap ones with mechanical switches and a tiny screen
| to replace my light switches, and big ones for my living
| room, work room, etc.
|
| I think the trick would be to start with something, so
| one doesn't have an infinite engineering task, and so
| there are ready frameworks for modularity. Either Home
| Assistant or dash would be decent starting points,
| depending on which direction this took.
|
| But yeah, now that I mention it, I have a vision in my
| head for what I want (which I would buy). Retrokludged
| features without the same vision would probably not get
| us there.
|
| So I'll cut this back to what everyone else is saying:
| Calendar flexibility. This needs to sync with home, work,
| and other calendars, so at the very least, Outlook.
| stavros wrote:
| Yes, but, as you say, reimplementing Home Assistant
| wouldn't really be that valuable. What you might want is
| a (very dumb) e-ink display with a touch panel, which can
| maybe display an image and register touches. Then, that
| can interface with Home Assistant to make touch panels.
| That would be much more manageable as a project, and very
| useful. Bonus points for physical buttons.
|
| I might do this myself, hmm.
| MPSimmons wrote:
| Hi Creator! Nice looking product!
|
| Is it necessary to have the content proxied through your
| API server? If the company doesn't work out, it would be a
| shame to have this device stop working, even though it's
| fully capable of reaching the internal URL I would be
| hosting my content on.
|
| Could that be changed?
| konschubert wrote:
| Yes, that could be changed, but it's a bit of a hassle to
| implement with the bluetooth and and storing state on an
| embedded device. So I haven't implemented it yet and I
| can't promise if and when it's coming.
|
| If I am not hit by a metaphoric truck, I give my best to
| make sure not to disappoint my customers. My plan is to
| keep the backend running for 10 years after I sell the
| last display.
|
| But of course that's just a plan und I understand that
| you may not like the odds. That's totally reasonable.
| xtagon wrote:
| I'm pretty sure both Office 365 and Google Calendar have a way
| to generate an iCal URL. So you could just implement that, I
| would think.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I use Google for email and calendar still. Never really found a
| way to transition off of it. :(
| ajb wrote:
| For email, it's straightforward but a bit tedious. There are
| a number of ways to break it into smaller steps. Any approach
| should include getting your own domain name.
| justusthane wrote:
| There are plenty of ways! I can personally whole-heartedly
| recommend Fastmail if you don't mind paying a bit for your
| email (and I believe that something as important as email is
| worth paying for).
|
| There are two aspects that make this easier than most people
| realize:
|
| - You will theoretically retain your existing Gmail address
| forever, even if you close your Gmail account. This means you
| can reactivate it at any time.
|
| - You can use your new email address as the sign-in ID for
| your existing Google account. This means you can continue to
| use Google Docs, YouTube, etc and stuff without being reliant
| on Gmail.
|
| I wrote a short guide a while back here:
| https://www.justus.ws/tech/how-to-ditch-gmail/
| konschubert wrote:
| Hi, if you're using outlook, maybe you can use the .ics
| integration? (It can be configured through iOS for now, Android
| is coming soon.)
|
| Outlook is on the roadmap. But I felt like supporting .ics was
| more pressing.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| iOS Calendar supports generating .ics too.
| konschubert wrote:
| But it's a bit of a hack, no?
| samdunham wrote:
| I'd wager that far more individuals use GMail and Google
| calendar and a majority of business users use O365/Outlook.
| This looks more like a home device than a business device.
| avtolik wrote:
| Office 365 has an API, but good luck convincing your
| organization to approve your app that works with this API.
|
| I tried with 2-2 different companies that I worked with, but to
| no avail. I just wanted a simple app that syncs some events
| from the work calendar to my personal one...
| mushufasa wrote:
| "Screen Size: 7.5 Screen Resolution: 800 x 480"
|
| Fine for displaying a day but not a week
| ta988 wrote:
| So only usable with their own app that may disappear with the
| company in a year? That sound like potential e-waste in a short
| amount of time.
| downrightmike wrote:
| They've been around for at least sine the pandemic started
| gklitt wrote:
| I bought one of these for my house recently and it's been great.
| We wrote custom software for our own info display,
| straightforward since you just serve images over an HTTP
| endpoint. I'm sure there are cheaper ways to achieve this result
| but it's nice to have a prebuilt package like this. My only
| complaint is that the custom software requires using a proxy
| server managed by the device creator which is bad for longevity,
| hope that changes eventually.
| rismay wrote:
| A lot of little projects like this that end up going bust because
| of the cost of running the business.
|
| Still cool that projects like this are launched.
| konschubert wrote:
| Not OP here, but I saw a bunch of traffic coming to my website,
| so I checked and found this post ;)
|
| I try to keep things lean. Reduce fixed costs, especially
| server costs, since I want to keep this running 10 years AFTER
| I sell the last display.
|
| I outsource some stuff but I make sure everything can be scaled
| down when I the business is slow.
| 0ct4via wrote:
| From the creator:
|
| "It's not open source and you need the backend for it to work."
|
| They alluded to open sourcing the software/API if the business
| ever goes under, but obviously that'd not guaranteed.
|
| Such a shame, I'd be willing to pay more for a product that was
| actually open.
| drdaeman wrote:
| Thank you, this is exactly the information I was looking for.
|
| If it would be a nicely built frame with a display and a
| microcontroller (flashable with a custom firmware, or with a
| simple and sane local API where I can upload a full bitmap via
| USB and/or WiFi, with no cloud requirements) I'd buy this in an
| instant.
|
| I have a Waveshare 7.5" display for some Grafana dashboards,
| but I'm all thumbs when it comes to building a physical case
| for it, so the circuit board just dangles on a wire in an ugly
| cardboard box.
|
| A shame, indeed. I have no use for a display that can't even
| show what I want (or needs a third-party service and Internet
| connectivity for this). I guess, it's most likely hackable if
| the case can be opened, but I'm not exactly willing to fight it
| for $150.
| vladxyz wrote:
| I have a 3D printer to supplement my thumbs for things like
| this. Let me know if you want some help upgrading that
| cardboard to plastic!
| 999900000999 wrote:
| This seems like a fair price. I couldn't an Eink display to work
| with a Pi Zero. It's seriously difficult to get working.
|
| I don't have an exact need for it now, but once I have a project
| worthwhile I might pick it up.
| IshKebab wrote:
| It's definitely a fair price. Just a shame it is closed source
| and not battery powered. The Inkplate series of displays are
| better on both fronts (open source and support batteries). The
| downside is you'd need to make a nice wooden case, and do some
| programming.
| ulrischa wrote:
| I was looking for something like this. But the API looks not so
| good. I always dreamed of something like this that has an API
| where I can send html to render and completely locally.
| hmottestad wrote:
| How about an android ebook?
| konschubert wrote:
| Creator here. I plan to support HTML rendering but I can't
| promise anything.
|
| You can already point it to an image url with an image in the
| right resolution on the internet, and it will render that.
|
| But for pointing it to an HTML page, you need a headless
| browser and that comes with a bunch of practical issues.
| davely wrote:
| Neat device!
|
| I don't see any obvious answer for this, but how often does
| it query / refresh the image URL?
|
| I'm thinking of writing some script to just push an updated
| image to something like https://example.com/dashboard.png
| every 15 minutes or so.
| konschubert wrote:
| It will refresh within a minute or two of you pushing the
| updated version.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I can't believe the price on e-Ink displays still. Unbelievable
| that they're more expensive than IPS OLED screens of similar
| size.
| konschubert wrote:
| Small market dominated by a monopoly.
| throwoutway wrote:
| Wasnt this suppose to end (the patents expire) in 2022/ 2023?
| cendyne wrote:
| It might take a few years to refine the manufacturing
| process in other factories under different management.
| There is certainly a lot of knowledge and equipment to
| replicate.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| I love e-ink displays, and I wish there would be more options out
| there for creartive use, like this one by Invisible Screen (hello
| Konschubert, thanks for creating this!)
|
| What I'd love is a large, high-res, perhaps color, e-ink display
| that I can use either as a second screen, or as an indipendent
| computer. I read hours every day on an LCD screen, and most of
| that reading would be much better on an e-ink.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I love eink. It's so underused, especially in the home setting,
| where it can be a real asset as a calm technology. I think it
| could be a good passive screen for young kids as it's not a
| traditional "screen" yet can still communicate information.
| paxys wrote:
| Products like these make me realize that a standard e-reader has
| the perfect general purpose e-ink display. The Kindle for example
| is about the same size as this but much sleeker, is backlit,
| multi-tone, has a battery, wifi, bluetooth, all for less than
| half the price. I wish there were more mainstream jailbreaking
| projects and alternative operating systems to really unlock their
| potential.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| You're comparing a product from one of the largest companies on
| earth with an upstart. and even the cheapest ad-supported
| Kindle is only 2/3 the price of this in US?
| paxys wrote:
| The cheapest Kindle is routinely on sale for $60-70. And spec
| wise there is really no comparison. The Kindle has a
| backlight. 1448x1072 resolution (compared to this one's
| 800x480). Battery that can last a month. USB-C. 16GB storage.
| Bluetooth. It's a _very_ capable device. The fact that this
| one is made by an "upstart" means nothing. You have to
| compete on price and quality to be successful. Plus if this
| company goes out of business and shuts their servers you are
| left with a $150 paperweight.
| jot wrote:
| I purchased one of these after seeing it posted to hn a few weeks
| ago. Very happy with it. Super easy to setup and just works.
| Maker has clearly put loads of work into refining the experience.
| Animats wrote:
| Invisible? Looks very visible in the pictures.
|
| E-Ink prices for large displays are still too far high. Not much
| improvement in the last year. Little watch-sized ones are only a
| few dollars, though. Ought to be good for something. Auto gauges?
| Status displays on low-power devices?
| passive wrote:
| The lack of a battery kills this for me. Minimal power usage is
| one of the benefits of these kinds of displays, so it seems a
| very strange omission. We have too many cords running along walls
| as it is, and it makes the placement a lot harder.
|
| Neat idea though.
| hiddencost wrote:
| I have a home made one running on a battery for 8 months. 10Ah,
| but it only updates every 8 hours.
| octobus2021 wrote:
| Nice job, creator. I was working on starting up something
| similar, went through 3 prototypes but never finished it :(
|
| A few ideas for your consideration:
|
| - 7 inch is waaaay too small, should be at least 10/11 inch.
|
| - Touchscreen is a must. To switch between views, scroll to
| next/previous day/week, and even insert/update events.
|
| - Voice control is really nice to have, eg to read back events
| for today/this week etc. Maybe to wake up so that the screen does
| not stay on all the time.
|
| - Would be cool to have it running off internal power source. I
| used LCDs which are power-hungry, but with e-paper you are
| constrained only by the controller which I think is much less
| draining (voice control would not be an option in this case I
| think).
|
| - Consider offline mode. Yes it does introduce difficulties but
| allows people to own the data instead of renting it and sharing
| with others.
|
| Again, great job!
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