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Yea. I am selling a pretty honest product, nothing fishy about it. Not even naughty. Just an eink display for google calendar. My Google Merchant account got b

Yea. I am selling a pretty honest product, nothing fishy about it. Not even naughty. Just an eink display for google calendar. My Google Merchant account got banned immediately and I have no idea why. For now, I have decided to not play this game and will look for marketing avenues outside google. EDIT: In case you want to play a game of guess-what-got-him-banned, this is the product page: https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-calendar https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale...

bombcar 3y ago
You’re probably better off shipping free hardware to appropriate bloggers, etc rather than burning cash at the altar of Google.
- konschubert 3y ago
  yes. That's what I will probably try.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I'm partial to https://www.sevarg.net https://www.sevarg.net myself; it's not me but he may be interested.
icelancer 3y ago
I clicked through to see what got you banned and I gotta be honest, this product looks pretty good! Just wanted to note that.
junon 3y ago
Do you ship to Europe? And it says it's open - do you have docs for that? If so I'll buy one immediately. It's beautiful and surprisingly affordable for the size.
- konschubert 3y ago
  In terms of openness, there is this: https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image-url-manual.html https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image... and this: https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/main/HowToBuildAnApp.md https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/ma... I also want to make the esp32 controller itself more hackable in future, but I don't want to promise anything because that's quite a lot of work for me. ------- I'll ship within Europe as soon as I have bootstrapped the 7000 Euro necessary for CE certification. Unfortunately, my dear home country of Germany isn't a very friendly place for small hardware boostrappers. :P EDIT: I created a google form. When it is available in Europe, I will notify anyone who leaves their email: https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9 https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9
  - junon 3y ago
    Thanks! Anywhere I can get updates for Europe certification? Rare case I'd subscribe to a newsletter if you mentioned it in there.
    - konschubert 3y ago
      No, I don't have one... I really need to get one going. In the meantime, there is only instagram: http://instagram.com/invisiblecomputers/ http://instagram.com/invisiblecomputers/
    - konschubert 3y ago
      EDIT: I decided to crate a google form if you want to get notified: https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9 https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9
      - junon 3y ago
        Thanks!
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Are you aware of the CE Self Certification process? https://cemarking.net/ce-marking-knowledgebase/ce-self-certification/ https://cemarking.net/ce-marking-knowledgebase/ce-self-certi...
ericbarrett 3y ago
> In case you want to play a game of guess-what-got-him-banned My stab-in-the-dark would be using the word "Google," probably by overly-simple heuristics trying to prevent tech support scams. You know, those flashing banner ads that say "Immediate action required on your Google account! Click here to fix!"
GauntletWizard 3y ago
Awesome work, and awesome product. I want to plug a friend's project, 15 years ago, Google's Radish - https://developers.google.com/gdata/articles/radish https://developers.google.com/gdata/articles/radish - Which looks pretty primitive and bulky by comparison but had excellent engineering and set of tradeoffs at the time. What's it's power draw? Can it be run from a battery for a few weeks? That's one of the big advantages of e-paper over a tablet screen (the other major one being viewing angles), and one with a built in battery (so it can report status on the screen itself) would be great.
- konschubert 3y ago
  It doesn't have an internal battery and I don't know the exact power draw. But since it's in deep sleep most of the time, I don't think it draws a lot.
gndk 3y ago
Could be related to your site saying "Note: Due to high demand, current orders may take two weeks to ship. ". Thats pretty long. What do you have set in your merchant center shipping settings? See https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6069284?hl=en https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6069284?hl=en
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- konschubert 3y ago
  That note is just there since last week because there was a peak in orders and I am struggling to keep up. It wasn't there when they paused my merchant account.
nonrepeating 3y ago
That’s a really nice-looking product, and inspiring to those of us who’d like to create and sell our own creations.
- konschubert 3y ago
  Thanks man.
hello_there 3y ago
This looks like a very nice product and it matches exactly something that I've been wanting and thinking about. So I tried to order one (using PayPal), but it doesn't seem like you're shipping to Norway. Are you planning to open up for shipments to more countries any time soon?
- konschubert 3y ago
  Norway requires CE, as far as I know. I don't have that certification yet, it's quite expensive, about 7000 Euro. It pains me that I cannot sell within Europe, I can see the sales I am losing. Hopefully I can bootstrap those funds before the holiday season :D EDIT: I created a google form. When it is available in Europe, I will notify anyone who leaves their email: https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9 https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9
  - AdoHaha 3y ago
    I don't think you would need to pay so much. In most cases i.e. not health, not children etc you can even self certify: https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/product-requirements/labels-markings/ce-marking/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/product-requirements/l...
mschuster91 3y ago
I want one so bad. Only thing is, I'd like to run my own software on it - do you support modding?
- konschubert 3y ago
  yes and no. It's easy if you just want to display your own content: https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image-url-manual.html https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image... or, if you want to share your app with others, there is: https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/main/HowToBuildAnApp.md https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/ma... It's hard if you want to run your own embedded code. I just haven't written the documentation for it and you would need your own UART flasher board.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > I just haven't written the documentation for it and you would need your own UART flasher board. That would not be an issue. However, I'm based in Germany as well... do you have some sort of newsletter?
    - konschubert 3y ago
      No newsletter, but I just created a google form I you want to get notified if/when it is available in Europe: https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9 https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Wow, very clever, just display an image! Does the image server really have to be on the Internet? Can I just enter a locally-resolvable hostname or IP address?
    - konschubert 3y ago
      Has to be online since it is proxied via an online backend which does the actual black-and-white conversion etc. I have some ideas for letting users point the device directly to a local URL, but I don't want to commit to any promises on that front. You could try using something like https://ngrok.com https://ngrok.com, that's what I sometimes use for testing.
KMVed 3y ago
Why mention Google calendar? Why not also display Outlook calendars or whatever? Seems like you could, and Google is probably wondering why you are trying to use their name in your product? Lots of red flags for this commodity product, which is issue three.
- mulmen 3y ago
  Commodity product? Are there other e-ink calendars/generic displays? I was looking for one the other day and came up with nothing.
throwaway290 3y ago
1) Mentioning Google and Google account many times 2) something innocent (using Tor, using blocklisted VPN, being associated with a banned google account) 3) something you're not telling us (violating some google policy, billing address in sanctioned country, using stolen cc, I know you didn't but you asked to guess!)
- konschubert 3y ago
  My guess is that it is probably 1). Somebody in their anti-spam team read "Google Calendar", saw my display and thought "Nah, that's no google calendar" :D But maybe it was something else. It's of course possible I violated some kind of policy. But they're not sending me any debug messages :D
mulmen 3y ago
Oh wow I was just looking for something like this the other day. The actual calendaring feature isn't as useful to me as a live weather report and daily forecast (next 24 hour weather) plus tide chart. Can this be customized/hacked?
- konschubert 3y ago
  You can point it to an image URL and it will refresh whenever that image changes. https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image-url-manual.html https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image... So as long as you can dynamically serve an image of the content you want to see, you can connect the display to it. Or you can even build an app that others can use (this is experimental still): https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/main/HowToBuildAnApp.md https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/ma...

bombcar 3y ago

You’re probably better off shipping free hardware to appropriate bloggers, etc rather than burning cash at the altar of Google.

konschubert 3y ago
yes. That's what I will probably try.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I'm partial to https://www.sevarg.net https://www.sevarg.net myself; it's not me but he may be interested.

icelancer 3y ago

I clicked through to see what got you banned and I gotta be honest, this product looks pretty good! Just wanted to note that.

junon 3y ago

Do you ship to Europe? And it says it's open - do you have docs for that? If so I'll buy one immediately. It's beautiful and surprisingly affordable for the size.

konschubert 3y ago
In terms of openness, there is this: https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image-url-manual.html https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image... and this: https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/main/HowToBuildAnApp.md https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/ma... I also want to make the esp32 controller itself more hackable in future, but I don't want to promise anything because that's quite a lot of work for me. ------- I'll ship within Europe as soon as I have bootstrapped the 7000 Euro necessary for CE certification. Unfortunately, my dear home country of Germany isn't a very friendly place for small hardware boostrappers. :P EDIT: I created a google form. When it is available in Europe, I will notify anyone who leaves their email: https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9 https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9
- junon 3y ago
  Thanks! Anywhere I can get updates for Europe certification? Rare case I'd subscribe to a newsletter if you mentioned it in there.
  - konschubert 3y ago
    No, I don't have one... I really need to get one going. In the meantime, there is only instagram: http://instagram.com/invisiblecomputers/ http://instagram.com/invisiblecomputers/
  - konschubert 3y ago
    EDIT: I decided to crate a google form if you want to get notified: https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9 https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9
    - junon 3y ago
      Thanks!
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Are you aware of the CE Self Certification process? https://cemarking.net/ce-marking-knowledgebase/ce-self-certification/ https://cemarking.net/ce-marking-knowledgebase/ce-self-certi...

ericbarrett 3y ago

> In case you want to play a game of guess-what-got-him-banned My stab-in-the-dark would be using the word "Google," probably by overly-simple heuristics trying to prevent tech support scams. You know, those flashing banner ads that say "Immediate action required on your Google account! Click here to fix!"

GauntletWizard 3y ago

Awesome work, and awesome product. I want to plug a friend's project, 15 years ago, Google's Radish - https://developers.google.com/gdata/articles/radish https://developers.google.com/gdata/articles/radish - Which looks pretty primitive and bulky by comparison but had excellent engineering and set of tradeoffs at the time. What's it's power draw? Can it be run from a battery for a few weeks? That's one of the big advantages of e-paper over a tablet screen (the other major one being viewing angles), and one with a built in battery (so it can report status on the screen itself) would be great.

konschubert 3y ago
It doesn't have an internal battery and I don't know the exact power draw. But since it's in deep sleep most of the time, I don't think it draws a lot.

gndk 3y ago

Could be related to your site saying "Note: Due to high demand, current orders may take two weeks to ship. ". Thats pretty long. What do you have set in your merchant center shipping settings? See https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6069284?hl=en https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6069284?hl=en

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
konschubert 3y ago
That note is just there since last week because there was a peak in orders and I am struggling to keep up. It wasn't there when they paused my merchant account.

nonrepeating 3y ago

That’s a really nice-looking product, and inspiring to those of us who’d like to create and sell our own creations.

konschubert 3y ago
Thanks man.

hello_there 3y ago

This looks like a very nice product and it matches exactly something that I've been wanting and thinking about. So I tried to order one (using PayPal), but it doesn't seem like you're shipping to Norway. Are you planning to open up for shipments to more countries any time soon?

konschubert 3y ago
Norway requires CE, as far as I know. I don't have that certification yet, it's quite expensive, about 7000 Euro. It pains me that I cannot sell within Europe, I can see the sales I am losing. Hopefully I can bootstrap those funds before the holiday season :D EDIT: I created a google form. When it is available in Europe, I will notify anyone who leaves their email: https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9 https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9
- AdoHaha 3y ago
  I don't think you would need to pay so much. In most cases i.e. not health, not children etc you can even self certify: https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/product-requirements/labels-markings/ce-marking/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/product-requirements/l...

mschuster91 3y ago

I want one so bad. Only thing is, I'd like to run my own software on it - do you support modding?

konschubert 3y ago
yes and no. It's easy if you just want to display your own content: https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image-url-manual.html https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image... or, if you want to share your app with others, there is: https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/main/HowToBuildAnApp.md https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/ma... It's hard if you want to run your own embedded code. I just haven't written the documentation for it and you would need your own UART flasher board.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > I just haven't written the documentation for it and you would need your own UART flasher board. That would not be an issue. However, I'm based in Germany as well... do you have some sort of newsletter?
  - konschubert 3y ago
    No newsletter, but I just created a google form I you want to get notified if/when it is available in Europe: https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9 https://forms.gle/96sGBWFsxgAomG3Q9
- mulmen 3y ago
  Wow, very clever, just display an image! Does the image server really have to be on the Internet? Can I just enter a locally-resolvable hostname or IP address?
  - konschubert 3y ago
    Has to be online since it is proxied via an online backend which does the actual black-and-white conversion etc. I have some ideas for letting users point the device directly to a local URL, but I don't want to commit to any promises on that front. You could try using something like https://ngrok.com https://ngrok.com, that's what I sometimes use for testing.

KMVed 3y ago

Why mention Google calendar? Why not also display Outlook calendars or whatever? Seems like you could, and Google is probably wondering why you are trying to use their name in your product? Lots of red flags for this commodity product, which is issue three.

mulmen 3y ago
Commodity product? Are there other e-ink calendars/generic displays? I was looking for one the other day and came up with nothing.

throwaway290 3y ago

1) Mentioning Google and Google account many times 2) something innocent (using Tor, using blocklisted VPN, being associated with a banned google account) 3) something you're not telling us (violating some google policy, billing address in sanctioned country, using stolen cc, I know you didn't but you asked to guess!)

konschubert 3y ago
My guess is that it is probably 1). Somebody in their anti-spam team read "Google Calendar", saw my display and thought "Nah, that's no google calendar" :D But maybe it was something else. It's of course possible I violated some kind of policy. But they're not sending me any debug messages :D

mulmen 3y ago

Oh wow I was just looking for something like this the other day. The actual calendaring feature isn't as useful to me as a live weather report and daily forecast (next 24 hour weather) plus tide chart. Can this be customized/hacked?

konschubert 3y ago
You can point it to an image URL and it will refresh whenever that image changes. https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image-url-manual.html https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image... So as long as you can dynamically serve an image of the content you want to see, you can connect the display to it. Or you can even build an app that others can use (this is experimental still): https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/main/HowToBuildAnApp.md https://github.com/Invisible-Computers/image-gallery/blob/ma...