8 ms·

Life Dashboard: Heads-up display for everyday life

199 points by lemonspat 6y ago

haswell 6y ago
I've recently spent some time setting up Home Assistant [0] to corral the many smart devices in my home. In addition to the many IoT device control capabilities, HA has a rich integration/add-on ecosystem, and can pull in all sorts of additional data about daily life (financial feeds, weather, etc). The missing piece for me right now is a device that acts as a control hub. I hadn't considered using a Kindle, but now I'm excited about the possibilities. If I can use Life Dashboard to receive status information from HA (and possibly even send commands to devices), this might be the solution to that final missing piece. [0] https://www.home-assistant.io https://www.home-assistant.io
- lytedev 6y ago
  I use an old laptop! They make great little servers.
- 0x426577617265 6y ago
  I use this software on a 5” LCD. The intended use is to make a mirror https://magicmirror.builders/ https://magicmirror.builders/
- dh-g 6y ago
  I would recommend a paperwhite since you can use the real time clock to enter deep sleep and run the device off battery. Its the only complaint I have with my current device.
- thefunnyman 6y ago
  Have you looked into running Home Assistant Cast [0] on something like a Google Home Hub? [0] https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/08/06/home-assistant-cast/ https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/08/06/home-assistant...
fooblat 6y ago
Neat project but, contrary to the title, it is not in fact a heads up display.
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  Yeah, how is this more of a HUD than any portable screen?
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    Its not 'just any portable screen' though. It is like task event which could be part of a calendar, except a Kindle (with e-ink) is used for this purpose. Quite clever usage of an e-reader.
- gumby 6y ago
  I assume it was a pun, for the other kind of “heads up”. The surf report says that to me.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Also, it's "head-up display".
- dh-g 6y ago
  Good point, I was thinking more along the lines of "heads-up" right as a walk out the door and since this project was just for my own usage I didn't scrutinize the readme copy.
hawktheslayer 6y ago
Thanks, this might just motivate me to dust off my old Kindle. I recently started doing James Clear's habit tracker and now would love to find a way to track my habits on my Kindle if possible.
- marvindanig 6y ago
  i tried one of these fancy tricks on one of my Kindle earlier this year. then i threw all the Kindles away.
  - hawktheslayer 6y ago
    Too much work, or bad results, or what?
  - Semaphor 6y ago
    what did you replace them with?
    - marvindanig 6y ago
      i spend most of my time on my iphone. when it comes to reading longform, i pick up the iPad or order a physical book because that's how i'm able to read.
- dh-g 6y ago
  I found developing in the kindle pretty nice and if you want a quick start there is a pre-compiled python for it and golang can compile directly to the arm architecture that it uses.
- rozab 6y ago
  Check this out: https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits
xyzelement 6y ago
Similar idea, even more low-tech and ambient: https://github.com/edmarkovich/pi-productivity https://github.com/edmarkovich/pi-productivity
mellosouls 6y ago
The project uses a serverless backend to collate data from external services and on the Kindle itself Rust code (cross compiled via docker) fetches and typesets the data into an image If this is just a daily image, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just email the generated image to a non-modified Kindle on a daily schedule? It would require manually clicking 2 buttons every day to display it (Home > Today's Image), though presumably that side of it could be automated on the Kindle with much less modification.
- dh-g 6y ago
  This isn't just an image, mostly b/c I initially wanted to do everything on the device (and it uses a weird image encoding) but interacting with Google api's in Rust was a pin (at the time).
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  Even easier, the Kindle has a web browser so you could just serve up an html page on your network and navigate to that, but that wouldn't be as fun or cool
ubertoop 6y ago
Pretty sweet project and from browsing the source I learned about a very cool fintech lib I'd never heard of: Plaid. Gets the cogs turning with ideas. Thanks for the post.
- ampdepolymerase 6y ago
  Plaid is a fintech unicorn, not just a library.
- ErikAugust 6y ago
  As far as I remember when I researched Plaid, it’ll ask for the credentials (email/password) for your online banking accounts. That was a deal breaker for me.
  - MetalGuru 6y ago
    Yeah, plaids flagship feature is instant bank verification. It replaces the archaic micro-deposit method for allowing users to auth their bank account.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - ubertoop 6y ago
    Yea that seems super sketchy. Are they web scraping?
- MetalGuru 6y ago
  Another really cool fintech API is Modern Treasury. Or Stripe Treasury
dh-g 6y ago
This is my project, was very happy to see it suddenly on the front page. I've been using it for over a year and its consistently been useful if anyone is on the fence about building one.
- danbruder 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing this. Very cool use case for old kindles
- igonvalue 6y ago
  In order for this to work, one needs to jailbreak the Kindle. Is there a way to jailbreak a Kindle Oasis running the 5.12.x firmware? (My reading of the MobileRead Forums says this is impossible.)
  - captn3m0 6y ago
    Not possible currently.
- dkarp 6y ago
  I did a similar project with Kindle Paperwhite running for over 2 months on a full charge. It would boot early each morning, connect to wifi, pull latest weather and news, generate a png containing weather and news, show the png on the screen, shut down wifi, set RTC to boot again tomorrow and power down. The problem I had is that eventually when it ran out of battery, I charged it and the process didn't kick off again. Probably I just need to ssh back in a get it going again, but I lost interest at that point!
keyle 6y ago
Slightly offtopic: is there anything else useful you can do with an old kindle? I have 2 laying around catching dust...
- keyle 6y ago
  update: forget it. I tried to jail break my PW2 and it lead to nowhere after 3 hours of attempts. The newest firmware (which it automatically updated to without asking) has blocked the downgrading to an older firmware, making the jailbreak unsuccessful. NB: if you plan on jailbreaking an old Kindle, put it in airplane mode as soon as possible. If it upgrades past 5.10+, you're done.
- dh-g 6y ago
  Animated low-power pictures would be my favorite: https://hackernoon.com/my-experience-in-creating-the-worlds-first-low-power-animated-picture-frame-ee24877a4b46 https://hackernoon.com/my-experience-in-creating-the-worlds-...
grenfrew 6y ago
Fantastic work. Using the Kindle rather than the browser must be better on the mind and the eyes. I wanted to try something similar myself using Plaid. Thanks for sharing and good job.
makuto 6y ago
I did something similar with a Raspberry Pi and Waveshare e-ink display: https://github.com/makuto/home-life-display https://github.com/makuto/home-life-display

199 points by lemonspat 6y ago

I've recently spent some time setting up Home Assistant [0] to corral the many smart devices in my home. In addition to the many IoT device control capabilities, HA has a rich integration/add-on ecosystem, and can pull in all sorts of additional data about daily life (financial feeds, weather, etc). The missing piece for me right now is a device that acts as a control hub. I hadn't considered using a Kindle, but now I'm excited about the possibilities. If I can use Life Dashboard to receive status information from HA (and possibly even send commands to devices), this might be the solution to that final missing piece. [0] https://www.home-assistant.io https://www.home-assistant.io

lytedev 6y ago
I use an old laptop! They make great little servers.
0x426577617265 6y ago
I use this software on a 5” LCD. The intended use is to make a mirror https://magicmirror.builders/ https://magicmirror.builders/
dh-g 6y ago
I would recommend a paperwhite since you can use the real time clock to enter deep sleep and run the device off battery. Its the only complaint I have with my current device.
thefunnyman 6y ago
Have you looked into running Home Assistant Cast [0] on something like a Google Home Hub? [0] https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/08/06/home-assistant-cast/ https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/08/06/home-assistant...

fooblat 6y ago

Neat project but, contrary to the title, it is not in fact a heads up display.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago
Yeah, how is this more of a HUD than any portable screen?
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Its not 'just any portable screen' though. It is like task event which could be part of a calendar, except a Kindle (with e-ink) is used for this purpose. Quite clever usage of an e-reader.
gumby 6y ago
I assume it was a pun, for the other kind of “heads up”. The surf report says that to me.
StavrosK 6y ago
Also, it's "head-up display".
dh-g 6y ago
Good point, I was thinking more along the lines of "heads-up" right as a walk out the door and since this project was just for my own usage I didn't scrutinize the readme copy.

hawktheslayer 6y ago

Thanks, this might just motivate me to dust off my old Kindle. I recently started doing James Clear's habit tracker and now would love to find a way to track my habits on my Kindle if possible.

marvindanig 6y ago
i tried one of these fancy tricks on one of my Kindle earlier this year. then i threw all the Kindles away.
- hawktheslayer 6y ago
  Too much work, or bad results, or what?
- Semaphor 6y ago
  what did you replace them with?
  - marvindanig 6y ago
    i spend most of my time on my iphone. when it comes to reading longform, i pick up the iPad or order a physical book because that's how i'm able to read.
dh-g 6y ago
I found developing in the kindle pretty nice and if you want a quick start there is a pre-compiled python for it and golang can compile directly to the arm architecture that it uses.
rozab 6y ago
Check this out: https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits

xyzelement 6y ago

Similar idea, even more low-tech and ambient: https://github.com/edmarkovich/pi-productivity https://github.com/edmarkovich/pi-productivity

mellosouls 6y ago

The project uses a serverless backend to collate data from external services and on the Kindle itself Rust code (cross compiled via docker) fetches and typesets the data into an image If this is just a daily image, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just email the generated image to a non-modified Kindle on a daily schedule? It would require manually clicking 2 buttons every day to display it (Home > Today's Image), though presumably that side of it could be automated on the Kindle with much less modification.

dh-g 6y ago
This isn't just an image, mostly b/c I initially wanted to do everything on the device (and it uses a weird image encoding) but interacting with Google api's in Rust was a pin (at the time).
schwartzworld 6y ago
Even easier, the Kindle has a web browser so you could just serve up an html page on your network and navigate to that, but that wouldn't be as fun or cool

ubertoop 6y ago

Pretty sweet project and from browsing the source I learned about a very cool fintech lib I'd never heard of: Plaid. Gets the cogs turning with ideas. Thanks for the post.

ampdepolymerase 6y ago
Plaid is a fintech unicorn, not just a library.
ErikAugust 6y ago
As far as I remember when I researched Plaid, it’ll ask for the credentials (email/password) for your online banking accounts. That was a deal breaker for me.
- MetalGuru 6y ago
  Yeah, plaids flagship feature is instant bank verification. It replaces the archaic micro-deposit method for allowing users to auth their bank account.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ubertoop 6y ago
  Yea that seems super sketchy. Are they web scraping?
MetalGuru 6y ago
Another really cool fintech API is Modern Treasury. Or Stripe Treasury

dh-g 6y ago

This is my project, was very happy to see it suddenly on the front page. I've been using it for over a year and its consistently been useful if anyone is on the fence about building one.

danbruder 6y ago
Thanks for sharing this. Very cool use case for old kindles
igonvalue 6y ago
In order for this to work, one needs to jailbreak the Kindle. Is there a way to jailbreak a Kindle Oasis running the 5.12.x firmware? (My reading of the MobileRead Forums says this is impossible.)
- captn3m0 6y ago
  Not possible currently.
dkarp 6y ago
I did a similar project with Kindle Paperwhite running for over 2 months on a full charge. It would boot early each morning, connect to wifi, pull latest weather and news, generate a png containing weather and news, show the png on the screen, shut down wifi, set RTC to boot again tomorrow and power down. The problem I had is that eventually when it ran out of battery, I charged it and the process didn't kick off again. Probably I just need to ssh back in a get it going again, but I lost interest at that point!

keyle 6y ago

Slightly offtopic: is there anything else useful you can do with an old kindle? I have 2 laying around catching dust...

keyle 6y ago
update: forget it. I tried to jail break my PW2 and it lead to nowhere after 3 hours of attempts. The newest firmware (which it automatically updated to without asking) has blocked the downgrading to an older firmware, making the jailbreak unsuccessful. NB: if you plan on jailbreaking an old Kindle, put it in airplane mode as soon as possible. If it upgrades past 5.10+, you're done.
dh-g 6y ago
Animated low-power pictures would be my favorite: https://hackernoon.com/my-experience-in-creating-the-worlds-first-low-power-animated-picture-frame-ee24877a4b46 https://hackernoon.com/my-experience-in-creating-the-worlds-...

grenfrew 6y ago

Fantastic work. Using the Kindle rather than the browser must be better on the mind and the eyes. I wanted to try something similar myself using Plaid. Thanks for sharing and good job.

makuto 6y ago

I did something similar with a Raspberry Pi and Waveshare e-ink display: https://github.com/makuto/home-life-display https://github.com/makuto/home-life-display