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The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display
- speps 3y agoPictures are deceitful, screen is only 7.5", fair price I'm not sure, no details on SDK.
- throwaway8877 3y agoIt certainly appears like 15".
- konschubert 3y agoWow, sorry, that was not my intention. I am going to have new pictures taken anyways, I will try to make sure to add some size references. There are a bunch of photos here. Which ones would you say are the most suggestive of a bigger screen size? I can maybe re-sort the images to prevent confusion. Last thing I want is a customer ordering something, them being unhappy and me having to process a return. That's always a loss for me.
- CharlesW 3y agoDefinitely include a banana for scale. (But seriously, showing something like car keys hanging next to the currently-isolated shots would help a lot.)
- omoikane 3y ago> no details on SDK. The "develop your own content" link on the top page links to: https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image-url-manual.html https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image... I guess being able to display custom images is a plus, but I am not sure I would call that a SDK.
- MPSimmons 3y agoIn some ways, it's actually way less limiting than any other SDK. You can directly control every pixel it displays, which is pretty freeing. I like that idea a lot, but I don't like that it's proxied through their server :-(
- chomp 3y agoI really want to do this with a pi zero w, but with a larger screen. 7.5” is barely larger than a door placard.
- mushufasa 3y agoSeems like this is/was meant to be a door placard for meeting room availability.
- ta988 3y agoYou can find waveshare panels that are bigger, 13.3" for around the price of that thing. They are not that hard to drive.
- 0ct4via 3y agoWhile what could well be the panel used in this is cheaper[1], there's obviously consideration due regarding whatever device is driving the panel, making the frame/mount, and coding the software to drive it, etc. You may be able to get a larger panel for the same sort of price[2], but there's something to be said for having a finished product that's fundamentally plug-and-play... which is arguably a different market to a "buy the components and make one yourself" crowd. [1] https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/7.5inch-e-paper-g.htm https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/7.5inch-e... [2] https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/13.3inch-e-paper-hat-k.htm https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/13.3inch-...
- hmottestad 3y agoThe best displays seem to be reserved for ebook vendors. I’m using a boox device with a PWA (webpage that works as an app).
- rattus_rattus 3y agoI have a similar thing running using a Zero WH and Inkycal. The screen I have is the same size (7.5 inches) but you can use bigger ones too. I didn’t want to shell out more money initially for a larger screen, but I may upgrade it later.
- m-p-3 3y agoWhat I'm wondering is how open the device is for being operated entirely locally. I want to make sure I can still operate it myself so that I don't have to generate e-waste when it becomes "obsolete" by the maker. Otherwise the form factor is really good-looking and I'd put this in my kitchen.
- hau 3y agoApparently it could be configured to use self-hosted local visionect server. https://hub.docker.com/r/visionect/visionect-server-v3/ https://hub.docker.com/r/visionect/visionect-server-v3/
- napsy 3y agoThe device in the article is not compatible with Visionect, but Visionect does offer digital signage devices (with even 13", 32" or even 42" e-ink displays). The prices of these devices are a bit premium but you get what you pay for. Disclaimer: I work for Visionect
- Zetobal 3y agoHave done the same with a rooted kindle... and you can get them for 20$ on the bay. The price really seems a bit high for a novelty item.
- newshackr 3y agoHow do you serve your calendar on it?
- Zetobal 3y agoI used this[0] in the beginning but switched to some custom python scripts running on the kindle. [0] https://github.com/Underknowledge/underknowledge.puppeteer-homeassistant https://github.com/Underknowledge/underknowledge.puppeteer-h...
- n8cpdx 3y agoI don’t really understand how it is still trendy to pretend that everyone uses Google for email and calendar. I get that the SF crowd was all about it, but if the last few years have taught us anything it is that there’s more to the techie world than VC free money startups. I reckon there are far more people who need this and who might buy this who are using Outlook/Office 365 either alone or in some combination than who use Gmail exclusively. And yes, Office 365 has an API. Even Alexa works with it.
- GavinMcG 3y agoI’d imagine the creator uses Google calendar, made it for themself, and then decided others might like to have a pre-built version. “Trendy” probably doesn’t have anything to do with it.
- konschubert 3y agoCreator here. That's exactly what happened.
- blagie 3y agoCreator: If you decide to move this to a full-fledged startup, it should: 1) Have a touch screen 2) Integrate with Outlook calendar and multiple Google calendars 3) Integrate with smart home features (e.g. lights, temperature, etc) 4) Integrate with other data sources (e.g. news) At $150, be open-source and open-hardware (at a lower price point, I'd do without). I'm looking for something like that. Until then, neat product!
- stavros 3y agoNo offense to you, but this comment sounds like one of those customers that are never going to use your thing, even if you implement all that. Find the people who want to use a product despite all the lacking features, because the one thing it does is exactly what they need, and build on that.
- mushufasa 3y ago"Screen Size: 7.5 Screen Resolution: 800 x 480" Fine for displaying a day but not a week
- noman-land 3y ago[flagged]
- alejoar 3y agoYou, on the other hand, sound like a very not-sad person.
- evanjrowley 3y agoTo know the world is to be sad.
- rpmisms 3y agoI don't use calendar or email that much. When I do, Google does fine.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- SentientOctopus 3y agoI wouldn't put it that strongly, but I tend to agree. With the amount of almost daily news/leaks/... it should be a no brainer to not use these advertising platforms made by advertising companies IF you are tech savvy. It is hard for others as they have to give up some convenience. And to the person calling you 'sad', I find it hard not to be when people react that way.
- stetrain 3y agoSmoking, lottery tickets, and drugs cause negative effects in people's lives. Using gmail has caused me no negative effects. It may not be ideal, but it works and has a reasonable set of tradeoffs. I think it's more like renting vs buying or building from source vs compiled binaries than it is a crippling substance addiction which will ruin your health and relationships.
- wkat4242 3y agoWell, what else would you use? I'm using Office 365 myself, because I hate google's datamining but Microsoft isn't much better. The added benefit for me is that I work with M365 at work and having an unrestricted tenant for myself helps me understand it better (to see the options available that I don't have access to in the admin console at work). But I don't know what else I'd use. I don't like proton very much as a company either (purely personal opinion), and I don't know anyone else that has good mobile syncing.
- ta988 3y agoSo only usable with their own app that may disappear with the company in a year? That sound like potential e-waste in a short amount of time.
- downrightmike 3y agoThey've been around for at least sine the pandemic started
- gklitt 3y agoI bought one of these for my house recently and it’s been great. We wrote custom software for our own info display, straightforward since you just serve images over an HTTP endpoint. I’m sure there are cheaper ways to achieve this result but it’s nice to have a prebuilt package like this. My only complaint is that the custom software requires using a proxy server managed by the device creator which is bad for longevity, hope that changes eventually.
- lostmsu 3y ago> custom software requires using a proxy server managed by the device creator Ugh, otherwise sounded attractive.
- rubatuga 3y agoWhy wouldn't you just buy a used kindle touch? Once rooted, it runs python3, curl, and imagemagick, I use it to query the Canadian weather API and display the forecast. No proxies needed! Plus it only costs $40 used... Essentially a local-device version of my earlier attempt at an e-paper weather display: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oel08SDFyIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oel08SDFyIY If there's enough interest I can release a new video.
- vosper 3y agoPlease do release a new video! There’s a comment thread about “it’s a pity kindles don’t seem to get jailbroken” so presumably some people are confused (me included)
- nolongerthere 3y agoYea, the video is 7(!) years old, Amazon regularly patches jailbreaks just like Apple does, and for certain fire tablets it’s apparently impossible to jailbreak fully at all for the last 2 years. So you either need to find one that didn’t get the OTA update or find some way to downgrade to a previous OS/bootloader.
- esperent 3y ago
- rismay 3y agoA lot of little projects like this that end up going bust because of the cost of running the business. Still cool that projects like this are launched.
- konschubert 3y agoNot OP here, but I saw a bunch of traffic coming to my website, so I checked and found this post ;) I try to keep things lean. Reduce fixed costs, especially server costs, since I want to keep this running 10 years AFTER I sell the last display. I outsource some stuff but I make sure everything can be scaled down when I the business is slow.
- 0ct4via 3y agoFrom the creator: "It’s not open source and you need the backend for it to work." They alluded to open sourcing the software/API if the business ever goes under, but obviously that'd not guaranteed. Such a shame, I'd be willing to pay more for a product that was actually open.
- drdaeman 3y agoThank you, this is exactly the information I was looking for. If it would be a nicely built frame with a display and a microcontroller (flashable with a custom firmware, or with a simple and sane local API where I can upload a full bitmap via USB and/or WiFi, with no cloud requirements) I'd buy this in an instant. I have a Waveshare 7.5" display for some Grafana dashboards, but I'm all thumbs when it comes to building a physical case for it, so the circuit board just dangles on a wire in an ugly cardboard box. A shame, indeed. I have no use for a display that can't even show what I want (or needs a third-party service and Internet connectivity for this). I guess, it's most likely hackable if the case can be opened, but I'm not exactly willing to fight it for $150.
- vladxyz 3y agoI have a 3D printer to supplement my thumbs for things like this. Let me know if you want some help upgrading that cardboard to plastic!
- ulrischa 3y agoI was looking for something like this. But the API looks not so good. I always dreamed of something like this that has an API where I can send html to render and completely locally.
- hmottestad 3y agoHow about an android ebook?
- konschubert 3y agoCreator here. I plan to support HTML rendering but I can't promise anything. You can already point it to an image url with an image in the right resolution on the internet, and it will render that. But for pointing it to an HTML page, you need a headless browser and that comes with a bunch of practical issues.
- davely 3y agoNeat device! I don’t see any obvious answer for this, but how often does it query / refresh the image URL? I’m thinking of writing some script to just push an updated image to something like https://example.com/dashboard.png https://example.com/dashboard.png every 15 minutes or so.
- konschubert 3y agoIt will refresh within a minute or two of you pushing the updated version.
- 999900000999 3y agoThis seems like a fair price. I couldn't an Eink display to work with a Pi Zero. It's seriously difficult to get working. I don't have an exact need for it now, but once I have a project worthwhile I might pick it up.
- IshKebab 3y agoIt's definitely a fair price. Just a shame it is closed source and not battery powered. The Inkplate series of displays are better on both fronts (open source and support batteries). The downside is you'd need to make a nice wooden case, and do some programming.
- declan_roberts 3y agoI can’t believe the price on e-Ink displays still. Unbelievable that they’re more expensive than IPS OLED screens of similar size.
- konschubert 3y agoSmall market dominated by a monopoly.
- throwoutway 3y agoWasnt this suppose to end (the patents expire) in 2022/ 2023?
- cendyne 3y agoIt might take a few years to refine the manufacturing process in other factories under different management. There is certainly a lot of knowledge and equipment to replicate.
- nolongerthere 3y agoTo make a modern comparison, the first mass-market device with USB-C was arguably the 2015 MacBook, it was only really last year 2022 that it finally started to feel like most consumer electronics were being released with usb-c instead of micro-usb, and still many devices today are being manufactured with micro-usb ports (I even have a device I bought this year that utilized… mini-usb!!) so that’s 7+ years for something that everyone agrees is superior to gain serious traction. 3D printers are similar, after the patents expired, it took nearly 10 years for them to be truly mainstream.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- simonebrunozzi 3y agoI love e-ink displays, and I wish there would be more options out there for creartive use, like this one by Invisible Screen (hello Konschubert, thanks for creating this!) What I'd love is a large, high-res, perhaps color, e-ink display that I can use either as a second screen, or as an indipendent computer. I read hours every day on an LCD screen, and most of that reading would be much better on an e-ink.
- infinityio 3y agoThey're very expensive, but I've heard good things about Dasung's e-ink monitors for this purpose
- bloopernova 3y agoI'd like a version of Firefox's Reader Mode where it instead sends the text to an e-ink display. Remotely to a Kindle could work, or locally to an attached e-ink monitor.
- dcreater 3y agoIt sounds like you're looking for the reMarkable 2
- simonebrunozzi 3y agoReviews for the reMarkable 2 are mixed. Not sure it's a great product.
- azinman2 3y agoI love eink. It’s so underused, especially in the home setting, where it can be a real asset as a calm technology. I think it could be a good passive screen for young kids as it’s not a traditional “screen” yet can still communicate information.
- paxys 3y agoProducts like these make me realize that a standard e-reader has the perfect general purpose e-ink display. The Kindle for example is about the same size as this but much sleeker, is backlit, multi-tone, has a battery, wifi, bluetooth, all for less than half the price. I wish there were more mainstream jailbreaking projects and alternative operating systems to really unlock their potential.
- ghostly_s 3y agoYou're comparing a product from one of the largest companies on earth with an upstart. and even the cheapest ad-supported Kindle is only 2/3 the price of this in US?
- paxys 3y agoThe cheapest Kindle is routinely on sale for $60-70. And spec wise there is really no comparison. The Kindle has a backlight. 1448x1072 resolution (compared to this one's 800x480). Battery that can last a month. USB-C. 16GB storage. Bluetooth. It's a very capable device. The fact that this one is made by an "upstart" means nothing. You have to compete on price and quality to be successful. Plus if this company goes out of business and shuts their servers you are left with a $150 paperweight.
- Timshel 3y agoTracking on keepa lowest price is 95$ (https://keepa.com/#!product/1-B0B92489PD https://keepa.com/#!product/1-B0B92489PD) and it's the 6inch. The 6.8inch has not been under 120$. Anyway yes the Kindle has better spec but as you mentionned in your first post the fact that it's locked is the whole point. Amazon is not making money on the device ...
- nolongerthere 3y agoKeepa doesn’t always tell the whole story as it can’t track coupons and in-cart discounts, which Amazon regularly uses especially for their own products to hide the real lowest price from price trackers and scrapers.
- jot 3y agoI purchased one of these after seeing it posted to hn a few weeks ago. Very happy with it. Super easy to setup and just works. Maker has clearly put loads of work into refining the experience.
- Animats 3y agoInvisible? Looks very visible in the pictures. E-Ink prices for large displays are still too far high. Not much improvement in the last year. Little watch-sized ones are only a few dollars, though. Ought to be good for something. Auto gauges? Status displays on low-power devices?
- dredmorbius 3y agoGauges are one instance where e-ink's principle characteristic, persistence, might actually be a strong drawback. For an instrument dashboard, you're better with an active display whose failure mode is to not display any information (or some nominal low/nil response) rather than continue to show the last updated value through all eternity. That last would be particularly bad for speed, fuel, or battery-status displays, say.
- passive 3y agoThe lack of a battery kills this for me. Minimal power usage is one of the benefits of these kinds of displays, so it seems a very strange omission. We have too many cords running along walls as it is, and it makes the placement a lot harder. Neat idea though.
- hiddencost 3y agoI have a home made one running on a battery for 8 months. 10Ah, but it only updates every 8 hours.
- hinkley 3y agoI got into arduino when they first come out because I wanted to build information radiators. Every five years since I look at whether or when it will be possible to hang a picture frame on the wall that has no wires and updates. I’m just about overdue to look again. It seems like we are close, but charging it wirelessly or off of solar hidden in the frame is a while yet. The desktop model really stands out here. The foot needs to be heavy, and there’s plenty of space for batteries in there.
- octobus2021 3y agoNice job, creator. I was working on starting up something similar, went through 3 prototypes but never finished it :( A few ideas for your consideration: - 7 inch is waaaay too small, should be at least 10/11 inch. - Touchscreen is a must. To switch between views, scroll to next/previous day/week, and even insert/update events. - Voice control is really nice to have, eg to read back events for today/this week etc. Maybe to wake up so that the screen does not stay on all the time. - Would be cool to have it running off internal power source. I used LCDs which are power-hungry, but with e-paper you are constrained only by the controller which I think is much less draining (voice control would not be an option in this case I think). - Consider offline mode. Yes it does introduce difficulties but allows people to own the data instead of renting it and sharing with others. Again, great job!
- causality0 3y ago"Invisible"? The sickly blue-gray background of the display makes it look like a giant reflective LCD like a cheap clock.
- mwagstaff 3y agoI bought one of these a few months back. Excellent product, can definitely recommend. Very simple, but very effective.
- CPLX 3y agoI bought one of these the last time it was on HN and I’m happy with it. I have been trying to eliminate reasons to use my phone when at home, and have totally stopped picking it up in the morning. The problem then is I can get blindsided not knowing what my schedule is or if I have an early call. So now I have one of these things by my sink and it shows me just the calendar for the current day.
- User23 3y agoI would pay good money for a tabloid eink reader, so 17x11 inches. Ideally it would fold. A folding pair of 8.5x11 screens designed to work together would fit my use case too. So far as I know, nobody makes such a thing. Ideally it would be color but I’d settle for monochrome.
- WalterBright 3y agoI'd buy it if it would display the front page of today's paper. Oh, I wish the Kindle would use, as it's "off" screen, the last page I was reading.
- dredmorbius 3y agoUsing the most-recently-active application (or book) as the sleep / poweroff screen is a feature of many e-book readers. If not Kindle, then Onyx's BOOX line, and from what I've seen elsewhere, others. Front page of a paper: any e-ink tablet with a PDF viewer or web browser will get you there.