[HN Gopher] MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
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MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia
Author : pabs3
Score : 2020 points
Date : 2024-11-14 12:20 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (jan.miksovsky.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jan.miksovsky.com)
| bravura wrote:
| I made an eink rpi display for staying in touch with my parents,
| inspired by the poetry clock
| (https://www.theverge.com/23669343/ai-clock-chatgpt-poems-
| rhy...).
|
| My dad didn't like poetry clock, but he does like image gen. So
| we got a (color) Inky Impression 7.3 and hooked it up to an RPi.
|
| I made a basic telegram bot that you could send a verbal prompt
| to ("snowy day"). It would then ask which of your favorite artist
| styles it should create an image in. I found that presenting a
| list of two styles combined had cooler results. The prompt would
| be used to fetch a random quote on the topic, and quote and style
| would then be feed to stable diffusion, and maybe 30 seconds
| later you have fresh art and a quote on the display.
|
| My dad then asked if we just could forward images directly there.
| He prefers, each day, to post an image of whatever the day is
| (November 13 is "World Kindness Day") and occasionally share a
| family photo. My mom looks forward to seeing what day he picks
| every day.
| HansardExpert wrote:
| > inspired by the poetry clock
| (https://www.theverge.com/23669343/ai-clock-chatgpt-poems-
| rhy...).
|
| That's fun. Although, from the article:
|
| > There's one other problem, though. It's well known that AI
| language models like ChatGPT have a tendency to make up data
| (sometimes known as "hallucinations"), and it turns out that's
| true even if you're just telling the time. Roughly once every
| 15 minutes, says Webb, the clock will simply lie about the time
| just to make a certain rhyme work. "The fibbing is hilarious.
| Sometimes you can't tell -- it might say 'one past two' when
| it's actually 'two past one,'" he says. He says this will be
| fixable but, for now, is a fun quirk of the system. "Clockwork
| means you get precision drift; AI-work means you get
| hallucination drift."
|
| ;)
| angrygoat wrote:
| What a beautiful use of technology to uphold someone's
| personhood, and let them know they are loved, despite (and with
| regard to) a profound injury.
|
| This reminds me of a desire I've had for a long time: a simple,
| wall-mountable eInk device that could be configured with a URL
| (+wifi creds) and render a markdown file, refreshing once every
| hour or so. It would be so useful for so many applications - I'm
| a parish priest and so I could use it to let people know what
| events are on, if a service is cancelled, the current prayer
| list, ... the applications would be endless. I'd definitely pay a
| couple of hundred dollars per device for a solid version of such
| a thing, if it could be mounted and then recharged every month or
| two.
| yrxuthst wrote:
| You may be interested in https://github.com/aceinnolab/Inkycal,
| it looks like it's out of stock at the moment but they have
| pre-made devices or you can make your own with a list of parts.
| pbronez wrote:
| That is super cool! I might need to build one of those. My
| family needs a way to keep the fridge calendar up to date
| with our digital calendar.
| ryanckulp wrote:
| for your family cal, check out TRMNL. can go on a fridge w/
| magnets: https://usetrmnl.com
|
| (disclaimer, i'm the founder)
| emilburzo wrote:
| Are there any plans to have a version without the
| battery? It looks exactly like what I've been looking for
| otherwise.
|
| Also, what country are the orders shipped from? US?
| ronakjain90 wrote:
| Internally we are debating on releasing a Hackable DIY
| kit. Feel feel to send a message to support@usetrmnl.com.
|
| It's shipped from USA.
| ryanckulp wrote:
| curious what your use case is without a battery.
| currently you could keep it plugged in, are you wnting
| NFC-powered etc?
| emilburzo wrote:
| Nothing spectacular, I just want to have a display by the
| door that shows various things I'd like to check on
| before leaving, like: which windows are open, outside
| temperatures, etc.
|
| I don't want a battery because:
|
| - although every X months is quite ok, I don't want the
| hassle of remembering to charge it (first world problems,
| I know)
|
| - but I also have a fear of leaving devices with a
| battery plugged in for a long time / having to monitor
| for battery swelling or other abnormalities
|
| I already have a classic battery-powered display which
| shows temperature info from some sensors and it's really
| convenient, but annoying when the battery is dead right
| when you need the info. Even if that only happens every X
| months.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| A GP in this thread linked to Inkycal, which is a RPi0W
| based solution, no batteries:
|
| https://github.com/aceinnolab/Inkycal
| miles wrote:
| You might want to update this image on your homepage:
|
| https://usetrmnl.com/assets/section2-3-d6887b41db12ad0659
| 992...
|
| as the first character, ta (ta), is missing from the
| display, making it read "(a)minaru".
| ryanckulp wrote:
| great catch, thank you! will do
| multjoy wrote:
| I've been looking for something like this! I wasn't
| expecting to buy stuff from the comments on HN...
| lilyball wrote:
| My fridge isn't magnetic. A lot of modern fridges aren't.
|
| Might be a neat idea to offer a magnetic mount for it,
| like a flexible flat magnetic board shaped to fit the
| TRMNL with a sticky backing so you can attach it
| somewhere and then use that to attach the TRMNL (your
| site doesn't seem to say anything about being magnetic so
| I'm guessing you have to attach magnets to the TRMNL too
| though?).
|
| For that matter, the site doesn't offer any information
| about mounting it at all. Looking at the disassembly
| animation I see what looks like a hole to hang it on a
| nail, but it might be nice to put this info at least in
| the FAQ section if nowhere else (that does say it can be
| "hung on a wall" but no details).
| ryanckulp wrote:
| thanks for the feedback, will add more detail to our
| website specs + docs.
|
| we included magnets for VIP backers on our crowdfunding
| campaign and may start selling them again. device has a
| mounting hole on the back for nails / hooks, we'll
| probably release mechanical specs so people can 3D print
| or otherwise fabricate their own mounts. for example some
| people want to mash up an array of them. but until then,
| adhesive magnets work great for the fridge use case.
| sahmeepee wrote:
| You can buy sheets of rubbery material with sticky
| backing and metal powder embedded in the rubber. One
| supplier is WarMag - people use them as a surface for
| putting magnetic-based figures on.
|
| I came into possession of several sheafs of the A4-sized
| ones, which now serve as "generic surprisingly heavy
| objects".
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Wow, that looks super interesting!
|
| Just one comment:
|
| > Developer Edition > Ability to build custom plugins for
| yourself and others. Unlocks our API. > $20
|
| Isn't it in your interest that developers unlock the
| potential of your hardware in some new ways? Charging for
| it seems... weird.
|
| I mean the price is not that high, it just doesn't feel
| right to pay for access to API. My 2 cents.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| My most "starred" GitHub repo is probably SystemSix [1], an
| e-ink display masquerading as a little 68K Mac.
|
| [1] https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/SystemSix
| joseda-hg wrote:
| I'm in, can we crowdfund something like this?
|
| If eInk wasn't a monopoly this would be 100% a project I'd love
| to do
| ryanckulp wrote:
| we crowdfunded one this summer and now we ship same-day. :)
| https://usetrmnl.com
| joseda-hg wrote:
| Doesn't seem like you ship to my region, cool product
| nevertheless
| ryanckulp wrote:
| ah really?? feel free to email us (team@usetrmnl.com).
| we've been granted a bunch of EC licenses lately but
| maybe missed a few country check boxes on our store.
| IanCal wrote:
| Not super relevant but your site is super janky for me
| (chrome, ubuntu). I get a scrollbar for the second part of
| your site, which then captures scrolling so if my cursor is
| in the middle of the page and I go down then up I am stuck.
|
| https://streamable.com/sm0oek
| conception wrote:
| https://crowdfund.news/crowdfunding-project/blotch-the-world...
| funded recently and there are others with similar if perhaps
| less slick implementations on the software side.
| djbusby wrote:
| There has been a number of these on HN. Other features too. The
| first one I remember seeing was MagicMirror (not e-ink) ages
| ago.
| steezeburger wrote:
| I'm a backer, but this would probably fit your bill
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/usetrmnl/trmnl-the-e-in...
|
| I wanted the same kind of general eink device, but this is also
| supposedly super hackable!
| ryanckulp wrote:
| hackable indeed :) https://docs.usetrmnl.com
|
| no longer a Kickstarter btw, shipping same-day now (see
| homepage)
| gknoy wrote:
| For anyone else that followed the "buy a device" link on
| the docs page, and found yourself on the (ended)
| Kickstarter page, editing the URL to https://usetrmnl.com/
| works :)
|
| (This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing about it!)
| philips wrote:
| > Most IoT products support SSH-ing directly into
| peripheral devices. We've heard too many horror stories
| about how this can go wrong, and decided to invert the
| paradigm.
|
| > Your TRMNL device pings our server, never the other way
| around.
|
| > Each request made to our /api/display endpoint includes
| only the minimum details needed to support customers -- an
| API key, device mac address, firmware version, battery
| voltage, and wifi signal strength.
|
| Super hackable but it pings their hosted server and nothing
| else?! Is there a way to run your own server?
| philips wrote:
| The docs aren't super encouraging either.
| https://docs.usetrmnl.com/go/diy/byod-s
|
| > Purchase a TRMNL from our home page:
| https://usetrmnl.com
|
| > Then follow the instructions on BYOD/S > Server.
|
| > More TBD.
| krinchan wrote:
| They seem to have the api base url hardcoded in their
| firmware[1]. The repo seems to have pretty clear
| instructions for compiling and flashing modified
| firmware. From there, it's just a matter of writing a
| decent server to implement the calls documented in
| BYOD/S[2] and Private API.[3]
|
| [1]: https://github.com/usetrmnl/firmware/blob/e3db8c3799
| 0c2333ec...
|
| [2]: https://docs.usetrmnl.com/go/diy/byod-s
|
| [3]: https://docs.usetrmnl.com/go/private-
| api/introduction
| philips wrote:
| Nice, thank you for investigating.
| ryanckulp wrote:
| we're adding more docs on running your own server soon,
| which will include 1-click deploy starter projects that
| Just Work.
|
| if you think about it, we are incentivized to do this. no
| subscription fees means the more you ping our server, the
| lower our margin. but for now we're wrapping up
| fulfilling all pre-orders, scaling, etc typical new
| product issues.
|
| even without BYOS (bring your own server) docs however,
| it's already possible to point TRMNL to your own stack if
| you 1) fork our OSS firmware + b) have some experience
| with e-ink.
| philips wrote:
| OK, thank you for the reply. The product looks great. I
| will roll the dice seeing the OSS firmware. Thanks!
| ryanckulp wrote:
| appreciate your support!
| tqi wrote:
| Can you clarify what the difference between the Developer
| Edition and normal edition are? It's not clear from the
| checkout flow if this is required in order to create
| plugins, and is not mentioned anywhere in the docs.
| ryanckulp wrote:
| hardware is the same, Developer edition vs Regular is a
| permission-only change that lets you build custom plugins
| and a few other things.
|
| brief post here outlining more of the benefits:
| https://usetrmnl.com/blog/developer-edition
|
| need to update docs too, thanks for the call out. we were
| writing docs before this piece was ironed out.
| steezeburger wrote:
| Anyway you could check on mine? I've yet to receive it, and
| I'm ready to start hacking!
| ryanckulp wrote:
| i imagine we aren't at your cohort yet but email
| team@usetrmnl.com and we'll get yours out today,
| regardless. tiny thank you for the shout here!
| ryanisnan wrote:
| I will be buying one of these, looks super rad! Nice work!
| konschubert wrote:
| There is also this bigger display:
|
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/invisible-
| computers/e-p...
| mwagstaff wrote:
| I have the earlier, smaller model of this, and it works
| well.
|
| I've backed the new, bigger display, which should be
| shipping soon.
| darkwater wrote:
| Seems very nice buuuut why did they put the USB-C on the
| _back_ if it is supposed to be wall mounted and needs to be
| charged every couple of months? Why not on one side??
| harpastum wrote:
| If you're comfortable with microcontrollers (esp32/arduino), I
| can definitely recommend Inkplate. I found them when I was
| making a similar setup for my parents, and they have various
| sizes up to 10" and up to 6 colors they can display.
|
| You can either just get the module, or buy with a battery and
| mountable case already attached. I think all of the models are
| also available via Digikey and Mouser if people don't trust
| random websites.
|
| https://soldered.com/categories/inkplate/
| xd1936 wrote:
| Seconded. I matted and framed one InkPlate 10 and hung it on
| our wall, then wrote a simple "show the next three days from
| everyone in the family's Google Calendars" image creation
| script and it's been wonderful.
| pflenker wrote:
| I looked into inkplate. I have no experience at all with
| microcontrollers. How difficult is it to build something
| like you did?
| allenrb wrote:
| Just an aside, but "parish priest" must surely be the opposite
| of "software developer" on the Hacker News Table of
| Occupational Frequency. Neat!
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The principal of my son's former school was a Sister of St
| Joseph, and a huge HN fan.
|
| More amazing was how creative the sisters were in managing
| themselves with technology. Many decisions are made by votes,
| done in real time globally! Religious people get short
| shrift.
| Hunpeter wrote:
| Reminds me of the monks in the third season of Babylon 5.
| Who says you can't both be an IT person and a cleric?
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Given their history as archivers it seems like a natural
| complement, really
| lostlogin wrote:
| And scientists. Gregor Mendel comes to mind.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel
| parthianshotgun wrote:
| That episode with the reformed murderer was especially
| hard...what a brilliant show
| tengwar2 wrote:
| Lay preacher here. There are dozens of us, dozens!
| aitchnyu wrote:
| To save a few moments stalking his profile yourself:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38762380
|
| TLDR: 20 years as SWE, then used his skills for his calling.
| oliviergg wrote:
| If you have a hacker's soul, an old Kindle, a jailbreak, and a
| Python installation, anything becomes possible. I'm working on
| something like that (though I hadn't thought about markdown!).
| The Kindle is a particularly fun device once it's hacked!
| hattmall wrote:
| I looked into this a while back, but can you post some notes
| on jailbreak kindles? Aren't there certain models of Kindle
| that can be had very cheaply. That are possibly locked or
| have some dead component, but the screen can be used with a
| jailbreak? They were like only ~$10 on ebay.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| assuming your eink display would be on the same LAN as some
| always-on PC... 1. install python 2. make
| a file named `index.html` somewhere. 2a. put this in the
| "head" tag, so it'll refresh hourly: `<meta http-
| equiv="refresh" content="3600">`. 3. run `python -m
| http.server` from the same folder This will start a
| single-threaded web server on 8000 4. On another machine
| on your network verify you can pull up
| http://firstmachine:8000/. 5. having proven it works, go
| buy an e-ink display and point it to http://firstmachine:8000/,
| make it the default homepage.
|
| Voila.
|
| Any time you have anything to say, just edit the `index.html`
| file and the eink display will update.
|
| No need for fancy subscription services or kickstarter projects
| or crowdfunding... just... batteries included python.
| trashcan wrote:
| Having done this, you will also most likely want to setup a
| javascript timer that also triggers a refresh in case the
| meta refresh fails. And a weekly reboot of the machine in
| case there is a memory leak or some other issue.
| Nition wrote:
| I tried to do pretty much this on a Kobo reader and
| discovered the Kobo browser doesn't support javascript. :|
| oarsinsync wrote:
| It sounds like there's a lot more edge case complexity to
| this than the GP originally thought.
|
| Like most DIY tinkerer solutions, unfortunately, which is
| why people like paying money for productised solutions -
| the time it takes to debug and troubleshoot home made
| solutions is often prohibitive for a lot of people who
| aren't techheads.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| This is both fair and obvious... but at the same time,
| the nits folk are bringing up are not fleshed out.
| "I had to reboot my raspberry pi"
|
| and "whoops rando eInk display doesn't do
| javascript"
|
| are both super weird and frankly unfair to consider as
| criticisms of the original solution.
|
| ... In short - if our parish priest above sees the
| original post, I'd suggest he give it a go. It's an hour
| to set up and won't cost him or his parish anything
| (aside from buying the eink display ofc).
|
| If it turns out that the DIY solution is insufficient, or
| his parish is wealthy enough to spend money on a thing
| like this, great, then upgrade to that.
| Nition wrote:
| Kobo readers are fairly non-rando, they're the second
| most popular eInk readers after the Kindle I think. I
| agree that lack of Javascript support is not a blocking
| issue on the use case though (although it does make it a
| little more annoying).
| forgotacc240419 wrote:
| Would an old rooted Nook Simple Touch suffice for your
| use case? They're very cheap these days and you've direct
| access to some early version of Android on them
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That sounds like defensive programming; what makes you
| think meta refresh will not trigger always? If you can
| demonstrate it, it'd be worth filing a bug report with the
| respective browser(s). Same with the reboot, although the
| user does not control every software in the e-reader. That
| said, e-readers and tablets are designed to be always-on,
| so memory leaks should be rare nowadays.
| GTP wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with defensive programming,
| especially if it is supposed to run on a device where you
| don't have easy and/or immidiate access in case something
| stops working.
| trashcan wrote:
| I have setup a raspberry PI dashboard before and run into
| these exact issues. They are not defensive or pre-
| emptive. An e-reader will probably not have the same
| issues, just sharing my experience.
|
| * Browser runs out of memory or has other issue and stops
| refreshing.
|
| * Wifi connection drops and browser displays an error
| page and stops executing your refreshes. The power-saving
| options on the RPIs wifi caused me quite a bit of grief
| before I disabled them.
|
| * Raspberry Pi crashes with kernel errors due to cheap SD
| card, underpowered USB power supply, or something else.
|
| I ran into these issues one by one over a few months and
| fixed each one as I ran into it. What I ended up with
| was:
|
| * Browser set to run at OS startup displaying my page.
|
| * That page having a meta refresh tag, and javascript
| code to reload the page periodically.
|
| * A browser extension to automatically reload the page as
| well if both of those failed.
|
| * A watchdog daemon that detects when the RPI has frozen
| and reboots it.
|
| * A cron job that reboots periodically.
|
| With all of those my dashboard would run for months
| without any issues or interruptions. Just sharing so
| others can be aware of potential issues.
| chokma wrote:
| We had to configure a daily reboot for a raspberry PI that
| just displayed a web page with the current status of
| emergency calls for local first responders on a mounted TV
| screen.
|
| Purpose: if you come into the building to fetch the car
| with the medical equipment, you could see at a glance how
| many people acknowledged the alert and would arrive shortly
| etc. Sadly, the system tended to loose its WIFI connection
| and then the reloaded web page would display a network
| error. And since the web page was a 3rd party product, we
| could not hack the Javascript.
| xp84 wrote:
| The primary issue I would imagine, would be not that a meta
| refresh fails to happen, rather, that any type of full
| refresh is attempted during a momentary 'blip' of the local
| network, leaving it showing a "cannot find server" type of
| error. To achieve the safest persistence of the refresh
| loop, it would probably make more sense to have the refresh
| function via
|
| 1. AJAX request for itself, with a timed retry in the case
| of any failure (optional: During this time, add a visible
| indicator that you're having connectivity issue) 2. Extract
| the contents of the <body> tag of the fetched HTML 3. Set
| the innerHTML of the <body> tag of the DOM to the fetched
| body.
|
| To avoid memory leaks I'd still be tempted to also try to
| implement a "safe-ish refresh" that checks for a successful
| response and quickly fires off a location.reload() on like
| a daily basis.
| trashcan wrote:
| Yep, exactly r:refreshing failing. If you are using a
| full featured browser you can also use a browser
| extension that forces the refresh.
|
| Additionally for a raspberry pi, you can use a watchdog
| timer service that checks to see if the rpi has frozen,
| and reboots it.
| speerer wrote:
| Thanks for the inspiration. I did essentially this as a
| project with the kids today, though I used js to allow
| updating by anyone in the family.
|
| https://github.com/TrisSherliker/FridgeChalkboard/tree/main
| michaelsalim wrote:
| I'm developing something so that everyone can do this
| easily[0]. It's a plugin based presentation software. Real
| time connection through websocket.
|
| So all you need to do is create a project and use a
| plugin(existing or your own) to generate your view. The
| plugin is flexible, so it could be a custom UI or uploading a
| HTML file for example.
|
| Then, you can open a link on any machine like the e-ink
| display.
|
| Open-source and self-hostable. But you can also use the
| online version I'm hosting.
|
| It's still very new so things will break but I'm already
| using it in church and other meetings.
|
| [0] https://theopenpresenter.com
| marmaduke wrote:
| How would you want to host or update the markdown file? Sending
| an email for instance? Or run your own host?
| injidup wrote:
| I've seen these in a few restaurants as menus listing the
| special of the day. They were mounted elegantly in some stone
| mounting so didn't give the _ipad_ mcdonalds touchscreen feel.
| They just looked printed but on closer inspection were e-ink
| krisoft wrote:
| This is such a wonderful story, and I'm so happy that the author
| found something which worked well for their mom.
|
| > Despite her amnesia, my mom came to remember that this display
| exits and what it's for. She looks forward to seeing updates from
| her children on it.
|
| This is the most interesting part for me here. Brains are such
| wondrous things. Would be cool to know if this is a special quirk
| of her mom or this is something which can help others like her
| too.
| wjnc wrote:
| Somebody else posted Henry Molaison [1] and there is a link to
| Repetition priming [2]. Seems some memories are stored in other
| locations.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_priming
| smeej wrote:
| Understanding that the condition is rare enough that most of us
| really don't have a need to prepare for it, I wonder if there are
| any habits one could cultivate that would make it easier to live
| with amnesia. Learning new things is my favorite past time and
| strongest coping mechanism, so the though of not being able to do
| that anymore is up there with locked-in syndrome on my list of
| greatest living fears.
|
| For example, I am already in the habit of logging every phone
| call to any doctor's offices or important contacts as they're
| happening. Being able to refer back to all the notes has helped
| me manage a number of complex errors. I know the name of the
| person I spoke to, the date, and what we discussed. Any time I
| need to make a call about a topic or to a company, I have an easy
| way to pull up all the past notes.
|
| I'd like to think if I ever got amnesia, already having this
| system in place would serve me really well if I couldn't learn
| new things. I have the old things, and the habit of referring to
| and adding new things to the list.
|
| But I wonder what else would or wouldn't be useful to try to
| practice now?
| frereubu wrote:
| If I'm right that this condition is like that of Henry Molaison
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison - then the real
| difficulty is that you don't remember that you have amnesia.
| smeej wrote:
| Well yes, but my current "write down the details of my calls
| and refer back to them every time" wouldn't require me to
| _remember_ I had amnesia, right? For now, I do remember those
| past conversations, but if I stopped remembering them, having
| them up on my screen in the side panel of my note-taking app
| would still make them available to me if I didn 't.
|
| That's the kind of idea I'm looking for.
| aDyslecticCrow wrote:
| Sign language and brail come to mind as useful in this regard
| (if not for you, then for a loved one).
|
| As for amnesia, it seems like a habit of making notes and
| seeking out to read your own notes would be useful. However,
| the trend in technology to constantly change behaviour,
| appearance, and functionality makes anything digital a barrier.
| Manual notes are also susceptible to being impossible for
| ageing people to make. So it's really hard to think of
| something.
| smeej wrote:
| In what ways would sign language and Braille be helpful? Just
| to have them at the ready in case I were to lose my ability
| to hear/see?
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| I have visited the thought of what it'd be like to have amnesia
| like this many times throughout my entire life. I am sure
| reality is nothing like my thoughts, but in fantasy land it's
| just interesting to imagine picking up a note in my own hand
| writing saying "you have amnesia, everything is okay, everyone
| is well and happy, some bathroom humor, go watch YouTube and
| chill"
| rramadass wrote:
| A simple battery replaceable pocket voice recorder is often
| very much overlooked.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Does any commercial version of this exist? Using an existing
| tablet makes the DIY aspect a little less but then you have to
| roll your own site as well.
| lbotos wrote:
| https://www.invisible-computers.com/
|
| The creator is on HN too.
| ronakjain90 wrote:
| You should check out usetrmnl.com. It's commercially available
| and has 50+ native plugins and many community driven
| recipes[1].
|
| Disclosure: I'm from the TRMNL team.
|
| [1] - https://github.com/usetrmnl/plugins
| urtie wrote:
| Well, for the Dutch market there's Luna: https://www.nedap-
| luna.com/. This has the advantage of being integrated fully
| into a formal care structure and of several years of research
| in how to best present information specifically for patients
| with cognitive issues.
| shireboy wrote:
| Really nice project. One idea for "if we fail to take down a
| message that no longer applies, it confuses her." Put a start and
| end date/time on messages and implement in the board. That way
| you can pre schedule them and have them fall off automatically.
| zrail wrote:
| It might be nice to add default messages that can auto-populate
| the date so she won't notice if network goes down for awhile or
| someone forgets to post a message.
| jdiff wrote:
| Nah, at that point, just let mom call.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| This assumes the mother can form the new memory required to
| remember to call in that situation, which she by definition
| of the disease can't.
| jdiff wrote:
| It (hopefully, theoretically) shouldn't make that
| assumption. It only relies on her apparent natural
| tendency to call her kids when/as she believes she hasn't
| heard from them in some time.
| sushid wrote:
| Agreed, or an expiry timer (e.g. this message expires in 12
| hours).
| efilife wrote:
| Would also be good to display the current date alongside the
| messages' date
| KTibow wrote:
| It looks like it's at the top of the screen
| efilife wrote:
| The current date - yes, but messages don't have a date
| assigned to them
| eth0up wrote:
| When I watched the film Memento, I found myself thinking 'holy
| shit, I'm not quite far away enough from this...'. No tattoos
| yet, but one could write a book on the stcky pads I've laying
| around.
|
| As a bit of a luddite, e-ink is one of the few modern wizbangs
| I'm enamored with. It's so damn nice I take it as an inside woosh
| joke that it isn't everywhere and available without pawning my
| organs.
| frereubu wrote:
| This is one of the few HN articles that have profoundly moved me.
| Such a beautiful and simple use of technology to make a clear and
| big improvement in someone's life.
|
| As a side note on his mother remembering that the tablet exists,
| it sounds like she has amnesia quite like Henry Molaison, a
| famous case study in neuropathology. He had very specific brain
| damage that seemingly stopped him forming new memories in the
| same way as OP's mother, but studies showed that he _could_
| remember some things, just not consciously. So for example he
| would have warm feelings towards people who 'd been caring for
| him despite not remembering them, and would also pick up card
| games more and more quickly as he played them repeatedly despite
| saying he didn't remember the game. OP's mother remembering the
| tablet sounds very similar, particularly when paired with the
| feeling of being remembered and loved by her children.
| ghosty141 wrote:
| > but studies showed that he could remember some things, just
| not consciously.
|
| This reminds me of muscle memory. I can play pieces on the
| piano even though I don't actively remember the sheet music of
| them. My hands just "know" what to do. Funnily enough the
| moment I start actively thinking about certain passages that
| ability worsens by a lot.
| frereubu wrote:
| In psychology memory is divided up into various groupings
| depending on what people are interested in, e.g. explicit
| (remembering that Paris is the capital of France) and
| implicit (remembering how to ride a bike). You can further
| subdivide explicit into semantic (Paris is the capital of
| France) and episodic (events that you have experienced), and
| implicit into procedural (how to ride a bike) and emotional
| conditioning (memories of feelings). Those categories aren't
| related to neurophysiology though, which is where I think it
| gets really interesting because I doubt matches those rather
| Platonic categories.
| mathieuh wrote:
| Yes same for me on guitar. If I try to play something too
| slowly or if I really start thinking about what I'm doing it
| all falls apart.
|
| I think that's when you really know a piece, when you can
| play it incredibly slowly. Paradoxically it's easy to play
| quickly and just let your fingers play out their muscle
| memory, playing something really slowly is the challenge.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I ran into this when teaching my son to tie his shoes. He
| now ties his shoes "upside down" from me, because I tied it
| from my perspective. It's surprisingly hard to tie shoes in
| slow motion, it took some practice by paying attention to
| myself tying shoes quickly.
|
| Now I'm wondering if you can tell a kid is from an "even"
| or "odd" generation by which way they tie shoes...
| cka wrote:
| My kid just figured it out, so generation parity can
| break
| dghughes wrote:
| It's like UK coins the new monarch face stamped on it
| faces the opposite direction compared to the previous
| one.
| withinboredom wrote:
| They often teach it in schools nowadays because busy
| parents will often not teach their children.
| smeej wrote:
| My dad's left-handed and I'm right-handed, so I got to
| learn to tie in mirror image. That was helpful.
| johschmitz wrote:
| Reminds me of
| https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknot.htm
|
| I wonder if what you describe is kind of the reason for
| this.
| xp84 wrote:
| This Ian guy's shoe-tying tip you've linked is one of the
| most universally useful life-improving pieces of
| knowledge I have, which I try to evangelize to anyone I
| know who will listen. The only facts whose impact comes
| close are mostly household tips:
|
| - cheap liquid dishwasher detergent _including in the
| prewash cup_ instead of costly pods that deprive the
| prewash cycle of soap
|
| - Put bleach in the washer's bleach dispenser and use hot
| water for any light sheets, no, it doesn't hurt prints or
| fade light colors
|
| - cook anything you can fit in the air fryer to decrease
| total time ~70% vs an oven
| withinboredom wrote:
| > cook anything you can fit in the air fryer
|
| Why would I want to cook my milkshake?
| chgs wrote:
| I taught it by standing (kneeling) behind, so my left was
| my son's left. Didn't occur it could be done the other
| way.
|
| However my wife, who's 3 weeks younger than me, ties her
| shoes in a completely different way to me, which I
| believe is a "bunny ears" method.
|
| Give the large variety of ways to tie shoes, there's no
| way you could infer anything other than the way they are
| doing it now.
| mattmanser wrote:
| There actually is a right way and wrong way to tie your
| shoes.
|
| Even with the bunny ear method right bunny ear over left
| is wrong, it comes undone much easier than left bunny ear
| over right.
|
| If you're like me there's a Google rabbit hole to
| disappear into for 1/2 hour, completely forget about, and
| carry on doing it completely wrong.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Passwords also work this way.
| beng-nl wrote:
| Yep. I couldn't write down my work one without a
| keyboard.
| a96 wrote:
| Yes. This is the big reason why muscle memory is the worst
| possible memory for music. The slightest glitch leaves you
| completely lost if you don't have conscious knowledge of
| where to go next.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| Further than just muscle memory, every cell in our bodies
| actually has "memories". That's why heart transplant patients
| can experience personality changes from the donor:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03069.
| ..
| voidmain0001 wrote:
| Excuse my ignorance in asking, but is this trustworthy? I'm
| a layperson regarding biology and I was always assumed that
| organs outside of the brain don't contribute to memory. At
| the end of the article is the statement "Data not available
| / No data was used for the research described in the
| article." Is it possible to see the data?
|
| Reddit is telling me to not accept it at face value - https
| ://old.reddit.com/r/research/comments/1bh2jmv/this_is_h...
| biomcgary wrote:
| We know there are lots of biological mechanisms that
| _retain state_ at the cellular level to put it in CS-ish
| terms. A fraction of these mechanisms could plausibly be
| transmitted outside the cell (e.g., miRNA).
|
| These mechanisms may or may not encode memories as we
| typically understand them, i.e., the ability to remember
| an event or fact, but could very plausibly shift
| personality, preferences, etc.
| timschmidt wrote:
| Not to mention that most neurotransmitters are produced /
| collected from the gut. Many seem to be produced / used
| as signalling molecules by gut microbiota.
| adolph wrote:
| >> can experience personality changes from the donor
|
| > organs outside of the brain don't contribute to memory
|
| Interesting question. To start, personality typically
| refers to the totality of a person's behaviors, not the
| memories they may be able to bring forth. Behavior, esp
| automatic, is informed by cognitive states informed by
| the body.
|
| _Affect is the general sense of feeling that you
| experience throughout each day. It is not emotion but a
| much simpler feeling with two features. The first is how
| pleasant or unpleasant you feel, which scientists call
| valence. . . . The second feature of affect is how calm
| or agitated you feel, which is called arousal._ [0]
|
| _Simple pleasant and unpleasant feelings come from an
| ongoing process inside you called interoception.
| Interoception is your brain's representation of all
| sensations from your internal organs and tissues, the
| hormones in your blood, and your immune system._
|
| _...[M]oment-to-moment interoception infuses us with
| affect, which we then use as evidence about the world.
| People like to say that seeing is believing, but
| affective realism demonstrates that believing is seeing._
|
| 0. Barrett, Lisa Feldman. How Emotions Are Made: The
| Secret Life of the Brain (p. 72). HarperCollins. Kindle
| Edition.
|
| 1. ibid (p. 56).
|
| 2. ibid (pp. 76-77)
| a96 wrote:
| I remember seeing a docmentary about this. There was a man
| who received a transplant arm from someone who died and
| started to exhibit the donor's manners and ended up
| planning an elaborate scheme to get revenge on the donor's
| twin brother.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| Yes it is strange to practice a song one day and then come
| back to it again the next day. It's like meeting a new person
| who plays better than I did yesterday, and practice involves
| finding out more about this new person.
| smeej wrote:
| My choir director does this with new rehearsal pieces on
| purpose. We go through them once at the beginning and then
| let them "percolate" while we practice some other songs.
| Then we go back to them in "stabilization" before the end
| of the same rehearsal and they suddenly feel familiar, so
| we can pay better attention to things like dynamics. It's
| wild.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > My hands just "know" what to do. Funnily enough the moment
| I start actively thinking about certain passages that ability
| worsens by a lot.
|
| At least playing is mostly an entertainment. Passwords is
| where the shit happens. I recently lost a 20y old account
| thanks to this.
| frereubu wrote:
| I remember a lecturer in undergrad psychology talking about
| this in the context of walking, and my walking felt really
| messy for a week, like when you start to become conscious of
| your breathing.
| spartanatreyu wrote:
| It's exactly the same when solving Rubik's Cubes.
|
| At the start it's all about carrying around notes full of
| picking the relevant condition depending on the current
| permutation/state of the cube then following the step by step
| algorithms on which sequence of steps to perform for that
| condition.
|
| Then you'll naturally realise that certain conditions happen
| a lot more than others and you'll start to remember the
| sequence of letters for each series of steps to perform.
|
| Over time you'll forget the letters and your fingers will
| just know the sequence to perform when you perceive that
| condition, kind of like typing a password without thinking
| about it.
|
| Eventually you'll be able to fit each condition and algorithm
| into your muscle memory and completely forget the series of
| letters that you used to memorise.
|
| Now I can barely explain how to solve a rubik's cube in-
| person. I just do it.
| hbn wrote:
| You'll also notice this if you try to significantly slow
| down performing an algorithm, or try to solve a digital
| Rubik's cube where you have to click and drag to rotate
| sides.
| larodi wrote:
| Perhaps if we approach technology more from the perspective of
| elders, and those in need, we are going to produce much better
| technology application for everyone else.
| cbsmith wrote:
| Yup. Really moved me.
| hinkley wrote:
| There was a study that suggested that the motor cortex can
| remember even if short term memory conversion was destroyed.
|
| If nothing else, myelinization counts as a form of memory.
| Strengthened by reuse.
|
| I would love to know if those warm feelings are stronger with
| individuals who remind you of someone you used to know. "This
| nurse reminds me of Aunt Sarah, who was nice to me when my dog
| died." And so forth.
| frereubu wrote:
| That study is an interesting suggestion that there might be a
| physiological basis for the explicit / implicit distinction
| in terms of memory. Makes sense in many ways that some kind
| of memory might be embedded in the motor cortex. I wonder if
| the same is true for emotional memories and midbrain
| structures, as hinted at in your last paragraph.
|
| I always find those non-obvious connections fascinating, like
| the disorders where e.g. someone can't say the word "fork"
| when they're looking at one despite being to describe what
| you use it for etc, but can immediately name it when they
| touch it.
|
| Edit: got a link? I'd be interested to read that.
| hinkley wrote:
| I thought we discussed it here a few years ago but neither
| algolia nor DDG are giving me hits. I'm probably using the
| wrong search terms.
|
| I have a relative with anterograde amnesia from a stroke,
| so that story got passed on to my father when it happened.
| 8 years ago perhaps?
| frereubu wrote:
| OK, thanks for trying - will try a bit of searching
| myself.
| fragmede wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison
| hinkley wrote:
| 2002 I think is a little earlier than the research I was
| thinking of but that's essentially the same conclusion.
| smeej wrote:
| I have this weird issue where about a third of people I meet
| for the first time swear they know me from somewhere, and
| it's somewhere specific that I know I've never been. My dad
| and brother have the same issue, and we strongly resemble
| each other, so I think I just have a congenitally familiar
| face.
|
| I have no idea if feelings would automatically transfer to me
| from people with amnesia, but they certainly do for people
| without it, even though I don't remind them of anyone they
| know well enough to name.
| furyofantares wrote:
| > but studies showed that he could remember some things, just
| not consciously
|
| I expect it is very hard to overestimate how incorrect our
| mental model memory and learning is. If literally everything
| was forgotten, then you could set up a reverse groundhog day or
| groundhog hour for someone, just optimize for them having a
| wonderful day every day. (Would still be horrible for the loved
| ones to be effectively disconnected from their still-living
| relative.) Probably there have been movies made about this.
|
| I have no experience with this but I am sure it is nothing,
| nothing, nothing like that. The article says you wouldn't wish
| it on your worst enemy.
|
| > Because she cannot remember things, she goes through each day
| in a state of low-grade anxiety about where her grown children
| are and whether they are all right. She feels she hasn't heard
| from any of us in a long time.
|
| To me this is not a description of someone frozen in time. To
| me this is a description of some horrific combination of some
| amount of learning or "remembering" happening, some sense of
| passage of time, and no episodic memories to draw on to explain
| any of it.
| bolasanibk wrote:
| > If literally everything was forgotten, then you could set
| up a reverse groundhog day or groundhog hour for someone,
| just optimize for them having a wonderful day every day.
| (Would still be horrible for the loved ones to be effectively
| disconnected from their still-living relative.) Probably
| there have been movies made about this.
|
| There is a Drew Barrymore movie Fifty first dates. And yes,
| it is horrible for the relatives.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Absolutely. I was reading this and knew I'd be bookmarking it
| in case I ever need it.
|
| It's even aesthetically pleasing! What mom wouldn't find this
| charming?
| sheerun wrote:
| Wonderful idea
| albert_e wrote:
| > One small challenge was maximizing the size of the message
| text. Sometimes a message is just a word or two; other times it
| might be several sentences. A single font size can't accommodate
| such a wide range of text content. I couldn't find a pure CSS way
| to automatically maximize font size so that a text element with
| word wrapping would display without clipping.
|
| > I ended up writing a small JavaScript function to maximize font
| size: it makes the text invisible (via CSS visibility: hidden),
| tries displaying the text at a very large size, and then tries
| successively smaller font sizes until it finds a size that lets
| all the text fit. It then makes the text visible again.
|
| Wow -- not just for accessibility but this seems like a very
| useful feature to have in native CSS.
|
| Nice find.
|
| Overall such a heartwarming use of technology. Love.
| zackmorris wrote:
| I've been watching the evolution of the web since 1995, and I
| remember when css got popular in the late 90s thinking that it
| didn't match real-world use cases. Somehow design-by-committee
| took us from drawing our sites with tables in the browser's
| WYSIWYG editor, to not being able to center text no matter how
| much frontend experience we have.
|
| Css jumped the shark and today I'd vote to scrap it entirely,
| which I know is a strong and controversial statement. But I
| grew up with Microsoft Word and Aldus PageMaker, and desktop
| publishing was arguably better in the 1980s than it is today.
| Because everyone could use it to get real work done at their
| family-owned small businesses, long before we had the web or
| tech support. Why are we writing today's interfaces in what
| amounts to assembly language?
|
| Anyway, I just discovered how float is really supposed to work
| with shape-outside. Here's an example that can be seen by
| clicking the Run code snippet button:
|
| https://stackoverflow.com/a/33953666
|
| Notice how this tiny bit of markup flows like a magazine
| article. Browsers should have been able to do this from day
| one. But they were written by unix and PC people, not human
| interface experts like, say, Bill Atkinson. Just look at how
| many years it took outline fonts to work using strokes and
| shadows, so early websites couldn't even place text over images
| without looking like Myspace.
|
| I think that css could benefit from knowing about the
| dimensions of container elements, sort of like with calc() and
| @media queries (although @media arguably shouldn't exist,
| because mobile shouldn't be its own thing either). And we
| should have more powerful typesetting metaphors than justify.
| Edit: that would adjust font size automatically to fit within a
| container element.
|
| IMHO the original sin of css was that it tried to give everyone
| a cookie cutter media-agnostic layout tool, when we'd probably
| be better off with the more intuitive auto flow of Qt, dropping
| down to a constraint matrix like Apple's Auto Layout when
| needed.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm a backend developer, and watching how much
| frontend effort is required to accomplish so little boggles my
| mind.
| rosslh wrote:
| Your comment is some interesting food for thought, but I
| wanted to respond to a couple statements you made:
|
| > not being able to center text no matter how much frontend
| experience we have
|
| Not being able to center things is a bit of a meme, but
| flexbox was introduced back in 2009 and has been supported by
| major browsers for quite a long time. Centering text and
| elements is now extremely easy.
|
| > css could benefit from knowing about the dimensions of
| container elements
|
| You're in luck! Container queries were added to CSS fairly
| recently:
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_contain...
| bravura wrote:
| As someone who has struggled with getting CSS to do normal
| layout stuff that had clear precise semantics but required
| weird CSS trickery, it's actually more scary than lucky
| that stuff like container queries have arrived 30 years
| after CSS was introduced.
|
| I agree with GP that CSS should be scrapped.
| asddubs wrote:
| container queries have a very obvious chicken and egg
| problem if used a certain way: If this container is less
| than 30px wide, make its content 60px wide. Otherwise
| make it 20px wide. Now that container exists in a quantum
| state of being both 30 and 60px wide. I actually haven't
| looked into container queries to see how they ended up
| dealing with this yet.
|
| Obviously this is a very contrived example but it can
| also express itself in subtler ways.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Comeau has a piece on that. Another property to constrain
| it is the solution.
|
| https://www.joshwcomeau.com/css/container-queries-
| introducti...
| newaccount74 wrote:
| > so early websites couldn't even place text over images
|
| I take offense at this! We weren't that stupid back then! We
| just put the text 5 times on the page, with position:
| relative, 4x in the outline color, each copy with a 1px
| offset in a different direction, and the final one in the
| text color. That trick worked with pretty early CSS.
| lmm wrote:
| CSS was doomed from the start, IMO. It was a poorly-targeted
| solution to a the wrong problem that could never have worked.
| But you don't have to use it. You can keep using tables for
| layout, all browsers render them well (generally faster than
| CSS, and with better progressive rendering too), real-world
| screenreaders and the like have had great support for them
| since before CSS emerged, there's no actual downside.
| yowayb wrote:
| I made a handful of corporate sites, e-commerce, CMS and even
| flash lol, just out of college with boring defense contractor
| job. I didn't have time to be picky because I had a full time
| job so I always worked with whatever they had and a lot of
| stuff was made in Dreamweaver, and even a corporate site
| exported from Word. The code was awful but worked everywhere.
| And you always had to get into code anyway, so there was no
| time to even think about which of the tools was best.
| Something was always missing in some integration so you gotta
| code/script. I think a lot of people made money in the last
| cycle tech cycles and had nothing to do but create or fund a
| bunch of stuff to confuse the marketplace.
| Pikamander2 wrote:
| That's also been one of my biggest CSS wishlist items for
| years.
|
| I've had dozens of clients complain about headings wrapping
| onto the next line when they add one too many letters, and ask
| if we can make the font size smaller without affecting the
| others. There are several ways to accomplish that, but they're
| all annoying compared to a theoretical one-line CSS solution
| like:
|
| font-size: 12-18px 400px;
|
| Or something of that nature that could hopefully do it
| automatically.
| bool3max wrote:
| How the hell is this not already a CSS feature?
| font-size: "as-big-as-possible-while-still-fitting-parent-
| container";
|
| or maybe just font-size: max;
| graypegg wrote:
| Would combine quite well with `text-wrap` actually! [0] That
| way, the renderer knows the area it needs to fill (the
| implicit `max-content`, defined width/height, or flex/grid
| size of the container) and it knows how to best split up the
| text amongst the lines. Feels like the renderer would be
| capable of finding the optimal font size to satisfy those two
| constraints.
|
| [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/text-
| wrap
| swyx wrote:
| i asked this on bluesky
| (https://bsky.app/profile/swyx.io/post/3lb2x53wuwc2y) and
| immiediately got this https://kizu.dev/fit-to-width/ which
| means theres no technical barrier now, we just need the
| powers that be to prioritize it
|
| anyone with influence on the CSSWG?
| heopd wrote:
| a commercial product along the same lines is KOMP
| https://komp.family/en/. We had it to communicate with our
| elderly grandparents until they died. Its a bit like a senior
| accessible social network feed for the family, including its
| dynamics, because the app shows what is being shown to everybody
| else of the family. In that regard it's a disadvantage you have
| some of the same dynamics going on. You dont only communicate to
| the grandparents, but also to the (extended) family.
| devsda wrote:
| I don't know if it's because we are conditioned by our
| interaction with TV and mobiles, but active LCD screens feel
| like they are screaming for our attention and an always on
| display will mostly be a distraction.
|
| E-ink displays don't have this, they just blend in.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| 20PS per month is a pretty steep subscription
| headup wrote:
| Glad I went on HN today. My grandma has dementia and I've been
| leaving paper reminders around the house. Maybe I should try
| something like this. Wishing you and your family the best.
| lbotos wrote:
| Does anyone know if "Start its web browser and have that browser
| display a designated start page." is specific thing for this
| tablet or if that is "normal" in android?
|
| I want to do something similar for anki cards I'm struggling
| with, and I dunno if I'm in for a world of pain. I was
| considering https://shop.boox.com/products/go6 for my needs as
| it's a bit cheaper.
| speleding wrote:
| When starting Chromium you can pass a `--kiosk` option with one
| (or more ) URLs of the pages you want to display
| matteason wrote:
| I've used https://www.fully-kiosk.com/ on Android tablets
| before (as meeting room status screens) and that's worked
| really well
| themoonisachees wrote:
| I don't know the specific mechanism used in the OP, but android
| has several mechanisms that can be used to start an app on
| reboot. Take a look around a Google search, I'm sure you'll
| find what you need
| OptCohTomo wrote:
| A little off topic, but on the subject of E-Ink, here is an
| analysis of a Kindle display with optical coherence tomography
| images: https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.05174
| D13Fd wrote:
| > we have to be careful to keep it up to date; if we fail to take
| down a message that no longer applies, it confuses her.
|
| Could tweak the UI to add an expiration date on the initial input
| screen, with a sensible default (maybe 2 weeks?)
| tekchip wrote:
| Pimeroni has a selection of eink displays up to 7.3" including
| some with various buttons and LEDs to make whatever you'd like.
| https://shop.pimoroni.com/search?q=inky
|
| All boox tablet/e-readers just run Android. They can do literally
| anything Android can for folks asking about the loading and
| displaying of the web page. There are several "kiosk" apps and
| browsers with kiosk modes. Also fairly expensive Android
| automation tools.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| That's cool, but:
|
| > _It takes approximately 40 seconds to refresh this display_
|
| I think that would rule it out for the purpose of this project
| - the demo in their introduction video[0] shows that it flashes
| multiple colors for ages during this long refresh. I imagine
| that could be very confusing for someone whose short-term
| memory might not last that long.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TluopgSoSWY&t=500s
| oakesm9 wrote:
| The colour screen have a much slower refresh than the others.
| The greyscale one I have takes less than a second with
| minimal flashing.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Yeah, a black and white version would probably have been
| fine. Somewhat frustratingly they don't seem to have a 7
| inch greyscale one though, only colour versions! Maybe they
| used to but stopped selling them?
|
| EDIT: posted this before I noticed harpastrum's comment
| harpastum wrote:
| If you're comfortable with microcontrollers (esp32/arduino), I
| can definitely recommend Inkplate. I found them when I was
| making a similar setup for my parents, and they have various
| sizes up to 10" and up to 6 colors they can display.
|
| You can either just get the module, or buy with a battery and
| mountable case already attached. I think all of the models are
| also available via Digikey and Mouser if people don't trust
| random websites.
|
| https://soldered.com/categories/inkplate/
| bravura wrote:
| I've never used esp32/arduino. How does it compare writing
| some low key Python on RPi and blitting an image to the
| display?
| xyx0826 wrote:
| With an ESP32 or comparable (RPi Pico W, for example) you
| get MicroPython or CircuitPython support! That means a
| Python interpreter, drivers for popular peripherals and
| usually a network stack. Performance doesn't beat a native
| SDK but Python is Python.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| I feel this could be a product that would see some success in the
| retail market.
|
| It solved a personal problem.
|
| Amazing mission behind the tech.
|
| Could solve a myriad of issues for other families. This part is
| unproven, but that's why it would be cool to see the author
| release it as a product!
|
| Could start by simply putting up a payment page and making them
| bespoke as orders start coming in.
| sheerun wrote:
| btw. you should write date of message on each message, on top of
| current date
| sheerun wrote:
| Why downvotes? For someone with amnesia it is not clear what
| date message was written if someone has written "today"..
| bregma wrote:
| My wife acquired anterograde amnesia after a car accident. This
| device may or may not have worked for her: she would probably
| have discovered the device anew every time (as in, every 10
| minutes or so), although she would probably be pleased each time.
|
| Thankfully she fully recovered after a few weeks. It takes a
| _lot_ of patience to deal with someone like that, and you could
| tell it frequently caused a lot of frustration on her part. Every
| 10 minutes or so in fact.
| biomcgary wrote:
| Glad she recovered!
| archon810 wrote:
| Yeah, given OP's post, I didn't think this user's comment had
| a happy ending. That's great.
| thisOtterBeGood wrote:
| Yeah, should've lead differently.
| infermore wrote:
| i thought "acquired" was a good clue
| edarchis wrote:
| That illustrates the difference between anterograde amnesia and
| dementia. Dementia is a general degradation of the brain that
| includes memory but you can have amnesia with an otherwise
| perfectly functional brain. A patient with dementia would never
| _text_ her kids as in OP 's case.
|
| Glad that your wife got over it.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| My grandpa had dementia. Last time me and my mom flew over to
| visit he didn't recognize either of us the first day. He
| didn't even remember having a daughter. Second day he vaguely
| recognized my mom but not me.
|
| Third and last day of our stay, as soon as I entered the
| living room he lit up and exclaimed my name. We sat and
| talked for hours, reminiscing past events with great details,
| until we had to leave for the plane home.
| 0x1ceb00da wrote:
| What exactly causes anterograde amnesia? Why is it temporary
| for some people and permanent for others?
| Miraste wrote:
| "I was concerned about the possibility of e-ink burn-in"
|
| Happily, e-ink displays don't suffer from burn-in.
| devsda wrote:
| Had the same thought but then I remembered coming across this.
|
| Can't say if it is due to burn-in but some manufacturers do
| recommend refreshing the display image periodically like every
| 24 hours [1].
|
| See precautions #4
|
| https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/4.2inch_e-Paper_Module_(B)_Ma...
| Miraste wrote:
| Interesting. Waveshare makes this recommendation across their
| product line, and from what I can glean from google, their
| displays really do develop permanent artifacts if they're not
| refreshed. I've never seen another epaper company say this,
| and anecdotally I've seen ereaders that held the same image
| for months or years work perfectly fine, even with no power
| for refreshes. I don't know why there would be a difference.
| jairuhme wrote:
| This is awesome and I am happy to read that she was able to
| remember the device and asks if things have been added to it. My
| parents have just retired and I wonder if something like this
| would be advantageous to introduce prior to signs of memory loss.
| My grandmother had Alzheimers and while it is different than the
| amnesia that OP references, her memories were lost in reverse
| chronological order (can't remember where her keys are, but could
| remember where her last job was, later could not remember that
| last job, but could remember her first job, etc). So introducing
| this prior to those recent memory lapses could help solidify that
| device in my parents head so that they could benefit from it even
| if they do start to exhibit that behavior.
| costcopizza wrote:
| What a lovely read and solution.
|
| My sister has a disability making independent living a challenge.
| Although I have 0 technical background, I need to start thinking
| and brainstorming in this manner.
| jimbobthemighty wrote:
| Respect
| gibolt wrote:
| This is great. His one concern of remembering to remove things
| could be done with optional expiry.
|
| Meeting for dinner tonight? Set the message to expire after
| today.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I encouraged my mother, who had short-term memory issues _and_
| dementia to write things down. It backfired. She's write
| something down, like the fact that she got a call from her
| gardener, then obsess over it. She'd open the book over and over
| and then talk about the "odd" call she got from her gardener for
| weeks! We had to take the book and write things like "This issue
| has been resolved" under the things she wrote down.
|
| I think an e-ink that we control remotely might work for her,
| too. We can put an item up there and then remove it as soon as
| it's not relevant anymore so she won't keep re-reading it and
| obsessing over it.
| creer wrote:
| This is the kind of feedback I was looking for. These are not
| conditions that we are familiar with - and so the user
| interface for such things is not necesarily obvious. For
| example:
|
| - I would expect that their and your mom did not forget how to
| use a web browser when they acquired short term memory issues.
| So a web browser interface (links, scrolling, buttons) might
| still be fine.
|
| - I was surprised that in the posters' display, the date / time
| of each msg was not shown.
|
| - I was susprised that there is no reminder "Mum, since an
| operation, you rarely form short term memories." Wouldn't it
| make sense that even that is not forming a memory?
|
| - As you mention, remove the item or mention how it was
| resolved.
| pants2 wrote:
| The author mentions needing a small storage service and paying
| for JSONStorage. In fact, when I've needed this sort of thing in
| the past, Google Sheets is an amazing tiny database for projects.
| It has pretty generous API rate limits and it's convenient to be
| able to manage your DB live in a spreadsheet. In fact, even
| levels.fyi got away with a Google Forms / Google Sheets backend
| for a long time[1].
|
| 1. https://www.levels.fyi/blog/scaling-to-millions-with-
| google-...
| mvidal01 wrote:
| This is a very interesting idea. My father has dementia. I'm not
| sure this would really work in this use case. He wouldn't
| remember to look at the display. Like I said, I'm not sure about
| this. It might be worth trying though.
| fblp wrote:
| I have always dreamt of something like this to connect with aging
| loved ones. I would love something that they could also listen to
| with a big button to play recent messages.
| djsavvy wrote:
| Would this work for someone with dementia as well?
| krtab wrote:
| Cool use of tech!
|
| > I ended up writing a small JavaScript function to maximize font
| size: it makes the text invisible (via CSS visibility: hidden),
| tries displaying the text at a very large size, and then tries
| successively smaller font sizes until it finds a size that lets
| all the text fit. It then makes the text visible again.
|
| That would be a good application for dichotomic search if
| performance was ever a problem (I doubt it though).
|
| More generally, having elements on a grid of different sizes
| should hopefully be much more easy once CSS masonry grid is
| available.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| This is a great idea. thanks for sharing it. I might need this
| for myself someday.
| admangan wrote:
| Love this! A couple years ago I had to do similar for my grandma
| (94 at the time) who was losing her hearing as well as short term
| memory loss. Was surprised how few off the shelf options there
| were.
|
| Had to write a medium article with exact instructions for how to
| use it otherwise she was very skeptical of using it. The only
| issue was that she would sometimes read aloud which would enter
| her into a feedback loop lol.
|
| https://medium.com/@admangan2018/how-to-utilize-the-transcri...
| boutell wrote:
| HN does not usually make me cry!
| vitorbaptistaa wrote:
| I love these kinds of projects. Congratulations to the OP.
|
| Unrelated, but does anyone know a good TV remote for elders? I'd
| like something like a Stream Deck with big buttons for things
| like :
|
| * Turn it on/off
|
| * Switch to TV channel 315
|
| * Switch to TV channel 517
|
| * Play Planet Earth on Netflix
|
| * Play Young Sheldon on Netflix
|
| My grandparents are 92 and 97 and even big remotes aren't cutting
| it. Not only that, but I'd like for them to be able to use
| ondemand video platforms, not only random TV channels.
|
| To control the TV itself, it seems a RPi or ESP32 with an IR led
| is enough, but to put something to play on Netflix is
| surprisingly difficult. I'm able to control a Fire Stick using
| remote adb commands, but not sure how reliable it is. I'd love to
| find something like this off the shelf.
|
| Technology is great, but it's not made for elders. It frustrates
| them (and me), and they end up feeling stupid, which angers me.
|
| I am sure someone else must have done this, but I couldn't find
| it anywhere.
| Loughla wrote:
| I would like to second this. I tried a number of options with
| my grandpa and they always failed for one reason or another.
|
| If anyone has a solution in this space, I would be very
| interested.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Is their problem the size (big buttons) or the UI complexity
| the buttons control (trying to navigate on Netflix is a PITA
| compared to hitting a preset channel button)?
|
| On the former I had luck with one of those jumbo remotes that
| just has a few buttons (channel up/down, volume up/down, power,
| mute) and separately programming the TV to only have the
| channels they cared about in the list. When it came to smart
| apps it just became impossible to try to fix via the remote as
| the remote wasn't really the problem.
| vitorbaptistaa wrote:
| It's the UI, especially for Netflix or other streaming apps.
| I want something that is totally foolproof. Just click and it
| starts.
| greentxt wrote:
| This matches my experience. Sadly the way tech has evolved
| has made a lot of entertainment totally unaccessible for a
| lot folks. It needn't be that way. Seniors would be happy to
| just have a button thst played a netflix title randomly, but
| somehow that is unattainable.
| anotherevan wrote:
| Avoid toggling buttons. Have a separate button for on, and a
| second button for off. Idempotent all the way.
|
| I remember my great aunt repeatedly mashing the on/off button
| insisting that the TV was not working, when it never had a
| chance to bring up the picture.
| Flex247A wrote:
| There are some cheap android phones which come with an IR
| sensor. But the app for such functionality needs to be custom
| made.
| evan_ wrote:
| a person with dementia absolutely will not be able to keep a
| phone charged
| deergomoo wrote:
| It's a shame the UX around voice navigation is often so poor.
|
| My mum just recently switched TV provider and while the new box
| has quite capable voice search (including both regular TV
| channels and integrated streaming services), it always takes
| her about 3 attempts to get it.
|
| The "correct" way is to just press the button and say what you
| want without waiting. But she needs some sort of visual
| indication that it's listening to know she's "doing it right",
| which takes just long enough to appear on screen that it's
| either stopped listening and started trying to process
| background noise, or she presses the button again thinking she
| didn't get it.
| observationist wrote:
| It might be worthwhile to look at how an LLM might assist someone
| with this condition. A lot of the persistence hacks used on LLM
| chatbots are addressing the lack of retained memories outside of
| the context window, so maybe something like RAG could help your
| mom live a less limited life, or reduce some of the burden on you
| or other caretakers.
|
| Brilliant use of tech, I'm happy when I see someone turn their
| nerd-powers to things that unabashedly make life better. Good
| work!
| Flex247A wrote:
| Not a good idea for someone with memory loss to use an LLM,
| especially when they are prone to hallucination!
| BatmansMom wrote:
| >Since the physical device was satisfactory, the next step was
| writing a simple website that could drive the display.
|
| >A Compose page my siblings and I write messages and save them to
| be displayed.
|
| Is there a risk of a malicious actor discovering the website and
| writing in their own messages? I would think building user
| authentication in to the MomBoard website might be a bit
| heavyweight. Whats the best way to do this?
| S04dKHzrKT wrote:
| When you have a site with a fixed, tiny amount of users, I'd
| opt for HTTP basic auth (via HTTPS). Whether you're using
| nginx, Traefik, Caddy, etc..., it's very easy to setup. If
| you're using something like Cloudflare Pages, I would guess you
| could setup a worker to handle it for you (though I'm not
| familiar enough with workers to be sure).
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| You're right; its easy enough with Cloudflare Workers. They
| have a sample that is pretty decent:
|
| https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/examples/basic-
| aut...
| Snacklive wrote:
| This is beautiful in ways i can't put into words. Sometimes you
| find an article that just hits man
| te0006 wrote:
| I wish this had come up on HN (or I had had that idea myself)
| some years ago when my mother suffered from that same cruel
| condition, for the last four years of her life. With her body,
| all her older memories and her considerable intelligence largely
| intact, she had multiple moments of clarity every single day, in
| which she fully realized the terrible and hopeless situation she
| was in. But of course, within seconds this thought and any
| decisions she might have derived from it dissolved in the black
| hole of her defective short-term memory. So she would not even
| have had the ability to take her own life to end this if she
| wished so. My brother and I tried many things to improve her life
| somewhat, only very few of those were actually a bit succesful.
| Two of them were digital gadgets, which we selected to provide
| some benefit without or at least with just very simple
| interactions: The best one was an LCD "picture frame" the only
| feature of which was to show an infinite loop of family photos
| stored on its SD card - she came to really like it and have it
| switched on quite consistently. The second one was an MP3 speaker
| which had a few hours of her favorite music on an SD card as
| well, and which could be used largely like a radio, just by
| pressing its play/stop button and volume buttons. This latter one
| she managed to enjoy at least from time to time. Best wishes to
| the author and his mom, and everyone in a similar situation.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I love this. I wonder whether it would be useful to add a small
| indication of how roughly how long ago a message was written. For
| example, the first message might say 'this afternoon' or
| 'yesterday'. If it was written this afternoon, I know the dinner
| it's referring to is coming up, and wasn't yesterday.
| taurath wrote:
| I have to deal with bouts with amnesia myself due to a
| dissociative disorder - this would be a really good appliance
| just to be able to see reminders to myself and also reminders
| from friends - relationships are really difficult to keep up with
| when its out of sight out of mind for anyone.
|
| I'm working on a personal dashboard right now so I can have one
| space to leave notes for myself - I have the problem of not being
| able to consistently use the same tools since there are so many
| to reach out (social media, sms, chat apps, trello, physical
| notepads, .txt files). I frequently just fully forget that I've
| been taking notes every day, and where they're at. Building
| routines is, as one can imagine, really difficult. An app
| requires that I'm looking at my phone and can prioritize a
| notification. All the apps together are just too much to be able
| to prioritize, and I find myself hunting through all the apps for
| reminders or to try to ground myself.
| ronakjain90 wrote:
| That's the exact reason we built TRMNL, because your phone is
| consistently trying to seek your attention (hence distraction).
| TRMNL helps build personal dashboard without necessarily
| creating chaos. We built handful of native integrations[1], but
| you can completely hack it and create your own dashboard with
| simple HTML content[2].
|
| [1] https://usetrmnl.com/integrations [2]
| https://usetrmnl.com/framework
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| I've been wanting to use an Inkplate 10 for my own mom, who
| doesn't have amnesia but is deaf. But, like the Boox that TFA
| uses, it has a 10" display which is too small imho. It would be
| great if they would finally start making bigger ones. 14" (A4 or
| letter size) is about as small as I'd want if I had my way.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| This is so great, I love it. I don't have amnesia but I have lots
| of trouble remembering what I was going to work on next and used
| an e-paper display[1] to help with that. My code is a lot simpler
| (as the display only has an ESP32 and that isn't particularly
| powerful) but it can fetch a PNG image and it can display it, so
| my "protocol" (which I'm hesitant to call it that) is it opens a
| URL named 'inkstatus.html' and looks for a link of the form
| "http://example.com/image.png" (sadly I can't code quote that
| here but you get the idea, a URL pointing to image.png from the
| same server. It then reads that image and displays it, if the
| image is the same one it displayed the previous time it just does
| nothing and goes back to sleep for 10 seconds.
|
| That way, all of the rendering is done on the web server (by a
| cron script in my case and LaTex) and display doesn't have any
| fiddly html/css issues it is just putting up a full size png
| image which was part of the library that the Soldered guys
| provided.
|
| Based on the referenced article I'm going to see if I can
| replicate this for my Dad who is at the age where he doesn't
| remember things.
|
| [1] https://soldered.com/product/inkplate-10-9-7-e-paper-
| board-c...
| ronakjain90 wrote:
| I think you should also checkout TRMNL. Being engineers ourself
| security/privacy is of atmost concern, and we follow a similar
| architecture mentioned above. You could create a private plugin
| and send in data in the form of REST APIs[1]. You could also
| use your own webserver by hacking the firmware[2]
|
| [1]-https://help.usetrmnl.com/en/articles/9510536-private-
| plugin...
|
| [2]-https://github.com/usetrmnl/firmware/blob/main/include/conf
| i...
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| That is an excellent pointer. Thanks!
| staub wrote:
| It really is the small things, fun being able to use hacky
| superpowers like this. makes me want to call my mom :)
| sarahdous wrote:
| That is beautiful and heartwarming, technology really can make
| good sometimes
| kennethh wrote:
| Would it be possible to use a device like Google Nest Hub 2. for
| the similar purpose? It is quite a bit cheaper, I have an old
| mother which still is clear in the head but often have problems
| with her mobile phone. Would also be easier for us to share
| pictures of her grandchildren and such.
| ANarrativeApe wrote:
| "To medical professionals her condition looks a lot like dementia
| -- amnesia is a common symptom of dementia -- but she doesn't
| have dementia. One difference is that (as I understand it)
| dementia is a progressive disease, while this amnesia is stable."
|
| Dementia is a multi-system failure, memory + CPU. Amnesia, on its
| own, is a failure of memory, the CPU is working fine. Medical
| amateurs, like tech amateurs, may be confused by the difference.
| Tech professionals, like medical professionals, ought not to be.
|
| Since we do not yet have the capability to switch out human
| memory 'cards', making use of the CPU to compensate for the
| faulty memory card is a great hack.
|
| There is a reason I check out Hacker News on an almost daily
| basis. This is it.
| ANarrativeApe wrote:
| Dementia is a progressive multi-system failure (CPU, RAM, SSD,
| Motherboard)
|
| Anterograde Amnesia, on its own, is a failure to write to the
| SSD.
|
| Medical amateurs, like tech amateurs, might struggle to
| differentiate between the two.
|
| Medical professionals, like tech professionals, should not.
|
| When it is not possible to upgrade the SSD, using the CPU and the
| RAM to compensate for the faulty SSD is an excellent hack.
|
| There is a reason I check out Hacker News on an almost daily
| basis, this is it.
| ayewo wrote:
| Although this is a PC-centric way of explaining the difference
| between Dementia and Anterograde Amnesia, I really like it
| nonetheless :)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| NB: As the article mentions concerns about burn-in, this doesn't
| seem to be an issue for e-ink devices.
|
| Many ship with a standard image or set of images displayed when
| powered off or suspended. Presumably those display for long
| periods of time. My experience over ~3 years with a similar Onyx
| BOOX device has been that those images don't burn in at all.
|
| What _is_ experienced is _temporary_ ghosting which varies by
| display mode (these can be set either globally or per
| application), when partial refreshes are made. The solution is to
| do a full refresh every so often, for which there are a number of
| built-in settings, or which can be triggered manually on the
| tablet.
|
| For either the author here or others looking to implement similar
| projects, you can very likely safely skip any consideration of
| burn-in, though if your interest is in crystal-clear display,
| full refresh can be used. Particularly when display updates are
| infrequent, say, < 1/minute, or any longer period.
| swyx wrote:
| lovely note thank you. i checked out Boox and it seems to all
| be sold out - any ideas how to get one (or a good enough
| alternative) today?
| consultSKI wrote:
| Priceless! Well done Jan. Thank you for sharing this amazing
| project.
| pathikrit wrote:
| Cool! Btw, I make this: https://framed.news/ framed e-ink news
| display
| GTP wrote:
| Some time ago I considered doing something similar for my
| parents. They're both fine, but since I live in another country,
| it could be a creative gift to send them messages on special
| occasions. I would use an e-ink display attached to an ESP8266 or
| similar though.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I quickly searched for Google Calendar and nothing came up.
|
| A good 'trick' would be to have a Gmail account (calendar, and
| all), share the password with the 'inner circle' and anyone can
| post anything they want and it will appear on the google
| calendar, in "Agenda" mode
| lacoolj wrote:
| Flashback to 50 First Dates. Drew Barrymore is a national
| treasure.
|
| This product is pretty slick. The e-ink looks very natural.
| Anyone compared this to a Kindle or reMarkable Paper Pro?
| low_tech_punk wrote:
| This is what Meta Portal could have been. It's not about going
| high tech and fancy UI. It's the human kindness that makes tech
| beautiful.
| dewarrn1 wrote:
| This is a wonderful project. Many thanks to Jan for sharing it.
|
| Separately, regarding dementia, it is both less and more
| complicated than many commenters suggest.
|
| From UCSF Neuroscience's excellent Memory and Aging Center
| resources:
|
| "Dementia is a general term for any disease that causes a change
| in memory and/or thinking skills that is severe enough to impair
| a person's daily functioning... There are many different types of
| dementia... Most types of dementia cause a gradual worsening of
| symptoms over the course of years due to progressive damage to
| nerve cells in the brain caused by the underlying disease
| process..." [0]
|
| Even more briefly: dementia is an umbrella term, many diseases
| can cause dementia, and those diseases may or may not be
| progressive.
|
| 0: https://memory.ucsf.edu/what-dementia
| mud_dauber wrote:
| My mom is in an assisted living center. The floor above hers is
| reserved for memory care residents. I'd love to see how to
| incorporate this into their affairs.
| causality0 wrote:
| Dealing with dementia in the elderly is difficult enough, but it
| has a progression and you can feel how close you're getting to
| the end. Having to provide a similar level of care to someone who
| may live on for decades seems like a living nightmare. My heart
| goes out to this man and any others with similar burdens.
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