14 ms·

Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product

139 points by konschubert 6y ago

konschubert 6y ago
Hi HN! I am trying to develop an e-paper smart display as a consumer product. The first available layout will be a calendar. I'd love to have HN's input on this: Do you think it's viable? Does it look okay? What would be a good selling price?
- catchmeifyoucan 6y ago
  200 euros is a lot. I own a remarkable tablet, and it can do a lot more with a bigger screen I wouldn’t be interested in spending that much since I can’t really do much other than look at my calendar. I’m either on the move, or in front of a computer, so I don’t see if there’s a good fit for this device in my life
  - konschubert 6y ago
    I totally see your point of view regarding the price. What price would you say is right? > I’m either on the move, or in front of a computer, so I don’t see if there’s a good fit for this device in my life It's possible that the device isn't for you then, I agree.
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      Boox Poke3 is a 6" e-ink display that runs Android 10, as a general-purpose computing device, and is available for 160 EUR. Since you're selling a significantly less usable device (it only does one thing), I wouldn't want to pay more than 80 EUR for this. It's cute, but... when the price of the product is dominated by the screen, it's hard to sell a single-use device.
      - Qwertious 6y ago
        >when the price of the product is dominated by the screen, it's hard to sell a single-use device. IMO if it doesn't have more than one UI menu, the UI ought to be built into the hardware - because AIUI e-ink screen costs scale geometrically with size. In other words, if you can e.g. break the five/seven days of the week into five/seven separate e-ink screens of the same surface area (not counting bezels), they'll be cheaper than a single e-ink screen of the same surface area. As a bonus, giving each day its own screen means you can put a nice clean margin between them that's not made of expensive e-ink despite being left empty the entire time. IMO that's the only way the price would drop to less than half the price of an e-reader of the same size.
- nickweb 6y ago
  The price point will be a sticking point for consumers. I understanding the pro’s of this style of device with an e ink screen, and the associated power savings and readability it comes with, but the general public may not. This could be better positioned towards an office environment but it would possibly be too small to be useful to a team. I love the idea and the design, and I hope it works for you, but I think it’s going to be a hard sell ahead for you at that price point.
  - konschubert 6y ago
    What price point would work better in your opinion?
- okl 6y ago
  Hi there, I have a few recommendation: - Add an indication of the current time and date. - Add a hidden button/switch to change between weekly/monthly calendar layout. - Show a small popup with the pertinent information of the next appointment. (Location &c.) - Where do you show entries that are scheduled for the entire day? It would be nice to display them in an area that is separate from the regular entries. - Add a button/switch to flip through the next few weeks. Good luck with your project, I can surely see a market for the e-paper calendar.
  - konschubert 6y ago
    Hi, thanks for your comment. Those are good ideas.
- kybernetikos 6y ago
  I know someone who needs this. The price seems high, but it might work as a christmas/birthday present, and probably wouldn't ultimately stop it from being purchased in this case. It would be replacing a paper calendar that shows 3 months ahead. A nice feature would be to be able to move between views of today, this week, 3 months. Much bigger would be nice too. Again not having these would not stop a purchase. The wood bezel is pretty big. Most likely to stop a purchase is the ugly wire hanging from it. If it didn't need charging often, then having it have a powerbank (swappable?) in it would be better from my point of view, although how often it needs to charge would be a factor. There was a beautiful concept epaper calendar I saw a while back, https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/22/15028600/magic-calendar-e-paper-japan https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/22/15028600/m... but I don't think it ever made it to sale, and if it had, it would have been frighteningly expensive, but that is what I would really like...
  - konschubert 6y ago
    That concept you're linking is what inspired me :) > It would be replacing a paper calendar that shows 3 months ahead. A nice feature would be to be able to move between views of today, this week, 3 months. I agree. > Much bigger would be nice too. Totally.
    - gtyras2mrs 6y ago
      What's the planned size of the display? To me, a physical calendar is useful to get an idea of the schedule at a glance - but this seems like it will be too small to get a clear idea at a glance. I'm guessing 6"-7" ? TBH 13-15" would be ideal to hang up on the wall (with a better contrast ratio as well) - but I'm guessing that would be way too expensive?
      - konschubert 6y ago
        It's a bit above 7 inches. It's enough to get a feel actually for the week and not miss anything important on the next day - that's what I'm using it for personally. You're right in guessing that anything bigger is very expensive - let's hope the cost comes down!
- tpetry 6y ago
  Something which is really missing is wifi support and the ability to pull a custom image to display from somewhere. You could then easily display status dashboards, calendars, whatever someone likes. If you have a library for easily building these screens this could be really interesting. I have seen this idea at the joan board, but they are really expensive (attaching an ipad to the wall is cheaper) and i cant find this feature anymore. I guess it was hidden at some screenshot and small text somewhere.
- vessenes 6y ago
  I looked at buying a company that does this, called Visionect. They have a consumer product called getjoan (at getjoan.com) that is some direct competition for what you want to do. Here's my quick summary: * They were using the tech for low power conference room calendars, which was a good use case pre-COVID. * They said consumers really liked Joan, and that it was a popular product internally for employees. * It renders pretty much any web view, which I think is the right idea Overall, my assessment is that generally the market is small, and building a 'good' version, e.g. something that feels as good as a remarkable 2, is going to be really expensive. Joan as a product is very thick, and also has terrible connectivity - no wifi-based configuration, needs out of date USB drivers downloaded in order to talk to it, etc. etc. So, in answer to your question, as a hobby, yes. As an actual product for sale, I do not think it is a large market. If you find a large market you will be fighting companies like visionect that have deep supply chain roots to Eink directly. If it were larger and lighter, I think putting one up on the fridge showing the family calendar, or other use cases like the conference room where it's nice to have updating information without running power are good ideas. But this is a very small market. And you are fighting the fact that people usually prefer bright colorful displays except in niche applications. In summary, I would urge you to look at a different hardware niche.
  - konschubert 6y ago
    Hey, thanks for the feedback. I agree that the market for this particular product is very small.
briefcomment 6y ago
Darker or bolder lines and text would be nice I think. It would be interesting if you put a little red LED on it like a soft alarm for upcoming events. I would pay $35 for this, buy I'm sure others would pay more. Edit: Saw the 200 euro price tag, don't think I'm in the market for this at that price.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Thank you for your feedback, especially regarding the price.
danimal88 6y ago
I'd go for a much smaller bezel/frame.
sxp 6y ago
Can you post some specs about the size of the display in inches & pixels? And does it run an open OS? I recently bought an M5Paper which is a 960X540, 4.7" ESP32 e-ink display for $70. So that provides a baseline for your hardware.
- okl 6y ago
  That price was at quantity '1' though, right?
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    Yes but even at 10K you’ll be looking at $50 per unit at best. eInk displays are expensive as fuck thanks to patents.
    - konschubert 6y ago
      Yes.
    - robinsoh 6y ago
      > eInk displays are expensive as fuck thanks to patents. Citation please.
      - dogma1138 6y ago
        https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+e+ink+so+expensive https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+e+ink+so+expensive
        robinsoh 6y ago
        Sigh... I work in the display industry and interact with competitors as well as partners of EInk. The first link is a reddit post. I leave it to others to work out why a lot of these comments blaming patents are completely wrong. I've tried to counteract these mistaken assumptions repeatedly on HN. See my comment history. But after this kind of low quality approach to factual discussion (eg: I ask for a citation and instead am given a reddit link) I'm giving up trying to correct this misconception.
anotheryou 6y ago
I might not be your market but I'd want: - a tiny version - with little bezel - at most 35eur - showing just todays upcoming agenda. - Maybe some bold and inverted display of soon to begin events. Than again... I could dock my phone, keep the screen on and show some calendar app, but I don't either. Maybe I should :), would be possible with tasker, rfid and a dock.
germinalphrase 6y ago
The frame size to screen feels unbalanced to me. I would reduce the frame width and consider using a solid CNC’ed price of wood instead of using picture frame construction. Unless you can get those seams very tight, it looks a little cheap (which your price point isnt).
- konschubert 6y ago
  Yea, fair point! Interesting idea with the CNC'd wood - I'll look into that for sure!
dsr_ 6y ago
The frame overshadows the display. You might: - reduce the size of the frame - mount the display flush to the front of the frame The contrast in the photo does not look great. Perhaps use hatching or shading instead of the solid black areas? In any case, you'll want to be able to separate out different calendars. Other display modes? "Today", "Clock/Calendar", "Now and Next"? How do you control it?
- mark-r 6y ago
  I think the idea is the display comes directly from Google calendar and you don't have much control over it.
  - konschubert 6y ago
    Nope, it just gets the events from gcal. The layout is whatever I make it.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Thank you for the feedback. You're right, the display is smaller than I'd like... for sure. I'll also see what can be done on a black-and white display with regards to the stark contrast. > Other display modes? "Today", "Clock/Calendar", "Now and Next"? Yes, that's do-able, I "just" have to code it. > How do you control it? In the App. I should make that clearer on the website for sure.
  - m4lvin 6y ago
    > In the App. I should make that clearer on the website for sure. I would only want this if I can use it without yet another app. Please consider using a simple web interface etc.
hertzrat 6y ago
Wall calendars don’t have room for enough information. A weekly view would be nice. I would like a thinner frame and larger screen for readability. I might worry about the inconvenience of powering it or of entering/editing information. For the price point, a fancier build quality would help with the “premium” feel you probably would need: it would need to stand as a practical art piece
- konschubert 6y ago
  Good feedback, thank you.
mark-r 6y ago
Too expensive for the utility it provides. A Raspberry Pi with a simple LCD could do the job for half the price. An old obsolete phone would work too.
cointreau 6y ago
I actually like the heavy frame, although I see why some might find it a bit heavy, given that the apparent goal of most screen designers is to eliminate the bezel entirely. My biggest sticking point here is price. 200 euros is a no-go; given the limited nature of the device, I wouldn’t even consider 100. 50 is the absolute max I’d pay for something like this. It’s a very nice product, and your target audience might very well be people who can afford an expensive desk object. I don’t think most of the folks I know could pay that, though.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Thank you for the feedback. Getting the price down is definitely one of my priorities.
nom 6y ago
Others will comment on the product itself, and because it looks like you're trying to feel out the market, my questions are: Do you have experience developing, certifying and shipping consumer hardware? In what countries do you want to sell it? Who builds the hardware? How big is your first run?
- konschubert 6y ago
  Hehe, those are really important questions you're asking. I'm looking at the EU and the US market. I know I need to get CE and RoHS and a bunch of other certificates. I know this won't be easy. If you know somebody who has experience with that, ideally in a boutique/startup environment, I'd love to hear the advice they have to give.
  - AussieWog93 6y ago
    I run a small business selling a piece of open source hardware I designed a few years back (total sales around 10,000 units do far). I haven't got a single certificate - FCC, CE, RoHS or otherwise. Your customers don't give a fuck, the governments don't give a fuck, and neither should you. That goes for all forms of official certification. Unless some bureaucrat actively gets in your face and demands you do paperwork (EU VAT registration for FBA sellers is a good example), focus on good logistics and a solid product.
    - kweks 6y ago
      Just in case anyone is considering taking the above as advice.. Everything is entirely correct. Focus on a great product. However, avoiding certification 'because noone cares' - is incorrect. People don't care until something goes wrong. Correct, you can skirt standards and certifications, or buy CE ratings from less-than-reputable firms - but if something goes wrong - and you're unable to produce appropriate certifications - you open yourself to a world of risk.
iamleppert 6y ago
The wood bezel is kind of ugly & cheap looking. The audience for this is likely to be tech people and users who want to show off their calendar or manage their time with calendar invites. I think this could do well with a more contemporary frame. You could market it to people as a solution to forgetting meetings; the price would have to be low enough (sub $100) to trigger people’s impulse buying. The lower the price the more likely you will be to get a sale. Do a test on Facebook with different price points and see which one produces better conversions: you don’t need to actually have the product available to buy yet. This product is mostly going to live or die based on the marketing & pricing.
- jitl 6y ago
  There’s no accounting for taste. I’d prefer a wood frame to some kind of LED emissive plastic or metal
  - azinman2 6y ago
    Except it’s not particularly nice word and the proportions are all off.
    - konschubert 6y ago
      Fair.
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    A delicate chrome bezel might work though. One of the appeals of the e-paper though is the "natural" look of it — as though it is paper. The wood frame is in keeping with that.
- konschubert 6y ago
  I actually like the wood as material per se, but I still want to improve a bit on the processing. I'd love to lower the price, too. I don't know yet if it's possible.
  - 6y ago
bombcar 6y ago
It needs to support Office 365 or some sort of connector.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Yea, for sure, that's something I'd like to have as well!
  - pjerem 6y ago
    Please make it use standards or at least don't directly use Google's or Office APIs. It'll be way easier to support a lot of calendars (including Google Calendar) if you stay with CalDav in mind than the other way. However, I like the idea. That said, 199€ is not cheap. It will be really hard to sell at that price.
    - konschubert 6y ago
      I'll see what I can do to get the price down before release. Shooting from the hip, what price would you have expected?
diego_moita 6y ago
Since you're announcing it at an heavy traffic like HN it is quite likely there are already 200 companies in ShenZhen reading your post and and planning to sell it for one tenth of what you're asking.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  While Chinese can copy it easily the eInk display will kinda guarantee that even half the price would be pushing it. In any case they don’t need to even preemptively copy it once you order it from a Chinese OEM they’ll use the money you paid them to make a few 1000’s units more for themselves and have them on Aliexpress before you even get the first batch shipped.
DangerousPie 6y ago
I really like this idea, but I agree with others that the bezels look a bit too large (do you need them to hide the components?) and the price seems relatively high. I also thought that the calendar looked a bit grey/dull in the image you show. Is this just about the lighting or is the display not very high-contrast?
- konschubert 6y ago
  > do you need them to hide the components? Yes for now. Though I might get them down in size as I iterate on the hardware... > Is this just about the lighting or is the display not very high-contrast? To be honest I'd say it's both.
loloquwowndueo 6y ago
You want some feedback? Here is some: it’s too expensive. 200€ for a display-only calendar? Thanks, I’ll pass.
jlengrand 6y ago
Interesting! I've done something _very roughly_ similar over the past weeks (https://twitter.com/jlengrand/status/1362319916649578499 https://twitter.com/jlengrand/status/1362319916649578499). I would go and say that putting calendar only is probably too static info as displayed on the website (it'll change only once a day). My setup cost about 80$ total so I guess the pricing is not wild. I do really like the cool effect of epaper personally, much more than the typical 'use a tablet as dashboard' that has a backlight. Good job!
- jlengrand 6y ago
  Oh and funnily enough when I showed that on Twitter people asked for exactly what you did so you might be up to something, though I wonder if displayed like you do now the resolution will be high enough
twarge 6y ago
It would be useful to show a list of the day's next events and to-do's. Is iCloud sync even possible?
- konschubert 6y ago
  > Is iCloud sync even possible? There are ways to make it work but it's not yet the way I'd like it to be.
maartn 6y ago
It’s too officy, have a look at this one for inspiration: https://www.instructables.com/E-Ink-Family-Calendar-Using-ESP32/ https://www.instructables.com/E-Ink-Family-Calendar-Using-ES...
creativenolo 6y ago
Thin white frame with a white mounting could feel more aesthetically balanced.
m4lvin 6y ago
You will have to compete with much cheaper ideas like this kindle-based dashboard https://github.com/pascalw/kindle-dash https://github.com/pascalw/kindle-dash discussed a while ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25939042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25939042
_Microft 6y ago
Have you considered customizability of some sort? E.g. allowing people to extend your product, by software or by providing necessary information to easily create 3D printed mounts or alternate frames. Give the users a place to exchange and host their solutions and your calendar could be a presentation platform that others create for without requiring you to do the work yourself.
daniel_iversen 6y ago
I think your product is a great idea, good luck! Only feedback, as others have said, the frame isn't quite my style, maybe a non-wood or a thinner frame would be nice. And personally I'd like to have the option to not have Saturday and Sunday on there (since I'm imagining using this at my work desk) and the font size maybe a little bigger/bolder for legibility.
- konschubert 6y ago
  I can say that I fully agree on the "remove the weekend" option. It's definitely on the list.
carbon85 6y ago
The frame fit and finish is not adequate, hire someone who is able to cut and assemble frame miters that do not have gaps. Offer a three wood options, Maple (light) Oak (Medium) and Walnut (dark).
xiaolingxiao 6y ago
It's an awesome idea. The color the epaper might go better with stainless steel, or even glass. But as it stands the gray/black/brown combo looks a bit like an Ugly Tie, it could work in the right room/wall, but may need some thinking on the end of the buyer.
cweagans 6y ago
IMO, the bezel is way way way too big for how much screen space there is. Instead of red oak, I'd suggest looking at walnut or cherry -- something with more color and a little less texture might help the screen to take focus. You could also look at separating the screen from the bezel with some kind of mat board or something (another commenter linked to an instructable that did this). I'm also not super clear on the the exact use case for this. Have you considered making it more of a portrait orientation, making it a single day view, and maybe adding some additional information (maybe some todos from Todoist or something?)
- konschubert 6y ago
  The wood is actually beech, though this particular batch I got for the prototypes had a surprising amount of texture. I am planning to use lighter colors in future. Regarding your second point: I'd love to support a multitude of layout options some day.
  - cweagans 6y ago
    Huh. Alright then. Either way, I'd recommend leaning toward a less textured, richer/darker color and species of wood. If you go lighter, it's going to look a little washed out IMO. Also, in your quality control for the wood bits, make sure that those mitered corners all line up evenly across the entire joint (examples of what I'm talking about highlighted here: https://monosnap.com/file/MkTzAjJhx7v7DkL5kOKypQNFKVyrNU https://monosnap.com/file/MkTzAjJhx7v7DkL5kOKypQNFKVyrNU). People who have purchased any kind of fine woodworking will see this and see something somewhat poorly made, even if the actual electronic hardware and software parts of the product are rock solid. The presence of those gaps means that one or more of the following things are true: 1) the miters weren't cut at a perfect 45, 2) the wood wasn't dried long enough, 3) the pieces were cut too short, 4) the wood was moved from a high humidity environment to a low humidity one (causing it to dry out and shrink slightly). 1 and 3 can be solved by closer inspection/better processes for the people/machines cutting the wood. 2 and 4 are harder to remedy if it's possible at all. I'd guess it would mean a new supplier + factory doing the wood bits. Not necessarily saying that layout options would be _necessary_. Just pointing out that something more focused on showing immediately relevant information (i.e. scoped to _today_, rather than this entire week) might help to more clearly define the value of the product to a prospective buyer.
zackbloom 6y ago
I believe one reason people are responding negatively to the frame is there is insufficient padding around the content before the frame begins. I know it would be painful to not use all the screen real estate, but I think there needs to be some spacing. Alternatively you could surround the screen with some sort of matting before the frame begins.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Good idea. Also the matting. But I think people are right: The frame is quite big. I'd love to get the size down.
nde 6y ago
Really cool idea! Style aside, I think you’ve developed an interesting product with lots of appeal, especially for those looking to be “less” connected. For those complaining about the style, perhaps offering a DIY kit may be a viable alternative that allows anyone to add their own flair.
omidh28 6y ago
With this price, Just buy a tablet and mount it.
iamben 6y ago
I love these kind of projects. But what I'd like is slightly bigger than kindle e-ink display that shows a webpage of my choice. And I'd like it to run off mains power. Then I can pretty much show what I want - so it's easy to set up a rotating dashboard with the weather, my calendar, TFL alerts, whatever. Why doesn't this exist?!
- dominotw 6y ago
  can you open that webpage in 10 in or 13 inch eink devices ? Plenty of them out there. I even watch youtube videos on mine.
  - hultner 6y ago
    Which device?
    - discordance 6y ago
      13 inch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeC3LIFTaho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeC3LIFTaho 25 inch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY
- miniatureape 6y ago
  If not a webpage I would be happy with it displaying a bitmap. Let me put in a URL and poll it with the dimensions as query param. I will handle the render and serve back whatever I want. I could draw my calendar on the left, the weather in one corner and todo list in another.
  - dmitrygr 6y ago
    You can buy eInk price tags off eBay (7.4 inch price data brand, $25 each). I am releasing in a week or so, a cursory firmware for them that allows drawing on them in greyscale plus yellow any image you want, uploaded remotely. Quite cheap. Years of battery life.
- 6y ago
throwaway69123 6y ago
Bigger screens are better.
Closi 6y ago
I'm not sure who this product is targeted at. If it's for "home consumers" then it doesn't really make that much sense as the calendar is focussed on the 9-5, while home calendars are usually more focused on the 4pm-10pm. Also bear in mind that home calendars will have multiple simultaneous appointments - Dad will take the dog to the vet appointment while Mum takes her daughter to the ballet, so it needs to be possible to show these side by side and be readable (especially considering these are short activities). Then if this is for office users who schedule lots of meetings... If this is a product which is intended to be used in a corporate environment, the fact it is missing Exchange support (or at least that this is not stated) is a huge gap for most people. Additionally is this thing a touch screen? Like if a new meeting appears can I accept it on this device or do I need to go and get another device just to accept the meeting? And if I have a meeting at 6am does it shrink the time to show it? How about all-day meetings, do they show up at the top? (Sometimes I have a combination of all-day meetings with other meetings throughout the day). Can I click on the meeting and see more details? My calendar is full of lots of ones called "Catch up - X and Y" and it looks like the later part of the meeting name might be truncated so I would need to have the option to either see attendees or who it is with. So I conclude that this probably isn't for someone with lots of meetings, unless it's mainly for novelty. Then if it's for a person who doesn't have that many meetings... the price is a little high. It looks like a great product, it just feels like it needs to work out the problem it's trying to solve a little bit so then you can walk back to the features you need to implement. It risks being a product which is more about novelty than about being something usable in the long term. I know the page says home and office, but you might be better picking one and working out what building a really great product for that single user category means.
- DC1350 6y ago
  Looks like it would work well in offices to stick on the outside of meeting rooms or any kind of shared space. I don’t like it as a personal calendar.
  - simonjgreen 6y ago
    Joan does this well today
guilamu 6y ago
Typo : "User your smartphone to configure."
sixothree 6y ago
I think you should machine the frame as much as possible so that you can get the display as close to the front as possible.
- ajb 6y ago
  I agree with that. Currently the display is very close to the edge so it feels like you would have to peer round the frame. I guess you want to use as much of our pixel-area as possible, but a bit of margin would make it more relaxing to look at.
kissgyorgy 6y ago
This actually gave me the idea to use my reMarkable screen as a calendar like this. I need to generate a picture and upload it every morning.
granshaw 6y ago
This is a prime product for a Kickstarter or gofundme campaign, both for seed capital and to get early feedback. Seriously, massive lost opportunity otherwise
- konschubert 6y ago
  I've considered it. To me Kickstarter is a double-edged sword and I'd rather only take money from customers once I can actually deliver ... let's me sleep more easy. But maybe I should re-consider, yea..
cthreepo 6y ago
maybe a vertical version with a support that you can have on the desk like a picture frame, with a less wide wood frame, maybe the display can alternate showing the calendar for a few minutes and your favourite newspaper frontpage or something else for a few minutes
cush 6y ago
Honest feedback: from the photos, it looks very gray. The appeal of e-paper to me is the contrast. So having a background so gray kind of defeats the purpose for me. Maybe it's just the photo you took or the lighting though.
- the__alchemist 6y ago
  That's surprising to hear: e-paper is a notoriously low-contrast display medium.
encom 6y ago
Reading the website, it seems this product is tied to Google. Instead of using a proprietary cloud service, you should work with CalDAV instead and make it accessible to everyone.
- jsilence 6y ago
  Strongly support this suggestion! Integrated CalDAV or at least subscribing to .ics calendars, since device would not allow for inputing new events.
Merrillin 6y ago
Good luck. My two cents: I suggest making the software work first, on existing tablet(s). Then once you have a product people actually want/use you can add the cost and complexity of building, inventorying, and shipping a physical product. Also, far more people would use your software than buy a physical version and you would have an audience of all the people using your software to convert into physical product customers as an upgrade. Again, good luck!
m-p-3 6y ago
Is it battery-powered? And how thick is it? I currently have a notepas stuck to the fridge with some magnets, if it was slim and could be powered for a while on a single charge I'd probably put it on the fridge.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Battery-powered is kind of my dream as well, but this one is wired. Removes a whole lot of complexity.
MilnerRoute 6y ago
Here's what I thought when I read "e-paper calendar." You know how most calendars have a gorgeous photo above the dates (that changes with each month?) - Is there any way you could have a larger screen (or a second screen) just to reproduce the feel of having the grid of dates below an eye-catching photo? (I remember being really impressed by the pictures of famous authors Amazon used as screensavers on early editions of the Kindle -- and thought it'd be fun to see some high-quality nature photos in black-and-white e-ink.) - If this ever became a commercial product, people could even use their own photos. - Images could even be put on "shuffle" -- so the e-ink calendar had an entirely different image above the dates every day of the month.
cameldrv 6y ago
I like this. I would buy it. I would also buy a related product that would fetch a particular web page every couple of minutes and display it on the screen. It's possible to hack up various devices to accomplish this, but the setup is a pain. Mega bonus points for no cloud crap, just connect to wifi and do everything locally. One thing I'd love to see in both of these products is no refresh if the content hasn't changed. One annoying aspect of e-paper displays is that they have to flash white and black when refreshing. If there is no change to the content, this isn't necessary, and then doesn't present a distraction out of the corner of your eye.
- konschubert 6y ago
  > One thing I'd love to see in both of these products is no refresh if the content hasn't changed. That's already implemented actually :)
spuz 6y ago
Check out Inkplate. It has a 6" screen, it's programmable so can display whatever you want - not just a calendar and has an option for a plastic frame and it's only $100. They also have 10" version coming soon. Maybe you should pivot into building custom wooden frames and/or software for Inkplates. https://inkplate.io/ https://inkplate.io/
simonjgreen 6y ago
Love the idea, I regularly search for products that will do this for me, but please please include support for non-Google calendars.
- steve918 6y ago
  Same. I would buy, but I don't use Google Calendar and I'm getting sick of services that only support Google / Apple.
grayclhn 6y ago
Agree on the design concerns that other people have raised... I'm also a little concerned that you seem to only have one calendar with relatively few events on it as your example. Weekly views with 5+ distinct calendars on them get unusable pretty fast (and often the same event showing up on several of the calendars) so make sure you have a decent solution for that if you're planning to market this as a "family" calendar.
philsnow 6y ago
I have the same issues as everybody else (larger screen, smaller bezel, flush mount to bezel, google calendar only), but I'll talk about the copy on the site: Under "Set and forget", "User your [...]" should be "Use your [...]". If you're anywhere near this price point, you can't have any typos in your copy. "For the home": > Unlike a paper-based family planner, the Invisible Calendar is up-to-date with what's in everyone's phones. Even the kids can catch a glance at the weekend - and know when to schedule that sleepover. To me it feels like the age when kids start to really manage their own schedules is also around the age when parents give them (or let them pay for) their own phones. If everybody has a phone, what need does a shared device on a wall fulfill? The "and for the office" block for some reason made me think that it would be neat to have it show a single day while in portrait and show the week while in landscape. Then in portrait/day mode, it takes the place of the narrow sliver I give to Calendar.app on one of my screens / lets me reclaim that screen space, and I can still see the week at a glance by just turning it on its mount/pedestal/whatever. This would work a lot better if it were battery powered though, you might not want the cable moving around while you're turning it.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Many of the ideas you mentioned are also floating in my head. I have to prioritize, but maybe one day... And thanks for pointing out the typo :)
jcun4128 6y ago
it has a power chord?
Waterluvian 6y ago
Don't make the important information so hard to read. I don't think the black background needs to be a thing. If you have to distinguish blocks judt thicken the border a wee bit. You'd be surprised how little you need.
iaw 6y ago
How well does it handle double and triple bookings in the same time slot?
rsj_hn 6y ago
This would be nice for old timers like me whose eyesight was ruined from years of staring at screens. I avoid doing scheduling on my phone due to the form factor, but have my schedule in google cal (others may use exchange), so this would be a better form factor for meetings than the phone, but without taking up valuable monitor real estate. I would maximize screen real-estate, so I would stick it on my desk and occasionally glance at it, thus it would be nice if the box for the next meeting changed color a few minutes before the meeting so that I'd know immediately that I had a meeting coming up just with a quick glance. It would also be nice if I could tell roughly how many meetings I have in a day and when they are just with a glance. If you want to know something super awesome, have it very slowly scroll through the day. E.g. in the morning you might see 9 am (empty box) 11 am (shaded box for meeting) 1 pm (empty box) 3 pm (shaded box for 3 pm meeting) 5 pm empty box Then, as you approach 11 am the shaded box turns black, maybe it even says "meeting in 10 min". By that time, the 9 am box has been scrolled off the screen. At 1pm, the 9 am meeting has scrolled off, and I only need to see the 3 pm box. close to 3, that one turns black. etc. Another option is to magnify what's coming up: small box for things in past big box for things right now medium box for hour after that small box for everything after that Point being, you just want to get all the info you need -- what's coming up -- without squinting at the frame or spending a lot of time looking at it.
bloopernova 6y ago
You're going to be displaying information on a paper like reflective surface. You've probably already thought of this, but check out paper organizers and calendars. Especially take not of what works, for instance light text on dark background. What works for active screens probably won't for passive screens.
the__alchemist 6y ago
What MCU are you using? Have you run into issues with shortages? I'm asking since I'm also developing an e-paper product, for a different purpose. Are you doing full refreshes each update? Seems like it would be OK in this use, since the content doesn't change often. You mentioned batteries as a complexity-adder: I agree, but ideally, this makes sense as a battery-powered device. It should be capable of running for a very long time on a few AA or AAAs. (The limitation being internet connectivity for refreshing) The advantage is reduced cable clutter, and flexibility in where it goes. Maybe for a second edition, as not to delay release.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Hey, let's connect maybe? You can send me an email at mail@konstantinschubert.com EDIT: I sent you an email.
sentinel 6y ago
Does that chord mean that it's not battery powered? Would be nicer if it is battery powered.
antoniuschan99 6y ago
Aside from aesthetics of the wood bezel being much smaller, you will also save on cost as you will use less material. Shipping and weight will be less too.
e-clinton 6y ago
I like the idea! I know an excellent wood worker if you want really fancy frames.
jfrunyon 6y ago
Why not simply use an off-the-shelf frame? As others have already said, the bezel is very big compared to the whole product. I'm sure you could find something that would look nice enough, and cost you far less than any custom-made wood frame (and assembly thereof). This seems like a wonderful idea to me - although only usable in many cases if it has wifi (I don't see any mention of connectivity on the page). FWIW, the price point is also about double what I would personally consider paying for it.
fblp 6y ago
Get the panel separately and work with a local woodshop on the frame so that you can test lots of prototypes. Then send your frame design back to wherever the whole thing is getting assembled (assume, china). Also, how much does an e-ink panel like that cost these days?
futhey 6y ago
Since there's so much depth (thickness) in the bezel, you need more margins around the readable content to account for shadows. One solution would be to use a mat board to separate the content from the frame (instead of wasting e-ink screen space). Another is to change the shape of the frame to remove shadows. However, I imagine you're already working against the cost of e-ink displays, and the mat board would have the added benefit of making the screen feel larger than it actually is.
DamnInteresting 6y ago
When I read the title of this thread, what I pictured in my mind was an e-ink version of a paper wall calendar or a monthly desk calendar; a grid 7 squares wide and 5 down that can display any month. The user could tap on a day to zoom into it, and hand write some notes/events/etc with a stylus like they would a paper calendar. Perhaps it could have an optional sidebar on the zoomed-in version that shows Google Calendar appointments. I can imagine someone like my mom using such a device, she still tracks all of her appointments on a paper wall calendar.
dukeofdoom 6y ago
Why not just make it into a mirror? People buy mirrors all the time. When they renovate, when the old mirror breaks, or when they decorate a new house. Its huge existing market. They are more likely to buy a mirror with an extra feature like a calendar, much easier than buy an e-calendar. Which they never buy, and might not see enough of a use of. Essentially, making a mirror, already a primary useful device, more useful will sell better, than trying to create a new market for an e-device.
Cd00d 6y ago
I'd like to see it handle multiple calendars. My work calendar. My spouse's work calendar. Our shared personal calendar. Kid's school calendar. All with toggles for one at a time or all at once or any combination for daily scheduling discussions. Good luck! Neat idea!
- konschubert 6y ago
  It can do that already, even in the current stage of development. (They would have to share their calendars with your google account though. )
avipars 6y ago
why not just modify a kindle or nook?
Fatboyrunning 6y ago
Can I build apps for this?
onion2k 6y ago
I don't need a calendar for work things as I literally stare at a screen all day and my calendar is never more than a few alt+tabs away (and no one else in my home needs to see it). On this one there's only space for things that are happening during the day. One small design change would need to be that this calendar would have to include evenings as that's literally when everything in my social life (such as it is, I'm 43..) happens.
submeta 6y ago
Great idea! Would love to see this for org-agenda (Emacs + org) though as I have transitioned away from Google products years ago.
yellowapple 6y ago
I'd buy it in a heartbeat as long as there's no locking down of the software on it. A lot of these sorts of single-purpose devices go weirdly out of their way to be hostile to people modifying what software runs on them, which makes it all the more difficult to keep them working after, say, the manufacturer discontinues the product (or itself). A piece of hardware without user-serviceable software might as well be disposable - and the last thing the world needs is more disposable electronics :) It's also worth noting that if you're marketing this for use at work, not all workplaces use Google Calendar; I've worked for quite a few companies that used Microsoft's ecosystem (particularly Outlook) exclusively. For a first go at the software, then perfecting the Google Calendar experience is a reasonable decision, but per above, it'd be nice if those of us with the know-how could mod in whatever data sources we please. A couple questions: 1. Is this wall-mounted only? Or will it have some kind of stand so I can put it on my desk? Apartment dwellers and open-office-floorplan workers would probably find the latter useful :) 2. Would I be able to sync multiple calendars to it? Or would I need to buy multiple frames (one for work, one for personal) if I want to have both my work and personal schedule on display?
- konschubert 6y ago
  Hi, thanks for the feedback. I am not planning to do anything to lock it down, but if you want something designed from the outset to be hackable, you're maybe happier with an https://inkplate.io/ https://inkplate.io/? Regarding your questions: 1. I am planning to add a stand. The prototype doesn't have one yet. 2. Yes, you can sync multiple calendars. They all have to be shared to the same google account (Need to share your work calendar with your personal account).
Qwertious 6y ago
What size is this? I can't see any indicators or text saying what size it is. EDIT: Also, if it updates the screen rarely enough, why not put solar panels on it? That bezel is already pretty darn thick, and if the solar panels draw enough power than you could forgo a power supply or external charging entirely.
mclightning 6y ago
This site screams, this is an MVP-idea-test side.
dabch 6y ago
This is quite blatant a copy of my project from a few years back: https://github.com/dabch/epaper-calendar https://github.com/dabch/epaper-calendar Considering that you even starred my GitHub repository and that even the frame looks pretty exactly like the one I built (but with nicer quality), this really seems to be heavily inspired by my build from early 2019. Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy that people like to build on my stuff. You could even re-use the code (MIT license). Making this thing ready to sell is probably a lot of work. I never had any intention to do that. But still, don't sell this as your idea. And remember, MIT license allows you to re-use the code, but it requires to re-state the license text, including the name of the original author.
0xbadcafebee 6y ago
I might buy it if it didn't depend on Google Calendar. I would probably also replace the frame. I could go to any Michaels store and get them to make a more attractive frame for $20-$40. Also, not sure how large e-paper screens can get, but I might like a huge one for my wall.
bradknowles 6y ago
I don’t use Google calendar. Could I get a version that syncs with Apple iCal? For work purposes, could I get something that syncs with Outlook? Also, what about colors for overlaying the calendars of multiple people, like me and my wife? Can I get monthly view, as well as weekly and daily views?

139 points by konschubert 6y ago

Hi HN! I am trying to develop an e-paper smart display as a consumer product. The first available layout will be a calendar. I'd love to have HN's input on this: Do you think it's viable? Does it look okay? What would be a good selling price?

catchmeifyoucan 6y ago
200 euros is a lot. I own a remarkable tablet, and it can do a lot more with a bigger screen I wouldn’t be interested in spending that much since I can’t really do much other than look at my calendar. I’m either on the move, or in front of a computer, so I don’t see if there’s a good fit for this device in my life
- konschubert 6y ago
  I totally see your point of view regarding the price. What price would you say is right? > I’m either on the move, or in front of a computer, so I don’t see if there’s a good fit for this device in my life It's possible that the device isn't for you then, I agree.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    Boox Poke3 is a 6" e-ink display that runs Android 10, as a general-purpose computing device, and is available for 160 EUR. Since you're selling a significantly less usable device (it only does one thing), I wouldn't want to pay more than 80 EUR for this. It's cute, but... when the price of the product is dominated by the screen, it's hard to sell a single-use device.
    - Qwertious 6y ago
      >when the price of the product is dominated by the screen, it's hard to sell a single-use device. IMO if it doesn't have more than one UI menu, the UI ought to be built into the hardware - because AIUI e-ink screen costs scale geometrically with size. In other words, if you can e.g. break the five/seven days of the week into five/seven separate e-ink screens of the same surface area (not counting bezels), they'll be cheaper than a single e-ink screen of the same surface area. As a bonus, giving each day its own screen means you can put a nice clean margin between them that's not made of expensive e-ink despite being left empty the entire time. IMO that's the only way the price would drop to less than half the price of an e-reader of the same size.
nickweb 6y ago
The price point will be a sticking point for consumers. I understanding the pro’s of this style of device with an e ink screen, and the associated power savings and readability it comes with, but the general public may not. This could be better positioned towards an office environment but it would possibly be too small to be useful to a team. I love the idea and the design, and I hope it works for you, but I think it’s going to be a hard sell ahead for you at that price point.
- konschubert 6y ago
  What price point would work better in your opinion?
okl 6y ago
Hi there, I have a few recommendation: - Add an indication of the current time and date. - Add a hidden button/switch to change between weekly/monthly calendar layout. - Show a small popup with the pertinent information of the next appointment. (Location &c.) - Where do you show entries that are scheduled for the entire day? It would be nice to display them in an area that is separate from the regular entries. - Add a button/switch to flip through the next few weeks. Good luck with your project, I can surely see a market for the e-paper calendar.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Hi, thanks for your comment. Those are good ideas.
kybernetikos 6y ago
I know someone who needs this. The price seems high, but it might work as a christmas/birthday present, and probably wouldn't ultimately stop it from being purchased in this case. It would be replacing a paper calendar that shows 3 months ahead. A nice feature would be to be able to move between views of today, this week, 3 months. Much bigger would be nice too. Again not having these would not stop a purchase. The wood bezel is pretty big. Most likely to stop a purchase is the ugly wire hanging from it. If it didn't need charging often, then having it have a powerbank (swappable?) in it would be better from my point of view, although how often it needs to charge would be a factor. There was a beautiful concept epaper calendar I saw a while back, https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/22/15028600/magic-calendar-e-paper-japan https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/22/15028600/m... but I don't think it ever made it to sale, and if it had, it would have been frighteningly expensive, but that is what I would really like...
- konschubert 6y ago
  That concept you're linking is what inspired me :) > It would be replacing a paper calendar that shows 3 months ahead. A nice feature would be to be able to move between views of today, this week, 3 months. I agree. > Much bigger would be nice too. Totally.
  - gtyras2mrs 6y ago
    What's the planned size of the display? To me, a physical calendar is useful to get an idea of the schedule at a glance - but this seems like it will be too small to get a clear idea at a glance. I'm guessing 6"-7" ? TBH 13-15" would be ideal to hang up on the wall (with a better contrast ratio as well) - but I'm guessing that would be way too expensive?
    - konschubert 6y ago
      It's a bit above 7 inches. It's enough to get a feel actually for the week and not miss anything important on the next day - that's what I'm using it for personally. You're right in guessing that anything bigger is very expensive - let's hope the cost comes down!
tpetry 6y ago
Something which is really missing is wifi support and the ability to pull a custom image to display from somewhere. You could then easily display status dashboards, calendars, whatever someone likes. If you have a library for easily building these screens this could be really interesting. I have seen this idea at the joan board, but they are really expensive (attaching an ipad to the wall is cheaper) and i cant find this feature anymore. I guess it was hidden at some screenshot and small text somewhere.
vessenes 6y ago
I looked at buying a company that does this, called Visionect. They have a consumer product called getjoan (at getjoan.com) that is some direct competition for what you want to do. Here's my quick summary: * They were using the tech for low power conference room calendars, which was a good use case pre-COVID. * They said consumers really liked Joan, and that it was a popular product internally for employees. * It renders pretty much any web view, which I think is the right idea Overall, my assessment is that generally the market is small, and building a 'good' version, e.g. something that feels as good as a remarkable 2, is going to be really expensive. Joan as a product is very thick, and also has terrible connectivity - no wifi-based configuration, needs out of date USB drivers downloaded in order to talk to it, etc. etc. So, in answer to your question, as a hobby, yes. As an actual product for sale, I do not think it is a large market. If you find a large market you will be fighting companies like visionect that have deep supply chain roots to Eink directly. If it were larger and lighter, I think putting one up on the fridge showing the family calendar, or other use cases like the conference room where it's nice to have updating information without running power are good ideas. But this is a very small market. And you are fighting the fact that people usually prefer bright colorful displays except in niche applications. In summary, I would urge you to look at a different hardware niche.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Hey, thanks for the feedback. I agree that the market for this particular product is very small.

briefcomment 6y ago

Darker or bolder lines and text would be nice I think. It would be interesting if you put a little red LED on it like a soft alarm for upcoming events. I would pay $35 for this, buy I'm sure others would pay more. Edit: Saw the 200 euro price tag, don't think I'm in the market for this at that price.

konschubert 6y ago
Thank you for your feedback, especially regarding the price.

danimal88 6y ago

I'd go for a much smaller bezel/frame.

sxp 6y ago

Can you post some specs about the size of the display in inches & pixels? And does it run an open OS? I recently bought an M5Paper which is a 960X540, 4.7" ESP32 e-ink display for $70. So that provides a baseline for your hardware.

okl 6y ago
That price was at quantity '1' though, right?
- dogma1138 6y ago
  Yes but even at 10K you’ll be looking at $50 per unit at best. eInk displays are expensive as fuck thanks to patents.
  - konschubert 6y ago
    Yes.
  - robinsoh 6y ago
    > eInk displays are expensive as fuck thanks to patents. Citation please.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+e+ink+so+expensive https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+e+ink+so+expensive
      - robinsoh 6y ago
        Sigh... I work in the display industry and interact with competitors as well as partners of EInk. The first link is a reddit post. I leave it to others to work out why a lot of these comments blaming patents are completely wrong. I've tried to counteract these mistaken assumptions repeatedly on HN. See my comment history. But after this kind of low quality approach to factual discussion (eg: I ask for a citation and instead am given a reddit link) I'm giving up trying to correct this misconception.

anotheryou 6y ago

I might not be your market but I'd want: - a tiny version - with little bezel - at most 35eur - showing just todays upcoming agenda. - Maybe some bold and inverted display of soon to begin events. Than again... I could dock my phone, keep the screen on and show some calendar app, but I don't either. Maybe I should :), would be possible with tasker, rfid and a dock.

germinalphrase 6y ago

The frame size to screen feels unbalanced to me. I would reduce the frame width and consider using a solid CNC’ed price of wood instead of using picture frame construction. Unless you can get those seams very tight, it looks a little cheap (which your price point isnt).

konschubert 6y ago
Yea, fair point! Interesting idea with the CNC'd wood - I'll look into that for sure!

dsr_ 6y ago

The frame overshadows the display. You might: - reduce the size of the frame - mount the display flush to the front of the frame The contrast in the photo does not look great. Perhaps use hatching or shading instead of the solid black areas? In any case, you'll want to be able to separate out different calendars. Other display modes? "Today", "Clock/Calendar", "Now and Next"? How do you control it?

mark-r 6y ago
I think the idea is the display comes directly from Google calendar and you don't have much control over it.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Nope, it just gets the events from gcal. The layout is whatever I make it.
konschubert 6y ago
Thank you for the feedback. You're right, the display is smaller than I'd like... for sure. I'll also see what can be done on a black-and white display with regards to the stark contrast. > Other display modes? "Today", "Clock/Calendar", "Now and Next"? Yes, that's do-able, I "just" have to code it. > How do you control it? In the App. I should make that clearer on the website for sure.
- m4lvin 6y ago
  > In the App. I should make that clearer on the website for sure. I would only want this if I can use it without yet another app. Please consider using a simple web interface etc.

hertzrat 6y ago

Wall calendars don’t have room for enough information. A weekly view would be nice. I would like a thinner frame and larger screen for readability. I might worry about the inconvenience of powering it or of entering/editing information. For the price point, a fancier build quality would help with the “premium” feel you probably would need: it would need to stand as a practical art piece

konschubert 6y ago
Good feedback, thank you.

mark-r 6y ago

Too expensive for the utility it provides. A Raspberry Pi with a simple LCD could do the job for half the price. An old obsolete phone would work too.

cointreau 6y ago

I actually like the heavy frame, although I see why some might find it a bit heavy, given that the apparent goal of most screen designers is to eliminate the bezel entirely. My biggest sticking point here is price. 200 euros is a no-go; given the limited nature of the device, I wouldn’t even consider 100. 50 is the absolute max I’d pay for something like this. It’s a very nice product, and your target audience might very well be people who can afford an expensive desk object. I don’t think most of the folks I know could pay that, though.

konschubert 6y ago
Thank you for the feedback. Getting the price down is definitely one of my priorities.

nom 6y ago

Others will comment on the product itself, and because it looks like you're trying to feel out the market, my questions are: Do you have experience developing, certifying and shipping consumer hardware? In what countries do you want to sell it? Who builds the hardware? How big is your first run?

konschubert 6y ago
Hehe, those are really important questions you're asking. I'm looking at the EU and the US market. I know I need to get CE and RoHS and a bunch of other certificates. I know this won't be easy. If you know somebody who has experience with that, ideally in a boutique/startup environment, I'd love to hear the advice they have to give.
- AussieWog93 6y ago
  I run a small business selling a piece of open source hardware I designed a few years back (total sales around 10,000 units do far). I haven't got a single certificate - FCC, CE, RoHS or otherwise. Your customers don't give a fuck, the governments don't give a fuck, and neither should you. That goes for all forms of official certification. Unless some bureaucrat actively gets in your face and demands you do paperwork (EU VAT registration for FBA sellers is a good example), focus on good logistics and a solid product.
  - kweks 6y ago
    Just in case anyone is considering taking the above as advice.. Everything is entirely correct. Focus on a great product. However, avoiding certification 'because noone cares' - is incorrect. People don't care until something goes wrong. Correct, you can skirt standards and certifications, or buy CE ratings from less-than-reputable firms - but if something goes wrong - and you're unable to produce appropriate certifications - you open yourself to a world of risk.

iamleppert 6y ago

The wood bezel is kind of ugly & cheap looking. The audience for this is likely to be tech people and users who want to show off their calendar or manage their time with calendar invites. I think this could do well with a more contemporary frame. You could market it to people as a solution to forgetting meetings; the price would have to be low enough (sub $100) to trigger people’s impulse buying. The lower the price the more likely you will be to get a sale. Do a test on Facebook with different price points and see which one produces better conversions: you don’t need to actually have the product available to buy yet. This product is mostly going to live or die based on the marketing & pricing.

jitl 6y ago
There’s no accounting for taste. I’d prefer a wood frame to some kind of LED emissive plastic or metal
- azinman2 6y ago
  Except it’s not particularly nice word and the proportions are all off.
  - konschubert 6y ago
    Fair.
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  A delicate chrome bezel might work though. One of the appeals of the e-paper though is the "natural" look of it — as though it is paper. The wood frame is in keeping with that.
konschubert 6y ago
I actually like the wood as material per se, but I still want to improve a bit on the processing. I'd love to lower the price, too. I don't know yet if it's possible.
- 6y ago

bombcar 6y ago

It needs to support Office 365 or some sort of connector.

konschubert 6y ago
Yea, for sure, that's something I'd like to have as well!
- pjerem 6y ago
  Please make it use standards or at least don't directly use Google's or Office APIs. It'll be way easier to support a lot of calendars (including Google Calendar) if you stay with CalDav in mind than the other way. However, I like the idea. That said, 199€ is not cheap. It will be really hard to sell at that price.
  - konschubert 6y ago
    I'll see what I can do to get the price down before release. Shooting from the hip, what price would you have expected?

diego_moita 6y ago

Since you're announcing it at an heavy traffic like HN it is quite likely there are already 200 companies in ShenZhen reading your post and and planning to sell it for one tenth of what you're asking.

dogma1138 6y ago
While Chinese can copy it easily the eInk display will kinda guarantee that even half the price would be pushing it. In any case they don’t need to even preemptively copy it once you order it from a Chinese OEM they’ll use the money you paid them to make a few 1000’s units more for themselves and have them on Aliexpress before you even get the first batch shipped.

DangerousPie 6y ago

I really like this idea, but I agree with others that the bezels look a bit too large (do you need them to hide the components?) and the price seems relatively high. I also thought that the calendar looked a bit grey/dull in the image you show. Is this just about the lighting or is the display not very high-contrast?

konschubert 6y ago
> do you need them to hide the components? Yes for now. Though I might get them down in size as I iterate on the hardware... > Is this just about the lighting or is the display not very high-contrast? To be honest I'd say it's both.

loloquwowndueo 6y ago

You want some feedback? Here is some: it’s too expensive. 200€ for a display-only calendar? Thanks, I’ll pass.

jlengrand 6y ago

Interesting! I've done something _very roughly_ similar over the past weeks (https://twitter.com/jlengrand/status/1362319916649578499 https://twitter.com/jlengrand/status/1362319916649578499). I would go and say that putting calendar only is probably too static info as displayed on the website (it'll change only once a day). My setup cost about 80$ total so I guess the pricing is not wild. I do really like the cool effect of epaper personally, much more than the typical 'use a tablet as dashboard' that has a backlight. Good job!

jlengrand 6y ago
Oh and funnily enough when I showed that on Twitter people asked for exactly what you did so you might be up to something, though I wonder if displayed like you do now the resolution will be high enough

twarge 6y ago

It would be useful to show a list of the day's next events and to-do's. Is iCloud sync even possible?

konschubert 6y ago
> Is iCloud sync even possible? There are ways to make it work but it's not yet the way I'd like it to be.

maartn 6y ago

It’s too officy, have a look at this one for inspiration: https://www.instructables.com/E-Ink-Family-Calendar-Using-ESP32/ https://www.instructables.com/E-Ink-Family-Calendar-Using-ES...

creativenolo 6y ago

Thin white frame with a white mounting could feel more aesthetically balanced.

m4lvin 6y ago

You will have to compete with much cheaper ideas like this kindle-based dashboard https://github.com/pascalw/kindle-dash https://github.com/pascalw/kindle-dash discussed a while ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25939042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25939042

_Microft 6y ago

Have you considered customizability of some sort? E.g. allowing people to extend your product, by software or by providing necessary information to easily create 3D printed mounts or alternate frames. Give the users a place to exchange and host their solutions and your calendar could be a presentation platform that others create for without requiring you to do the work yourself.

daniel_iversen 6y ago

I think your product is a great idea, good luck! Only feedback, as others have said, the frame isn't quite my style, maybe a non-wood or a thinner frame would be nice. And personally I'd like to have the option to not have Saturday and Sunday on there (since I'm imagining using this at my work desk) and the font size maybe a little bigger/bolder for legibility.

konschubert 6y ago
I can say that I fully agree on the "remove the weekend" option. It's definitely on the list.

carbon85 6y ago

The frame fit and finish is not adequate, hire someone who is able to cut and assemble frame miters that do not have gaps. Offer a three wood options, Maple (light) Oak (Medium) and Walnut (dark).

xiaolingxiao 6y ago

It's an awesome idea. The color the epaper might go better with stainless steel, or even glass. But as it stands the gray/black/brown combo looks a bit like an Ugly Tie, it could work in the right room/wall, but may need some thinking on the end of the buyer.

cweagans 6y ago

IMO, the bezel is way way way too big for how much screen space there is. Instead of red oak, I'd suggest looking at walnut or cherry -- something with more color and a little less texture might help the screen to take focus. You could also look at separating the screen from the bezel with some kind of mat board or something (another commenter linked to an instructable that did this). I'm also not super clear on the the exact use case for this. Have you considered making it more of a portrait orientation, making it a single day view, and maybe adding some additional information (maybe some todos from Todoist or something?)

konschubert 6y ago
The wood is actually beech, though this particular batch I got for the prototypes had a surprising amount of texture. I am planning to use lighter colors in future. Regarding your second point: I'd love to support a multitude of layout options some day.
- cweagans 6y ago
  Huh. Alright then. Either way, I'd recommend leaning toward a less textured, richer/darker color and species of wood. If you go lighter, it's going to look a little washed out IMO. Also, in your quality control for the wood bits, make sure that those mitered corners all line up evenly across the entire joint (examples of what I'm talking about highlighted here: https://monosnap.com/file/MkTzAjJhx7v7DkL5kOKypQNFKVyrNU https://monosnap.com/file/MkTzAjJhx7v7DkL5kOKypQNFKVyrNU). People who have purchased any kind of fine woodworking will see this and see something somewhat poorly made, even if the actual electronic hardware and software parts of the product are rock solid. The presence of those gaps means that one or more of the following things are true: 1) the miters weren't cut at a perfect 45, 2) the wood wasn't dried long enough, 3) the pieces were cut too short, 4) the wood was moved from a high humidity environment to a low humidity one (causing it to dry out and shrink slightly). 1 and 3 can be solved by closer inspection/better processes for the people/machines cutting the wood. 2 and 4 are harder to remedy if it's possible at all. I'd guess it would mean a new supplier + factory doing the wood bits. Not necessarily saying that layout options would be _necessary_. Just pointing out that something more focused on showing immediately relevant information (i.e. scoped to _today_, rather than this entire week) might help to more clearly define the value of the product to a prospective buyer.

zackbloom 6y ago

I believe one reason people are responding negatively to the frame is there is insufficient padding around the content before the frame begins. I know it would be painful to not use all the screen real estate, but I think there needs to be some spacing. Alternatively you could surround the screen with some sort of matting before the frame begins.

konschubert 6y ago
Good idea. Also the matting. But I think people are right: The frame is quite big. I'd love to get the size down.

nde 6y ago

Really cool idea! Style aside, I think you’ve developed an interesting product with lots of appeal, especially for those looking to be “less” connected. For those complaining about the style, perhaps offering a DIY kit may be a viable alternative that allows anyone to add their own flair.

omidh28 6y ago

With this price, Just buy a tablet and mount it.

iamben 6y ago

I love these kind of projects. But what I'd like is slightly bigger than kindle e-ink display that shows a webpage of my choice. And I'd like it to run off mains power. Then I can pretty much show what I want - so it's easy to set up a rotating dashboard with the weather, my calendar, TFL alerts, whatever. Why doesn't this exist?!

dominotw 6y ago
can you open that webpage in 10 in or 13 inch eink devices ? Plenty of them out there. I even watch youtube videos on mine.
- hultner 6y ago
  Which device?
  - discordance 6y ago
    13 inch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeC3LIFTaho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeC3LIFTaho 25 inch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY
miniatureape 6y ago
If not a webpage I would be happy with it displaying a bitmap. Let me put in a URL and poll it with the dimensions as query param. I will handle the render and serve back whatever I want. I could draw my calendar on the left, the weather in one corner and todo list in another.
- dmitrygr 6y ago
  You can buy eInk price tags off eBay (7.4 inch price data brand, $25 each). I am releasing in a week or so, a cursory firmware for them that allows drawing on them in greyscale plus yellow any image you want, uploaded remotely. Quite cheap. Years of battery life.
6y ago

throwaway69123 6y ago

Bigger screens are better.

Closi 6y ago

I'm not sure who this product is targeted at. If it's for "home consumers" then it doesn't really make that much sense as the calendar is focussed on the 9-5, while home calendars are usually more focused on the 4pm-10pm. Also bear in mind that home calendars will have multiple simultaneous appointments - Dad will take the dog to the vet appointment while Mum takes her daughter to the ballet, so it needs to be possible to show these side by side and be readable (especially considering these are short activities). Then if this is for office users who schedule lots of meetings... If this is a product which is intended to be used in a corporate environment, the fact it is missing Exchange support (or at least that this is not stated) is a huge gap for most people. Additionally is this thing a touch screen? Like if a new meeting appears can I accept it on this device or do I need to go and get another device just to accept the meeting? And if I have a meeting at 6am does it shrink the time to show it? How about all-day meetings, do they show up at the top? (Sometimes I have a combination of all-day meetings with other meetings throughout the day). Can I click on the meeting and see more details? My calendar is full of lots of ones called "Catch up - X and Y" and it looks like the later part of the meeting name might be truncated so I would need to have the option to either see attendees or who it is with. So I conclude that this probably isn't for someone with lots of meetings, unless it's mainly for novelty. Then if it's for a person who doesn't have that many meetings... the price is a little high. It looks like a great product, it just feels like it needs to work out the problem it's trying to solve a little bit so then you can walk back to the features you need to implement. It risks being a product which is more about novelty than about being something usable in the long term. I know the page says home and office, but you might be better picking one and working out what building a really great product for that single user category means.

DC1350 6y ago
Looks like it would work well in offices to stick on the outside of meeting rooms or any kind of shared space. I don’t like it as a personal calendar.
- simonjgreen 6y ago
  Joan does this well today

guilamu 6y ago

Typo : "User your smartphone to configure."

sixothree 6y ago

I think you should machine the frame as much as possible so that you can get the display as close to the front as possible.

ajb 6y ago
I agree with that. Currently the display is very close to the edge so it feels like you would have to peer round the frame. I guess you want to use as much of our pixel-area as possible, but a bit of margin would make it more relaxing to look at.

kissgyorgy 6y ago

This actually gave me the idea to use my reMarkable screen as a calendar like this. I need to generate a picture and upload it every morning.

granshaw 6y ago

This is a prime product for a Kickstarter or gofundme campaign, both for seed capital and to get early feedback. Seriously, massive lost opportunity otherwise

konschubert 6y ago
I've considered it. To me Kickstarter is a double-edged sword and I'd rather only take money from customers once I can actually deliver ... let's me sleep more easy. But maybe I should re-consider, yea..

cthreepo 6y ago

maybe a vertical version with a support that you can have on the desk like a picture frame, with a less wide wood frame, maybe the display can alternate showing the calendar for a few minutes and your favourite newspaper frontpage or something else for a few minutes

cush 6y ago

Honest feedback: from the photos, it looks very gray. The appeal of e-paper to me is the contrast. So having a background so gray kind of defeats the purpose for me. Maybe it's just the photo you took or the lighting though.

the__alchemist 6y ago
That's surprising to hear: e-paper is a notoriously low-contrast display medium.

encom 6y ago

Reading the website, it seems this product is tied to Google. Instead of using a proprietary cloud service, you should work with CalDAV instead and make it accessible to everyone.

jsilence 6y ago
Strongly support this suggestion! Integrated CalDAV or at least subscribing to .ics calendars, since device would not allow for inputing new events.

Merrillin 6y ago

Good luck. My two cents: I suggest making the software work first, on existing tablet(s). Then once you have a product people actually want/use you can add the cost and complexity of building, inventorying, and shipping a physical product. Also, far more people would use your software than buy a physical version and you would have an audience of all the people using your software to convert into physical product customers as an upgrade. Again, good luck!

m-p-3 6y ago

Is it battery-powered? And how thick is it? I currently have a notepas stuck to the fridge with some magnets, if it was slim and could be powered for a while on a single charge I'd probably put it on the fridge.

konschubert 6y ago
Battery-powered is kind of my dream as well, but this one is wired. Removes a whole lot of complexity.

MilnerRoute 6y ago

Here's what I thought when I read "e-paper calendar." You know how most calendars have a gorgeous photo above the dates (that changes with each month?) - Is there any way you could have a larger screen (or a second screen) just to reproduce the feel of having the grid of dates below an eye-catching photo? (I remember being really impressed by the pictures of famous authors Amazon used as screensavers on early editions of the Kindle -- and thought it'd be fun to see some high-quality nature photos in black-and-white e-ink.) - If this ever became a commercial product, people could even use their own photos. - Images could even be put on "shuffle" -- so the e-ink calendar had an entirely different image above the dates every day of the month.

cameldrv 6y ago

I like this. I would buy it. I would also buy a related product that would fetch a particular web page every couple of minutes and display it on the screen. It's possible to hack up various devices to accomplish this, but the setup is a pain. Mega bonus points for no cloud crap, just connect to wifi and do everything locally. One thing I'd love to see in both of these products is no refresh if the content hasn't changed. One annoying aspect of e-paper displays is that they have to flash white and black when refreshing. If there is no change to the content, this isn't necessary, and then doesn't present a distraction out of the corner of your eye.

konschubert 6y ago
> One thing I'd love to see in both of these products is no refresh if the content hasn't changed. That's already implemented actually :)

spuz 6y ago

Check out Inkplate. It has a 6" screen, it's programmable so can display whatever you want - not just a calendar and has an option for a plastic frame and it's only $100. They also have 10" version coming soon. Maybe you should pivot into building custom wooden frames and/or software for Inkplates. https://inkplate.io/ https://inkplate.io/

simonjgreen 6y ago

Love the idea, I regularly search for products that will do this for me, but please please include support for non-Google calendars.

steve918 6y ago
Same. I would buy, but I don't use Google Calendar and I'm getting sick of services that only support Google / Apple.

grayclhn 6y ago

Agree on the design concerns that other people have raised... I'm also a little concerned that you seem to only have one calendar with relatively few events on it as your example. Weekly views with 5+ distinct calendars on them get unusable pretty fast (and often the same event showing up on several of the calendars) so make sure you have a decent solution for that if you're planning to market this as a "family" calendar.

philsnow 6y ago

I have the same issues as everybody else (larger screen, smaller bezel, flush mount to bezel, google calendar only), but I'll talk about the copy on the site: Under "Set and forget", "User your [...]" should be "Use your [...]". If you're anywhere near this price point, you can't have any typos in your copy. "For the home": > Unlike a paper-based family planner, the Invisible Calendar is up-to-date with what's in everyone's phones. Even the kids can catch a glance at the weekend - and know when to schedule that sleepover. To me it feels like the age when kids start to really manage their own schedules is also around the age when parents give them (or let them pay for) their own phones. If everybody has a phone, what need does a shared device on a wall fulfill? The "and for the office" block for some reason made me think that it would be neat to have it show a single day while in portrait and show the week while in landscape. Then in portrait/day mode, it takes the place of the narrow sliver I give to Calendar.app on one of my screens / lets me reclaim that screen space, and I can still see the week at a glance by just turning it on its mount/pedestal/whatever. This would work a lot better if it were battery powered though, you might not want the cable moving around while you're turning it.

konschubert 6y ago
Many of the ideas you mentioned are also floating in my head. I have to prioritize, but maybe one day... And thanks for pointing out the typo :)

jcun4128 6y ago

it has a power chord?

Waterluvian 6y ago

Don't make the important information so hard to read. I don't think the black background needs to be a thing. If you have to distinguish blocks judt thicken the border a wee bit. You'd be surprised how little you need.

iaw 6y ago

How well does it handle double and triple bookings in the same time slot?

rsj_hn 6y ago

This would be nice for old timers like me whose eyesight was ruined from years of staring at screens. I avoid doing scheduling on my phone due to the form factor, but have my schedule in google cal (others may use exchange), so this would be a better form factor for meetings than the phone, but without taking up valuable monitor real estate. I would maximize screen real-estate, so I would stick it on my desk and occasionally glance at it, thus it would be nice if the box for the next meeting changed color a few minutes before the meeting so that I'd know immediately that I had a meeting coming up just with a quick glance. It would also be nice if I could tell roughly how many meetings I have in a day and when they are just with a glance. If you want to know something super awesome, have it very slowly scroll through the day. E.g. in the morning you might see 9 am (empty box) 11 am (shaded box for meeting) 1 pm (empty box) 3 pm (shaded box for 3 pm meeting) 5 pm empty box Then, as you approach 11 am the shaded box turns black, maybe it even says "meeting in 10 min". By that time, the 9 am box has been scrolled off the screen. At 1pm, the 9 am meeting has scrolled off, and I only need to see the 3 pm box. close to 3, that one turns black. etc. Another option is to magnify what's coming up: small box for things in past big box for things right now medium box for hour after that small box for everything after that Point being, you just want to get all the info you need -- what's coming up -- without squinting at the frame or spending a lot of time looking at it.

bloopernova 6y ago

You're going to be displaying information on a paper like reflective surface. You've probably already thought of this, but check out paper organizers and calendars. Especially take not of what works, for instance light text on dark background. What works for active screens probably won't for passive screens.

the__alchemist 6y ago

What MCU are you using? Have you run into issues with shortages? I'm asking since I'm also developing an e-paper product, for a different purpose. Are you doing full refreshes each update? Seems like it would be OK in this use, since the content doesn't change often. You mentioned batteries as a complexity-adder: I agree, but ideally, this makes sense as a battery-powered device. It should be capable of running for a very long time on a few AA or AAAs. (The limitation being internet connectivity for refreshing) The advantage is reduced cable clutter, and flexibility in where it goes. Maybe for a second edition, as not to delay release.

konschubert 6y ago
Hey, let's connect maybe? You can send me an email at mail@konstantinschubert.com EDIT: I sent you an email.

sentinel 6y ago

Does that chord mean that it's not battery powered? Would be nicer if it is battery powered.

antoniuschan99 6y ago

Aside from aesthetics of the wood bezel being much smaller, you will also save on cost as you will use less material. Shipping and weight will be less too.

e-clinton 6y ago

I like the idea! I know an excellent wood worker if you want really fancy frames.

jfrunyon 6y ago

Why not simply use an off-the-shelf frame? As others have already said, the bezel is very big compared to the whole product. I'm sure you could find something that would look nice enough, and cost you far less than any custom-made wood frame (and assembly thereof). This seems like a wonderful idea to me - although only usable in many cases if it has wifi (I don't see any mention of connectivity on the page). FWIW, the price point is also about double what I would personally consider paying for it.

fblp 6y ago

Get the panel separately and work with a local woodshop on the frame so that you can test lots of prototypes. Then send your frame design back to wherever the whole thing is getting assembled (assume, china). Also, how much does an e-ink panel like that cost these days?

futhey 6y ago

Since there's so much depth (thickness) in the bezel, you need more margins around the readable content to account for shadows. One solution would be to use a mat board to separate the content from the frame (instead of wasting e-ink screen space). Another is to change the shape of the frame to remove shadows. However, I imagine you're already working against the cost of e-ink displays, and the mat board would have the added benefit of making the screen feel larger than it actually is.

DamnInteresting 6y ago

When I read the title of this thread, what I pictured in my mind was an e-ink version of a paper wall calendar or a monthly desk calendar; a grid 7 squares wide and 5 down that can display any month. The user could tap on a day to zoom into it, and hand write some notes/events/etc with a stylus like they would a paper calendar. Perhaps it could have an optional sidebar on the zoomed-in version that shows Google Calendar appointments. I can imagine someone like my mom using such a device, she still tracks all of her appointments on a paper wall calendar.

dukeofdoom 6y ago

Why not just make it into a mirror? People buy mirrors all the time. When they renovate, when the old mirror breaks, or when they decorate a new house. Its huge existing market. They are more likely to buy a mirror with an extra feature like a calendar, much easier than buy an e-calendar. Which they never buy, and might not see enough of a use of. Essentially, making a mirror, already a primary useful device, more useful will sell better, than trying to create a new market for an e-device.

Cd00d 6y ago

I'd like to see it handle multiple calendars. My work calendar. My spouse's work calendar. Our shared personal calendar. Kid's school calendar. All with toggles for one at a time or all at once or any combination for daily scheduling discussions. Good luck! Neat idea!

konschubert 6y ago
It can do that already, even in the current stage of development. (They would have to share their calendars with your google account though. )

avipars 6y ago

why not just modify a kindle or nook?

Fatboyrunning 6y ago

Can I build apps for this?

onion2k 6y ago

I don't need a calendar for work things as I literally stare at a screen all day and my calendar is never more than a few alt+tabs away (and no one else in my home needs to see it). On this one there's only space for things that are happening during the day. One small design change would need to be that this calendar would have to include evenings as that's literally when everything in my social life (such as it is, I'm 43..) happens.

submeta 6y ago

Great idea! Would love to see this for org-agenda (Emacs + org) though as I have transitioned away from Google products years ago.

yellowapple 6y ago

I'd buy it in a heartbeat as long as there's no locking down of the software on it. A lot of these sorts of single-purpose devices go weirdly out of their way to be hostile to people modifying what software runs on them, which makes it all the more difficult to keep them working after, say, the manufacturer discontinues the product (or itself). A piece of hardware without user-serviceable software might as well be disposable - and the last thing the world needs is more disposable electronics :) It's also worth noting that if you're marketing this for use at work, not all workplaces use Google Calendar; I've worked for quite a few companies that used Microsoft's ecosystem (particularly Outlook) exclusively. For a first go at the software, then perfecting the Google Calendar experience is a reasonable decision, but per above, it'd be nice if those of us with the know-how could mod in whatever data sources we please. A couple questions: 1. Is this wall-mounted only? Or will it have some kind of stand so I can put it on my desk? Apartment dwellers and open-office-floorplan workers would probably find the latter useful :) 2. Would I be able to sync multiple calendars to it? Or would I need to buy multiple frames (one for work, one for personal) if I want to have both my work and personal schedule on display?

konschubert 6y ago
Hi, thanks for the feedback. I am not planning to do anything to lock it down, but if you want something designed from the outset to be hackable, you're maybe happier with an https://inkplate.io/ https://inkplate.io/? Regarding your questions: 1. I am planning to add a stand. The prototype doesn't have one yet. 2. Yes, you can sync multiple calendars. They all have to be shared to the same google account (Need to share your work calendar with your personal account).

Qwertious 6y ago

What size is this? I can't see any indicators or text saying what size it is. EDIT: Also, if it updates the screen rarely enough, why not put solar panels on it? That bezel is already pretty darn thick, and if the solar panels draw enough power than you could forgo a power supply or external charging entirely.

mclightning 6y ago

This site screams, this is an MVP-idea-test side.

dabch 6y ago

This is quite blatant a copy of my project from a few years back: https://github.com/dabch/epaper-calendar https://github.com/dabch/epaper-calendar Considering that you even starred my GitHub repository and that even the frame looks pretty exactly like the one I built (but with nicer quality), this really seems to be heavily inspired by my build from early 2019. Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy that people like to build on my stuff. You could even re-use the code (MIT license). Making this thing ready to sell is probably a lot of work. I never had any intention to do that. But still, don't sell this as your idea. And remember, MIT license allows you to re-use the code, but it requires to re-state the license text, including the name of the original author.

0xbadcafebee 6y ago

I might buy it if it didn't depend on Google Calendar. I would probably also replace the frame. I could go to any Michaels store and get them to make a more attractive frame for $20-$40. Also, not sure how large e-paper screens can get, but I might like a huge one for my wall.

bradknowles 6y ago

I don’t use Google calendar. Could I get a version that syncs with Apple iCal? For work purposes, could I get something that syncs with Outlook? Also, what about colors for overlaying the calendars of multiple people, like me and my wife? Can I get monthly view, as well as weekly and daily views?