14 ms·
4.2″ and 7.5″ NFC-powered e-Paper Displays Work without Battery
- edent 7y agoI wonder what sort of security it has? Wouldn't want anyone to be able to deface it. The photos make it looks like there's a micro-USB port on the bottom. Any idea what that's for?
- baybal2 7y agoThen, just undeface it.
- edent 7y agoDoesn't help much if the display is in a public place like a supermarket.
- reaperducer 7y agoI've seen e-ink price tags in grocery stores, and it doesn't seem to be any more of a problem than someone writing over a paper price tag with a Sharpie.
- frogpelt 7y agoBut maybe more of a target?
- FroshKiller 7y agoAnyone could smash or paint over these if they really wanted to deface them. I'd be more concerned about subtly tampering with the image, e.g. changing a displayed price.
- daveoc64 7y agoIt's far better than a paper sign or label. It'd be much easier to just put a sticker on top of the screen if you wanted to deface it.
- tpolzer 7y agoAES GCM should take insignificant amounts of power compared to eink panel refresh and make this secure enough (unless there's no way to reprogram the mcus in there?).
- fit2rule 7y ago> micro-USB port Firmware updates?
- timw4mail 7y agoThese look similar to the ePaper price tags I've seen starting to pop up
- remcob 7y agoI wonder if the same app will allow updating those.
- fraidy-cat 7y agoI would hope that electronic price tags make use of some sort of authentication in order to set the price that they display. In Norway, where I live, big retailers will often allow you to pay the price that is shown on the shelf even if their cash register is returning a different, higher price. I have personally experienced a difference between shelf price and cash register price a few times, and in all of the cases where this happened at a big retailer they allowed me to pay the shelf price. I actually thought that they were required to do this by law, but looking into it now I find that it is only a recommendation that they do so and not something that they are required to do by law. The Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman (the government-appointed ombudsman in Norway for consumer affairs [1]) has an article on their website about this topic [2]. Translated from Norwegian, here is an exceprept of what they say: > * Do you have the right to buy the item at the price at which the item was marked? The Marketing Act does not grant such rights, and it is disputed to the extent that one has a legal right on other grounds to demand the purchase of the item at the shelf price. > * The stores should still allow the customer to pay a shelf price. It is the store that made the mistake, and it would be very bad service to allow for this to negatively affect the customer who notifies them of the error so that they can correct it. Anyway, as mentioned you will often be allowed to pay the shelf price rather than the cash register price when you're at one of the stores of the larger retailers. So obviously it would be bad for their business if someone was able to manipulate the price tags without them noticing it. In closing I should also note that there are probably limitations to how big of a difference in price that they would be willing to accept. In my case it has often been a matter of $20 in difference at most. So, don't expect that you would be able to pay like $99.50 for something that was supposed to cost $995 or anything like that, even if the shelf price somehow ended up showing $99.50 :P And also, any consumer that changed the price-tags of the things they were buying in order to con the store into selling it to them at a lower price would see no sympathy from me when they inevitably eventually got caught for doing so. Remember, kids: Just 'cause it's technically possible don't mean you are legally allowed to do it. If you notice a vulnerability in a system I strongly recommend that you don't touch it and that you at most let them know about it anonymously unless you have prior written consent to investigate and/or mess with the electronic systems that belong to other people, businesses or other kinds of entities. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Consumer_Ombudsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Consumer_Ombudsman [2]: https://www.forbrukertilsynet.no/regler-for-prismerking-butikk https://www.forbrukertilsynet.no/regler-for-prismerking-buti...
- sschueller 7y agoNot cheap (USD 42) but still cool [0] [0] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000418859190.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000418859190.html
- jaclaz 7y agoIt's roughly 10 US$/inch, and is not that there that many uses for the smaller 4.2" model, the US$ 70 for the 7" model is IMHO more than "not cheap", "rather expensive". I guess that for the "this week recipe" a more traditional printed paper remains cheaper and more practical. For "daily" or more frequent need of refresh, maybe it may become a valid choice.
- reaperducer 7y agoI see at least one good use for the smaller one: Price tags at a supermarket. Instead of a team of clerks changing the labels for three hours at night, you can have one guy do the whole store in that time. The savings in labor would quickly make up for the initial expense.
- bleuarff 7y agoI don't know where you live, but here in France I haven't seen a paper price tag for years. Every chain store has been using e-ink tags for a long time.
- com2kid 7y agoOnly one of the grocery stores near me uses LCD price tags. There is a constant hiss/buzz from the power and I presume they aren't OLED because I can see the inconsistent backlight that goes out in places along the strip. Feels cheap and crappy overall.
- jaclaz 7y agoSure, but - all in all - it is not that the batteries will make a difference, if you have to change them - say - once every 1 to 5 years. Comparable "normal" e-ink labels cost much less than these (like 50-60%) AFAIK.
- IanCal 7y agoOh that's great. I wanted a nice, updatable eink screen for things like "this weeks recipies" and have been trying to work out how to drive it / power it without spending too much. A jailbroken kindle and a server somewhere could work nicely, but there's a lot to that and I don't really want to spend too much time maintaining things. Would be interesting to know if people have got it working with other NFC apps / how hard it is to add to your own app.
- hirsin 7y agoI'd be happy with just taking a screenshot of the recipe and scanning it on to the e-ink - this will save my phone quite a few run ins with oily/dirty hands while cooking.
- SamPatt 7y agoMy phone screen locks quickly and uses a long PIN so it's terrible for recipes. I've been trying to think of a cheap simple alternative.
- vitovito 7y agoOpen source code to write the image using libnfc and node.js 8.x: https://gitlab.com/bettse/wne_writer https://gitlab.com/bettse/wne_writer
- philips 7y agoAnyone find if the NFC protocol is documented somewhere?
- jaclaz 7y ago>Anyone find if the NFC protocol is documented somewhere? You won't probably like this (between 100 and 600 US$ per document): https://nfc-forum.org/our-work/specification-releases/specifications/ https://nfc-forum.org/our-work/specification-releases/specif...
- philips 7y agoPosted elsewhere on this discussion: https://gitlab.com/bettse/wne_writer https://gitlab.com/bettse/wne_writer
- nathancahill 7y agoThis is really excellent. Various projects I've wanted to do with old iPads all require a power source. Price is a little steep but hopefully lower in the future?
- yingw787 7y agoWow, this looks wonderful! It reminds me of my old solar-powered Casio calculator. I have a Boogie Board already, but I can see how computer access can change the game (accurate drawings, NFC to save, etc.). Hope to see these guys around more!
- ddevault 7y agoIf this can be made thin and small enough, it'd be cool to use it to put your remaining balance and perhaps recent transactions on transit cards.
- jv22222 7y agoLet's talk that through a bit more. I wonder if it could be used to create one-off cryptographic notes - that, when used (scanned), are somehow deleted and can never be used again. Can't think of a way off the top of my head, but I wonder.
- slfnflctd 7y agoIf the encryption is strong enough, you could assign a subset of predetermined keys to each card issued-- but you still need a robust server/network to verify the transaction ACID-style & invalidate the key (or part of the subset?) at the end while retaining the rollback ability until that final invalidation is verified. Tricky business, for sure. Seems theoretically plausible, but I'm sure there are many things I haven't thought of.
- arkh 7y agohttps://www.gemalto.com/financial/cards/payments/dynamic-code-verification https://www.gemalto.com/financial/cards/payments/dynamic-cod... Already used to make dynamic CVV codes for cards which change every 30 minutes.
- jv22222 7y agoThat’s cool
- akincisor 7y agoIt would be a good choice to replace tablets that are used outside conference rooms to show the schedule and/or book the room.
- EvanAnderson 7y agoIf you could parasitically power the unit from Wi-Fi beacon frames that would be awesome. The idea of a sign that "magically" updates itself over the air gives me a giddy "I live in the future" feeling.
- doorbellguy 7y agoInteresting thought. At that point (or for that fact - at this point) it's is essentially a reusable printable paper. For people arguing about the low resolution of the $70~ model, I would not disregard their argument because we haven't seen it in real life and would love to see how documents scale up on that display.
- tracker1 7y agoIf you aren't using super-white printer paper, not sure that this is any more eco friendly than printing a sheet of paper off twice a day, every weekday for years. Not sure what the materials impact is for e-ink, and paper is a renewable resource and sourced from trees generally grown specifically making paper as a crop.
- zndr 7y agoWe already power our iPads via POE< which is also how you'd power those beacons, so it's not really a great improvement. BUT the idea that you would "tap in" to book it would be great.
- walterbell 7y agoIs there a PoE to lightning adapter? edit: $28 splitter, https://www.poetexas.com/products/af-lightning https://www.poetexas.com/products/af-lightning And $100 Belkin Ethernet-PoE adapter.
- jobseeker990 7y agoThis could replace your printer really nicely. Anytime you want to print something out, you swipe your phone by this and use it instead. Any kind of reference, recipe, directions, notes. This would even be cool instead of a second monitor. Just to put up a reference page or cheat sheet.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- datashow 7y agoBut no color, and no real gray scale.
- eyegor 7y agoYou can simulate grayscale with dithering, similar to drawing with a pen or pencil. If you really need grayscale or color you can buy eink displays that support it, even ones up to 300ppi. I don't know if 1w would be enough to power them though, and they're a bit more expensive.
- ben-schaaf 7y agoConsidering these types of displays don't require active energy input to function, I don't see why you couldn't update any size display with 1W. You'd need to progressively update parts of the display at a time, which likely requires extra engineering effort, but in theory it should work.
- rahimnathwani 7y agoThe resolution is only 800x480. What reference page or cheat sheet would fit on that?
- hnlmorg 7y agoYou used to be able to stick a lot of text on a 320x200 display when I first got into software development. :) Jokes aside, you'd probably want that 480x800 (portrait rather than landscape). Which would be 80 columns and 100 rows in old 8-bit microcomputer terms. So it wouldn't be the more detailed of a document but it should be detailed enough for a cheat sheet or narrowly focused reference page. You probably wouldn't want much more than that anyway otherwise you risk your reference material to be too verbose for quick sanity checks.
- philips 7y agoI think Chrome 81 has WebNFC too https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/web-nfc/ https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/web-nfc/
- Namidairo 7y agoYes, but this particular board uses the low-level i/o that are mentioned as not supported. That said, IF the board firmware was open, you could probably get it to speak NDEF if you were willing...
- SebiH 7y agoI wonder if you could somehow get this to work with some form of passive wifi, maybe slowly harvest energy from available radio signal to trigger a screen update. Maybe someone knows if this is theoretically possible?
- arendtio 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22610276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22610276
- peter_d_sherman 7y agoExcerpt: "e-Paper displays have great readability under sunlight, and only consume power when updated. But their refresh rate is limited, and most displays are fairly expensive." I've been searching for a tiny computer / screen combination that would work under absolute minimal power; that is, if you were in deep space (or in the deep wilderness), and only had a small (say, 5W or less) solar panel for power, then what tiny computer / screen / keyboard combination would you use? Well, this screen seems like it might be ideally suited to be the screen component of a setup like that...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- brtkdotse 7y agoI had one of these back in the mid-90s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poqet_PC https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poqet_PC It did a lot of trickery, like suspending the CPU between keystrokes, to get a weeks “work” (I was 12) out of it running on two AA batteries.
- fit2rule 7y agoI've had one of these for a few months, and its pretty awesome to be honest: https://thingpulse.com/product/espaper-plus-kit-wifi-epaper-display/ https://thingpulse.com/product/espaper-plus-kit-wifi-epaper-...
- robocat 7y agoJailbreak a kindle. They are super low power and cheap with lots of features - I’m guessing a 5W solar panel would be overkill if you only update the screen irregularly.
- solarkraft 7y agoCame here to say this. I've been playing with doing some development on one, but the kernel must be really old now. Do you happen to know whether there's a way to update it?
- 7y ago
- 0xff00ffee 7y agoI'm really impressed they've got current requirements down to the level where NFC can power the refresh. Geometry has to be the next step. When eInk busted out of MIT in the late 90's, they kept revisiting flexible formats without too much luck. I hope the flexible screen folks are cross pollenating with the eInk brains. In this example, even though the display is small, the electronics around it are very bulky.
- kohtatsu 7y agoClicking "Read More" on the cookie banner sends you to Google for "How to remove cookies." No, I want to set a cookie to tell y'all not to set tracking cookies and just limit it to strictly necessary ones. I can remove them and their server will go ahead and set them again. And no, sending me to a property owned by one of the worst offenders in this space is not what I want.
- fit2rule 7y agoAwesome! I'll be getting a couple of these for my sound studio .. these are the ideal things to use to put up the daily recording schedule/sessions, plus "RECORDING - QUIET PLEASE" type signs. I've wanted to put an e-ink display up on the door for a while, but always stumbled when it came to actually routing power to the door - but this just elegantly solves the problem completely.
- solarkraft 7y agoJust a tad too slow to be a cool e-reader.
- hadlock 7y agoWould be interesting for use on a boat. Generally you want a fast refresh rate but once a minute would be fast enough for most users. The problem with navigation displays on boat are 1. daytime visibility 2. long term waterproofing in a saltwater environment With this setup you could mount a raspberry pi W on one side of the fiberglass to interpet NEMA 2000/0183 data and the NFC chip, and the waterproof, hermetically sealed e-ink display on the other, held on with velcro or neodymium magnets etc.
- mycall 7y agoI've gone through multiple RPi on my boat. Maybe if I epoxied the board it would have a chance.
- londons_explore 7y agoMost epoxy isn't very flexible, and cracks leading to leaks over time. For something you can do at home, try heating the whole thing to 120C and dipping in hot glue.
- hanniabu 7y agoIdk about new hot glue, but I have some old projects with hot glue from about 15 years ago and it's starting to dry out and crack. Something to keep in mind if looking for longer term.
- jmiskovic 7y agoWith this solution you could never be sure that pi is functional and displayed data is fresh - you'd have to always compare display clock with wrist watch or something.
- DubiousPusher 7y agoVery cool. I love ideas that seem super obvious after you hear of them.
- candeira 7y agoIf I worked at Waveshare, I'd partner up with a phone case manufacturer and sell user-customisable phone cases. They could also offer a SDK so apps could publish high utility info with low update frequency on the case itself: weather, public transport realtime schedules, etc. (Edit: had originally written "low-latency" instead of "with low update frequency", because of the strong conditioning to associate "low latency == good")
- roywiggins 7y agoI'd love to see something like this on hard drives, both bare ones and ones with enclosures.
- kabacha 7y agoSeems to be a bit thick for a case at 1cm thickness [1] + it would probably need a screen protector itself. 1- https://i.imgur.com/dY1YHkU.png https://i.imgur.com/dY1YHkU.png
- candeira 7y agoYes, for now it is, but it's also stacked so it looks like it's "all screen". Maybe if you could spread components around, it could be thinner.
- alex7o 7y agoSomebody else commented this: https://www.gemalto.com/financial/cards/payments/dynamic-code-verification https://www.gemalto.com/financial/cards/payments/dynamic-cod... I suppose if you can fit it inside of a credit card it would fit a case, and it would be really cool.
- eyegor 7y agoThis could be great for a calendar or schedule at work, network a bunch together and push updates whenever needed. Or weather forecasts. Or acting as a live sign for reserving conference rooms, allow people to reserve on a web portal or at the sign. For ~$100 (with a raspi or similar) this competes with whiteboards.
- WalterBright 7y agoOh, I wish it came with a USB NFC device so I could send it an image from my desktop. Not sure what I'd use it for, but at that price point I can figure something out :-) I've always been highly annoyed that I cannot set the screensaver on my Kindle to "the last page I read". Then I would set it to things like my itinerary when I travel, to an editor cheat sheet when I'm learning an editor, etc.
- kumarvvr 7y agoFound this one. https://www.evelta.com/er302-high-frequency-nfc-writer-usb/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw6sHzBRCbARIsAF8FMpXIikW8oKpfY_yYlVV6Ovz8W0z2d0SCl5JNmHLuYwzVjHCUzW1Mx0IaAhuvEALw_wcB https://www.evelta.com/er302-high-frequency-nfc-writer-usb/?...
- eyegor 7y agoMany people on this thread are complaining about the poor performance of this passively powered screen. PSA if you care about resolution and speed, and don't mind powering it; pick up the ED060KC1 panel. 300ppi 6" panel for around $75, base refresh is 450ms. If you're brave, it seems mostly stable down to 300-350ms. It's the same panel most high end ereaders use.
- junky228 7y agowhen I looked it up I was finding listings for at least $150, what sellers are you getting the $75 estimate from?
- gtm1260 7y agoSame question here! The cost of these panels for like anyone whos' not a major manufacturer to use is so high it seems. I just wanna make some fun prototypes ya know.
- eyegor 7y agoAliexpress/eBay market prices. You can even get them cheaper than that, it's just that $75 is more available. https://m.aliexpress.com/wholesale/ED060KC1.html?keywords=ED060KC1 https://m.aliexpress.com/wholesale/ED060KC1.html?keywords=ED...
- londons_explore 7y agoIf you want the same "NFC updating from an app" ability, a small solar panel, enough to charge a supercap, so you have enough energy to update the screen once per few hours could be the solution. You can still use the NFC power option, just wait longer if you need more frequent refreshes.
- RuleOfBirds 7y agoWhy can't I navigate the world without running across hideous, overly sexualized imagery of women at irrelevant, random times?
- kabacha 7y agoIf it stinks everywhere you go maybe it's time to look under your shoe. Dude is some anime fan and boss told him to make a video demonstrating photos so why not take a pic of his anime figure? You're overreacting to say the least.
- hdjejdjd 7y agoThese sorts of dumb fuck cry for attention comments is my biggest gripe with reddit.