5 ms·

There are a lot of "electronic price tags" which are basically the same form factor as your trading cards, except they mass produce them (have nice plastic case

There are a lot of "electronic price tags" which are basically the same form factor as your trading cards, except they mass produce them (have nice plastic cases) and they usually include a 3-color eink (black-white-red or black-white-yellow) plus a wireless transmitter (usually proprietary protocol, but sometimes plain Bluetooth and/or NFC) for OTA updates and a 10-year battery (sometimes replaceable CR2032). Also, if you can grab them at $6 / piece, I imagine they're being produced for a lot less than that (random AliExpress link: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803094207083.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803094207083.html). If you're thinking of mass-production might be worth reaching out to one of those manufacturers; you can buy in bulk if nothing else (but I'm sure they'd be open to customizing it a bit - maybe some branding on the plastic molding and whatnot).

jonahss 4y ago
Heh, the screens I use are exactly the ones contained in those products. Huh, the battery lasts for ten years? I wonder how many refreshes you get for that. Maybe I should just be using those.....
- woodleader 4y ago
  I've worked in retail for an electronics store where we gradually changed over to those. They were from https://www.ses-imagotag.com/products/electronic-shelf-labels/ https://www.ses-imagotag.com/products/electronic-shelf-label... They even calimed to us 13 years batery life at an average of 1 refresh per day. They are pretty power efficient and we've had many devices that ran for years without an issue.
  - stavros 4y ago
    That's around 5000 refreshes, being a bit charitable. If I'm playing cards, I might see that in a few days, as I'm going to be doing tens or hundreds of refreshes a day, rather than one.
    - andai 4y ago
      If the cards are always on a table / special playing surface, they could be wirelessly charged during play.
      - DougBTX 4y ago
        Some variants use NFC power to drive the display update, so no batteries!
        jonahss 4y ago
        I didn't realize NFC could deliver enough power for that. I'll look into it.
        AdamTReineke 4y ago
        The demos I saw of this were slow, on the order of 10 seconds to get enough power through.
        jonahss 4y ago
        aha! So there is a catch. Still worth checking out.
        eru 4y ago
        If you could store that power in a capacitor it might be fine. Basically, only one change every ten seconds is probably workable, as long as you don't have a ten second latency when asking for a change.
    - Altho00 4y ago
      I think it would really depends on what game you're playing. From what I gathered from the article it's not really meant to replace a standard deck of cards but more aimed towards board games. People that are serious about board gaming will usually have 1 session/week , sometimes but rarely more, often less. So I'm sure on average each card will get more than 7 refreshes/week but it will probably be in the acceptable range.
- Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
  Aaron Christophel is your guy for e-ink price tag hacking [1]. He's a friendly guy, he'll help you. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@atc1441 https://www.youtube.com/@atc1441
pjerem 4y ago
Looks like you need a gateway (not that expensive but too expensive to just hack with those tags at home). I’d love to find cheap e-ink tags that can just receive a picture over some cheap wireless protocol and display it.
- gigel82 4y ago
  The link was entirely random to show a similar mass produced product, I didn't do much research. You can search for NFC ones on the same website, they're a few bucks more. There are also Bluetooth variants which is more friendly to hacking at home (update over the air from farther away) but those look pricier.
  - gh02t 4y ago
    Does anybody here know a Bluetooth (ideally) or NFC one? Preferably with a known protocol that has open source software... at least a known/open protocol to set the displays if not end-to-end open. I have wanted to play with one of these but haven't been able to find one that is easy to hack on. I'd really like a $10-20 epaper display that I could update wirelessly on very low power, there are so many fun projects that could be done with that. There are a few dev boards that almost hit that price point but software support is really bad in my experience.
    - iamflimflam1 4y ago
      There's a pretty good set of videos here showing how to hack them: https://youtu.be/S44NSr37eoo https://youtu.be/S44NSr37eoo
      - bitwrangler 4y ago
        Thanks for this video! It shows a nice layout with 3D-printed holder, pogo-pins, ESP32 Lolin as programmer, with CC2531 RF dongle as the access point.
fxtentacle 4y ago
The Waveshare ones are even powered purely by NFC. So they don't need a battery, yet you can rewrite them with ease.
- jonahss 4y ago
  I'm going to have to look into that
- worldmerge 4y ago
  Oh wow, that’s so cool
jiveturkey 4y ago
Seen these at Ross and/or other discount stores. It boggled my mind. How could these possibly be cheaper than the staff swapping bits of paper. 10 year battery but I assume they break (and you have to walk around to find the broken ones) in 1-2 years, or get retail abuse, or other calamities. The 4" ones (close to paper tag size) are $20.
- galleywest200 4y ago
  I wonder if the cost savings is in eliminating the labor required to physically relabel things. I presume sending one person on patrol to look for the broken tags twice a week is far cheaper.
  - jiveturkey 4y ago
    I can't see how. You need the staff in the store anyway (to check stock level, neaten up things, return merch to the proper location, etc), so they are already interacting at every location. Otherwise they spend a lot of time relatively idle. Are you really going to get that extra bit of time out of them productively?
    - gigel82 4y ago
      It's mostly for dynamic pricing (based on time of day, number of customers, weather, you name it). It'd be more expensive and time consuming to send an employee with a label printer all over the store a couple of times a day.
      - dotancohen 4y ago
        The HFT model is coming to retail? I don't like this. What happens if I put an item in my cart when the tag says it costs three shillings, but when I get to the register they want five?
        skripp 4y ago
        Only time I've seen this was an IKEA in Shanghai about 5 years ago. They had a sign that said that umbrellas cost (equivalent to) $1 if it was raining outside and $3 if it wasn't. :)

jonahss 4y ago

Heh, the screens I use are exactly the ones contained in those products. Huh, the battery lasts for ten years? I wonder how many refreshes you get for that. Maybe I should just be using those.....

woodleader 4y ago
I've worked in retail for an electronics store where we gradually changed over to those. They were from https://www.ses-imagotag.com/products/electronic-shelf-labels/ https://www.ses-imagotag.com/products/electronic-shelf-label... They even calimed to us 13 years batery life at an average of 1 refresh per day. They are pretty power efficient and we've had many devices that ran for years without an issue.
- stavros 4y ago
  That's around 5000 refreshes, being a bit charitable. If I'm playing cards, I might see that in a few days, as I'm going to be doing tens or hundreds of refreshes a day, rather than one.
  - andai 4y ago
    If the cards are always on a table / special playing surface, they could be wirelessly charged during play.
    - DougBTX 4y ago
      Some variants use NFC power to drive the display update, so no batteries!
      - jonahss 4y ago
        I didn't realize NFC could deliver enough power for that. I'll look into it.
        AdamTReineke 4y ago
        The demos I saw of this were slow, on the order of 10 seconds to get enough power through.
        jonahss 4y ago
        aha! So there is a catch. Still worth checking out.
        eru 4y ago
        If you could store that power in a capacitor it might be fine. Basically, only one change every ten seconds is probably workable, as long as you don't have a ten second latency when asking for a change.
  - Altho00 4y ago
    I think it would really depends on what game you're playing. From what I gathered from the article it's not really meant to replace a standard deck of cards but more aimed towards board games. People that are serious about board gaming will usually have 1 session/week , sometimes but rarely more, often less. So I'm sure on average each card will get more than 7 refreshes/week but it will probably be in the acceptable range.
Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
Aaron Christophel is your guy for e-ink price tag hacking [1]. He's a friendly guy, he'll help you. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@atc1441 https://www.youtube.com/@atc1441

pjerem 4y ago

Looks like you need a gateway (not that expensive but too expensive to just hack with those tags at home). I’d love to find cheap e-ink tags that can just receive a picture over some cheap wireless protocol and display it.

gigel82 4y ago
The link was entirely random to show a similar mass produced product, I didn't do much research. You can search for NFC ones on the same website, they're a few bucks more. There are also Bluetooth variants which is more friendly to hacking at home (update over the air from farther away) but those look pricier.
- gh02t 4y ago
  Does anybody here know a Bluetooth (ideally) or NFC one? Preferably with a known protocol that has open source software... at least a known/open protocol to set the displays if not end-to-end open. I have wanted to play with one of these but haven't been able to find one that is easy to hack on. I'd really like a $10-20 epaper display that I could update wirelessly on very low power, there are so many fun projects that could be done with that. There are a few dev boards that almost hit that price point but software support is really bad in my experience.
  - iamflimflam1 4y ago
    There's a pretty good set of videos here showing how to hack them: https://youtu.be/S44NSr37eoo https://youtu.be/S44NSr37eoo
    - bitwrangler 4y ago
      Thanks for this video! It shows a nice layout with 3D-printed holder, pogo-pins, ESP32 Lolin as programmer, with CC2531 RF dongle as the access point.

fxtentacle 4y ago

The Waveshare ones are even powered purely by NFC. So they don't need a battery, yet you can rewrite them with ease.

jonahss 4y ago
I'm going to have to look into that
worldmerge 4y ago
Oh wow, that’s so cool

jiveturkey 4y ago

Seen these at Ross and/or other discount stores. It boggled my mind. How could these possibly be cheaper than the staff swapping bits of paper. 10 year battery but I assume they break (and you have to walk around to find the broken ones) in 1-2 years, or get retail abuse, or other calamities. The 4" ones (close to paper tag size) are $20.

galleywest200 4y ago
I wonder if the cost savings is in eliminating the labor required to physically relabel things. I presume sending one person on patrol to look for the broken tags twice a week is far cheaper.
- jiveturkey 4y ago
  I can't see how. You need the staff in the store anyway (to check stock level, neaten up things, return merch to the proper location, etc), so they are already interacting at every location. Otherwise they spend a lot of time relatively idle. Are you really going to get that extra bit of time out of them productively?
  - gigel82 4y ago
    It's mostly for dynamic pricing (based on time of day, number of customers, weather, you name it). It'd be more expensive and time consuming to send an employee with a label printer all over the store a couple of times a day.
    - dotancohen 4y ago
      The HFT model is coming to retail? I don't like this. What happens if I put an item in my cart when the tag says it costs three shillings, but when I get to the register they want five?
      - skripp 4y ago
        Only time I've seen this was an IKEA in Shanghai about 5 years ago. They had a sign that said that umbrellas cost (equivalent to) $1 if it was raining outside and $3 if it wasn't. :)