10 ms·

Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album

320 points by benborgers 3y ago

jer0me 3y ago
This is really neat! I have a receipt printer I’ve been meaning to do something cool with—I think it can even handle images.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
> I bought this pack of 8x10 frames off Amazon Thrift stores (in the U.S.) are gold mines for picture frames. And they probably cost you only a few bucks.
- jmlim00 3y ago
  You are absolutely correct. When I built my eink display calendar, I sourced picture frame for $2 at a local Goodwill store.
dt3ft 3y ago
I built something similar with raspberry pi zero 2 w. Instead of showing icloud album, I fetch a paper-edition newspaper frontpage using headless chrome and display it. The display is made by waveshare, quite on the pricy side.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
> iCloud photo albums have no API. However, if you share an iCloud photo album to a public link, you can use the Developer Tools to inspect the API requests Apple is making to get the photos. That's clever. I tried something similar to get shared Calendar (Apple) events for the eInk project I put together. I wish there were a better, less hackish API I could have called.
- kridsdale1 3y ago
  Apple Calendar server uses CalDAV. If you could see the data after authenticating it should be quite parse-able. You could also share your iCloud calendar with an account that is logged in on hardware you own like an old Mac, and use the EventKit framework to send copies of the data to whatever custom server you wanted.
- dewey 3y ago
  Yep, just switch the calendar to "public" and you can just use it with any CalDav client or icalendar libraries like https://github.com/pat/calendav https://github.com/pat/calendav. Nothing hacky about that, just a standard.
livealight 3y ago
Very neat! Did a similar project with AI generated images. Fun for days with this kind of cheap hardware!
acdha 3y ago
I’m mildly surprised that this isn’t an official product. I have half a dozen relatives I’d give “AirFrames” to if Apple made them or let a third party do it, especially if they had decent handling of Live Photos.
- yetanother12345 3y ago
  The keywords that you would want to enter into your preferred search engine are: Digital Picture Frame At this point in time that is already a regular product category. The OP could just have bought one, but chose the DIY path.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - darknavi 3y ago
    Show me one that hooks up directly to iCloud though. We got one for grandparents and its just full of proprietary crap specific to that app.
    - wpsimon3 3y ago
      We kinda got something like this working for a relative. They have an "Aura" frame, and in their app you can set a watch folder/album. So we have a shared iCloud album set as the source and it automatically updates based on the images in that shared album.
      - sfilmeyer 3y ago
        Yeah, we use an Aura hooked up to Google Photos rather than iCloud, but I think it's similar from the Aura UX perspective. It's super easy to use, and the photos just show up in the frame rotation whenever we add a photo to the corresponding album in Google Photos (which we already use for backing up and organizing photos).
    - eli 3y ago
      The problem here is that iCloud is the proprietary crap. They don't offer an appropriate API to get photos out. It'd be easier if you were starting with pictures in something more accessible. That said, I think Aura frames will sync from iCloud via their phone app. Not sure how well it works.
misterbwong 3y ago
This is really cool! I love pet projects like this. Although, I can't help but wonder why OP didn't put a frame around an ancient Fire tablet or something else with an LCD screen and web browsing out of the box. Seems like it would result in a better experience (color) with much less work and about the same price point.
- adtac 3y ago
  Colour e-ink displays exist. We don't live in spaceships yet but this is just as good.
- ratg13 3y ago
  You’d have to constantly power an LCD display. With an e-ink device you could create something that only needs to be recharged 1-2 times a year, or that is passively charged off your WiFi.
  - samb1729 3y ago
    > passively charged off your WiFi I had no idea this is possible. Is there a name for power-over-wifi?
    - KomoD 3y ago
      > Is there a name for power-over-wifi? Yes, the name for power over wifi is power over wifi (or PoWiFi). But doesn't look like it's used at all in anything and uses a special "PoWiFi router"(?) https://modernmobile.cs.washington.edu/docs/powifi.pdf https://modernmobile.cs.washington.edu/docs/powifi.pdf
- benborgers 3y ago
  I thought about this! An old iPad also wouldn’t have to be rooted to show a website. But ultimately I wanted something that could be in a bedroom without glowing at night, which e-ink felt better suited for.
jgrahamc 3y ago
I've built a few things with eink displays and I strongly recommend NOT using simple picture frames (unless they fit perfectly). One way to get a really good looking result is a custom frame. There are tons of custom framing company that will cheaply make you a frame that fits the display with the appropriate cut out. https://blog.jgc.org/2023/05/a-better-case-for-my-inkplate-10-based.html https://blog.jgc.org/2023/05/a-better-case-for-my-inkplate-1...
- sho_hn 3y ago
  I did that for my Rust/LLM-based e-ink AI newspaper: https://imgur.com/a/NoTr8XX https://imgur.com/a/NoTr8XX Custom frame by Halbe Rahmen, who I think make the most magnificent frames in the world, with the most loving team behind them. Not a shill; whenever I interact with the Halbe staff for anything I feel it.
  - iamacyborg 3y ago
    > Custom frame by Halbe Rahmen, who I think make the most magnificent frames in the world, with the most loving team behind them. Not a shill; whenever I interact with the Halbe staff for anything I feel it. Bold statement, what are they offering that's better than going into your typical framing store?
    - sho_hn 3y ago
      I really like their magnet lock thing :-)
  - rob74 3y ago
    Thanks for the pointer! I'm from Germany too, and been considering a similar project (using an old tablet) for a while now. This is another company however that would have been better off if the founder wouldn't have used their own name for it. My first thought was "why buy half a frame from these guys when I can get a whole frame elsewhere?" Nice project BTW! However the coffee stain doesn't look very realistic in black-and-white...
rahimnathwani 3y ago
The device is running an Android app, rather than an OS and app optimized for an always-on device. I wonder whether the power consumption is much lower than that of a regular tablet?
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Come on, Isn't Android, the mobile OS, optimized for always on devices?
  - rahimnathwani 3y ago
    I guess, but perhaps having an app in the foreground increases power usage? For example, if this app accesses the network a lot (not just when it's time to update the image) this would result in the wifi chipset being awake for longer.
- edent 3y ago
  The device is an eReader. The majority of battery power on tablets goes to keeping the screen on and updating it 60 times per-second. The eInk screen is low power to change, and requires zero power to stay on. The device sleeps between screen refreshes, and the WiFi power use in minimal. My nook art screen lasts over a week with refreshes over the day. I don't know of a tablet which has a screen-on time for that long. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/turning-an-eink-screen-into-a-monochrome-art-gallery/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/turning-an-eink-screen-into...
  - rahimnathwani 3y ago
    Awesome. I now see that the app's Play store listing explains this: When started, Electric Sign will download and display a user-specified web page, then go to sleep for a specified number of (minutes/hours/days). It will then wake up, re-download and refresh the web page, and go back to sleep again.
mrhargro 3y ago
blahhh i really want to do a larger format one for art but scared of the hardware part of it not being that technical. seems like there are more people doing it.
- eli 3y ago
  Visionect makes some excellent eInk displays that take care of all the hardware for you. The tradeoff is they're not cheap.
dharma1 3y ago
Nice! The wood frame makes all the difference. Any way to add auth so it doesn't have to be a publicly shared album? Might do the same with a cheap/used OLED android tablet, though I like the minimalism and power consumption of the e-ink tablet
cchance 3y ago
I mean cool but... but really wasn't expecting shoving an eink tablet in a frame lol, was excited for a new big eink display with esp32 or raspi
bageler 3y ago
very nice. Years ago I did something like this with an old broken-but-working macbook for showing photos and cinemagraphs in a frame. Similar matte, but I added a webserver so it would run offline.
kkukshtel 3y ago
Small promo here but: the inability to make collaborative photo albums without some onerous signup/login/auth flow was one that that recently inspired me to make this really simple moodboard website: https://mood.site https://mood.site When you got to the site (a SPA) it generates a new view/edit url for you. You can immediately drag photos onto the page to add to the gallery, remove them, etc. If you share the edit link with someone else, they can do all the same things. However if you share the link without the edit portion, the site is view only. The API is also public and just uses the edqit key query string for auth (check the network traffic), so I've been building a few apps on top of this as a sort of ad-hoc collaborative CDN thing. I'm also working to build something similar to OP for my own grandparents and use mood.site as the image backend.
paxys 3y ago
While I'm sure this is great as a nerd project, I can't imagine giving someone this as a gift over, say, a $30 digital picture frame which is better and more functional in basically every way.
- apwell23 3y ago
  what about battery life, picture that looks like a printed photo, a thin frame and something thats not yet another screen to look at.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  As a parent your perception of value changes. I would much rather have a pile of garbage my daughter spent hours creating than something drop shipped from China at any price point or functionality. I can imagine the authors parents showing all their friends and family the frame their nerd child made for them and explaining that while it’s not as functional as the $30 frame from China their child made it from a used nook and was so excited about how it uses e-something that uses less battery or something. The $30 frame would go in the corner until the plug unseated and then a few years later into a drawer.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I think it depends. My dad would absolutely prefer something that just worked. He certainly appreciates things I make and do but, even the books I've written, he appreciates that I've written something and leaves it out in his apartment but I'm quite sure he's only flipped through the semi-technical content.
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      I bet he leaves it out in his apartment more reliably than if you gave him a book off Amazon. The fact he can’t access the contents of the book isn’t the point. It’s that he takes pride in something he wouldn’t normally read is because it’s yours. That’s why a DIY project for your parents is better than a shrink wrapped piece of future garbage.
afhfah834 3y ago
To me the interesting part of an e-ink frame is that it wouldn't require any battery/cables (otherwise you might as well just get a regular digital frame) I would love if there were a product where you just program the frame with a picture once by plugging it into your phone and using an app Then you never worry about batteries/cables and you can always change the image later To me that is the killer app
- ghaff 3y ago
  At that point, why not print a few photos, put one in an easy to change photo frame, and spend a couple minutes swapping them out now and then? My brother tried to get my dad setup with Apple Music which he spent an afternoon frustrated with. OK, the UI isn't the best but I'm not sure anyone else's is better. I ended up getting him a desktop CD player, gave him a bunch of CDs I don't need any longer, and he's very happy. Sometimes the old (OK not quite) analog approaches are better. ADDED: My (younger) brother rolled his eyes a bit and was a bit surprised CDs even existed any longer but sometimes simpler approaches really are better. And I'm the one with engineering degrees :-)
troyvit 3y ago
This is really cool! How many photos are in your album? Do more photos slow it down?
k8svet 3y ago
Random memory/story, when I was a junior in highschool (so 2007), my friend and I coverted two old laptops to picture frames, using shallow shadow boxes. I took Dillo? Linux, and customized the squashfs (or whatever it was at the time) to run a wifi setup script from outside the squashfs that configured wifi, connected as a samba to their desktop computer with photos in folders, and then would loop through photos with, feh, I think? Definitely my first real use of Linux and probably another pivotal moment in setting me up for the 16 years since then. Thing ran up until a few years ago when the home wifi got replaced with Unifi and the house got re-decorated. I think I even took the CF drive (because yes, I even got CF->IDE adapters) out and imaged it about 6 months ago, for nostalgia's sake. Anyway, this is a super neat project - re-used hardware, eink, and I'm getting to start to really appreciate glancing around and thinking of friends/memories. And though I know I'd end up giving it away if I built one, I am regretting giving away my old Kindle now!
- garrickvanburen 3y ago
  A couple years ago, I did this with an old Chromebook.
robluxus 3y ago
> iCloud photo albums have no API. However, if you share an iCloud photo album to a public link [...] How do folks feel about the security vs. convenience aspect of this? I almost talked myself into doing this for our shared family albums, but I know I really shouldn't do it. Some of our older family members run Windows and iCloud sharing is just horrible there. Basically, the photos keep disappearing from their computer. It looks like we're not the only one with the issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/iCloud/comments/150nq4i/icloud_windows_and_shared_albums_disappearing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/iCloud/comments/150nq4i/icloud_wind...
- croutonwagon 3y ago
  By most standards im fairly security conscious. IE: No listening devices/alexa/google home in the house. For the most part no cameras or mic's inside (obviously cant get past the phone thing). Generally i prefer to self host stuff (ie: my security cams are local only and have no interenet access.) That said I DID setup a public shared album to share to a Dakboard....Its also one i share with family. The URL is so long, from a privacy standpoint its less a concern. The facial details are already on the internet due to family sharing stuff on facebook etc. None of the photos are particularly revelealing and nothing i wouldnt care if they were on a billboard...So meh. I doubt i could be targeted to find it and anyone stumbling across it wont see anything they wouldnt see if they drove by my house and saw my kids playing in the front yard. We also dont religiously post to it, so its not like anyone is going to glean we are out of town because of something we put there. TL:DR - meh, not much a concern on my end, despite other concerns that may border on tinfoil.
- gigglesupstairs 3y ago
  Apple should just pull that windows app/feature if they’re being this shitty with their users. That thread was infuriating.
  - rockooooo 3y ago
    The iCloud file syncing on Windows destroyed my files twice and I never touched it again.
- 3y ago
gigel82 3y ago
I'm curious how long the battery lasts. Since it's Android based I presume it doesn't have a deep-sleep option. Ideally I'd want it to wake up once every 10-30 minutes, fetch a frame to display from a LAN server and go back to sleep. I know it's doable with a custom e-ink display and something like an ESP32 but reusing an e-reader that already has a nice frame and everything is so much nicer.
LASR 3y ago
For those who want less tikering: Two 24 inch monitors bought from a design house auction connected to 3rd Gen Chromecasts. They automatically boot up and display a Google Photos album that contains pictures of the family and pets. These monitors are set to power on at 8 AM and off at 10 PM. Initially my wife hated the idea of having two monitors in the living room. But after I put them in place, we both found it is a constant reminder of good times - which was helpful in many subtle and unexpected ways.
- josefresco 3y ago
  +1 for Google Photos and Chromecast or Nest Hub I take photos on my iPhone, Google photos automatically uploads and I can set my Google devices to show a specific album or a "highlight" reel which is pretty awesome. Not only does it show recent photos, but also photos from the same time the previous year (ala social media "memories"). It's a wonderful, automatic memory machine! More info here: https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9136992?hl=en https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9136992?hl=en
- vineyardmike 3y ago
  …or buy a cheap digital picture frame from <mass market retailer>. When my g-parents passed, and the family moved away, we bought everyone a cheap digital frame linked to a shared family album. They’re like 50-200$ depending on size. My grandmother was always bringing the family together, and we wanted to honor that with way to see each other across geographies. Our chosen company’s albums have an email address that you email a photo to, and it displays on everyone’s frame. Very easy for everyone to contribute.
  - riotnrrd 3y ago
    What brand and model did you buy? I've been looking for something like this for my family.
    - meowtimemania 3y ago
      I got an "Aura" one. It works well and supports connecting a google photos album.
nelgaard 3y ago
Interesting. I have an old nook in the drawer. I made a picture frame project a long time ago (> 15 years according to file timestamps) https://agol.dk/elgaard/picframe.html https://agol.dk/elgaard/picframe.html I think it is overkill to use a browser just to show images. feh still works great if you are running linux/unix I also still would prefer to sync pictures using ssh and maybe rsync on top.
viralpoetry 3y ago
I have tried to build one out of the PocketBook Basic Touch e-reader last October. It has way less functionality tought... https://www.malgregator.com/post/pocketframe/ https://www.malgregator.com/post/pocketframe/ https://hackaday.com/2023/11/13/obsolete-e-reader-gets-new-life/ https://hackaday.com/2023/11/13/obsolete-e-reader-gets-new-l...
spuz 3y ago
I want to do something similar as a gift for my brother. Did you consider removing the bezel of the nook? How hard would that be?
boringg 3y ago
Can someone explain to me what the obsession with e-ink is on hackernews? I understand that it has a lot of great qualities to it but it so far out of price range that it negates the upside. Or am I completely misreading the benefits?
- urbandw311er 3y ago
  It's hard to explain, but I also have a bit of a love of e-ink. I'd describe it as more of a fascination than an obsession. I think it's because it so closely resembles its analogue equivalent (paper & paint) and draws no power. For me, the holy grail will be when I can build, for less than 50 USD, a colour e-ink photo frame, of at least 12 inches diagonal, that I can wall-mount and have it display my photo memories each day, forever changing. Seriously excited about that day. PS: I un-down-voted you. I think it's a fair question.
- boringg 3y ago
  Why did I get downvoted - I am asking a legit question. I don't understand.
  - ska 3y ago
    I suspect because you came across as judgmental and opinionated more than questioning. I'm not saying you meant to, just that is how it could read.
    - allarm 3y ago
      > I suspect because you came across as judgmental and opinionated No, they did not.
      - ska 3y ago
        Note I said it wasn't clear that they meant to be, just that you can see how people (those downvoting) could read it that way. It was quite categorical, and "obsessive" has negative connotations.
- 3y ago
rmccue 3y ago
For anyone who wants a hackable e-ink display, the Inkplate combines a recycled Kindle display with an ESP32 (which also supports the Arduino framework). You can also buy them with both a 3D printed frame and a battery already attached, so all you need to do is program it. (No affiliation, although I recently bought an Inkplate 10.)
j1elo 3y ago
This made me think... it would be awesome to build for my parents a picture frame that could show family photos, and was integrated with an LLM, such that e.g. my mother could say "now I want to see a photo of us during last years's vacations in Italy" or where a given person appeared, or things like that. It would be quite a bit of work, though! Something to add to the pile of personal projects that never seems to progress :-)
- melagonster 3y ago
  Maybe you can try the automated classifying function of iPhone?
jamez 3y ago
So great to see interest in ePaper screens. Picture frame projects specifically seem to be gathering steam. Shameless plug: I built a solar ePaper frame that displays Google Photo albums or loads pictures from an sd-card. https://jamez.it/blog/2023/05/16/version-2-of-my-solar-powered-epaper-digital-photo-frame/ https://jamez.it/blog/2023/05/16/version-2-of-my-solar-power...
clash 3y ago
Very nice. If you don't have the time to build one yourself, you can also buy them here: https://framelabs.eu/ https://framelabs.eu/ Note: I sell them.
- literallyroy 3y ago
  These don’t support an iCloud album do they, only photo uploading over WiFi?
  - clash 3y ago
    Actually my devices can download from remote sources as well. An iCloud bridge is be necessary, though.
foxandmouse 3y ago
On a sidenote, what happened to all the Gallery 3 eink devices we were supposed to get this year? I can't wait to finally have a proper comic book e-ink reader.
- codethief 3y ago
  Good question. Having had a quick look at my favorite search engine's results, screen responsiveness and ghosting seem to have been major issues, which is why many people suspect manufacturers are abandoning the technology. https://goodereader.com/blog/e-paper/what-happened-to-all-the-gallery-3-e-readers https://goodereader.com/blog/e-paper/what-happened-to-all-th... https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/15s7tgo/what_happened_to_all_those_gallery_3based_tablets/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/15s7tgo/what_happe... https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/zms0br/new_eink_gallery_3_review_amazing_colors_but_slow/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/zms0br/new_eink_ga...
ulwtekwcuhwj 3y ago
[dead]
David_FF 3y ago
So you had to inspect the network requests Apple was making with the Developer Tools. Nice that you got it working. I would have assumed they had an API for that already Overall, looks like a nice and fun project
seejayseesjays 3y ago
Super cool work!

320 points by benborgers 3y ago

This is really neat! I have a receipt printer I’ve been meaning to do something cool with—I think it can even handle images.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

> I bought this pack of 8x10 frames off Amazon Thrift stores (in the U.S.) are gold mines for picture frames. And they probably cost you only a few bucks.

jmlim00 3y ago
You are absolutely correct. When I built my eink display calendar, I sourced picture frame for $2 at a local Goodwill store.

dt3ft 3y ago

I built something similar with raspberry pi zero 2 w. Instead of showing icloud album, I fetch a paper-edition newspaper frontpage using headless chrome and display it. The display is made by waveshare, quite on the pricy side.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

> iCloud photo albums have no API. However, if you share an iCloud photo album to a public link, you can use the Developer Tools to inspect the API requests Apple is making to get the photos. That's clever. I tried something similar to get shared Calendar (Apple) events for the eInk project I put together. I wish there were a better, less hackish API I could have called.

kridsdale1 3y ago
Apple Calendar server uses CalDAV. If you could see the data after authenticating it should be quite parse-able. You could also share your iCloud calendar with an account that is logged in on hardware you own like an old Mac, and use the EventKit framework to send copies of the data to whatever custom server you wanted.
dewey 3y ago
Yep, just switch the calendar to "public" and you can just use it with any CalDav client or icalendar libraries like https://github.com/pat/calendav https://github.com/pat/calendav. Nothing hacky about that, just a standard.

livealight 3y ago

Very neat! Did a similar project with AI generated images. Fun for days with this kind of cheap hardware!

acdha 3y ago

I’m mildly surprised that this isn’t an official product. I have half a dozen relatives I’d give “AirFrames” to if Apple made them or let a third party do it, especially if they had decent handling of Live Photos.

yetanother12345 3y ago
The keywords that you would want to enter into your preferred search engine are: Digital Picture Frame At this point in time that is already a regular product category. The OP could just have bought one, but chose the DIY path.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- darknavi 3y ago
  Show me one that hooks up directly to iCloud though. We got one for grandparents and its just full of proprietary crap specific to that app.
  - wpsimon3 3y ago
    We kinda got something like this working for a relative. They have an "Aura" frame, and in their app you can set a watch folder/album. So we have a shared iCloud album set as the source and it automatically updates based on the images in that shared album.
    - sfilmeyer 3y ago
      Yeah, we use an Aura hooked up to Google Photos rather than iCloud, but I think it's similar from the Aura UX perspective. It's super easy to use, and the photos just show up in the frame rotation whenever we add a photo to the corresponding album in Google Photos (which we already use for backing up and organizing photos).
  - eli 3y ago
    The problem here is that iCloud is the proprietary crap. They don't offer an appropriate API to get photos out. It'd be easier if you were starting with pictures in something more accessible. That said, I think Aura frames will sync from iCloud via their phone app. Not sure how well it works.

misterbwong 3y ago

This is really cool! I love pet projects like this. Although, I can't help but wonder why OP didn't put a frame around an ancient Fire tablet or something else with an LCD screen and web browsing out of the box. Seems like it would result in a better experience (color) with much less work and about the same price point.

adtac 3y ago
Colour e-ink displays exist. We don't live in spaceships yet but this is just as good.
ratg13 3y ago
You’d have to constantly power an LCD display. With an e-ink device you could create something that only needs to be recharged 1-2 times a year, or that is passively charged off your WiFi.
- samb1729 3y ago
  > passively charged off your WiFi I had no idea this is possible. Is there a name for power-over-wifi?
  - KomoD 3y ago
    > Is there a name for power-over-wifi? Yes, the name for power over wifi is power over wifi (or PoWiFi). But doesn't look like it's used at all in anything and uses a special "PoWiFi router"(?) https://modernmobile.cs.washington.edu/docs/powifi.pdf https://modernmobile.cs.washington.edu/docs/powifi.pdf
benborgers 3y ago
I thought about this! An old iPad also wouldn’t have to be rooted to show a website. But ultimately I wanted something that could be in a bedroom without glowing at night, which e-ink felt better suited for.

jgrahamc 3y ago

I've built a few things with eink displays and I strongly recommend NOT using simple picture frames (unless they fit perfectly). One way to get a really good looking result is a custom frame. There are tons of custom framing company that will cheaply make you a frame that fits the display with the appropriate cut out. https://blog.jgc.org/2023/05/a-better-case-for-my-inkplate-10-based.html https://blog.jgc.org/2023/05/a-better-case-for-my-inkplate-1...

sho_hn 3y ago
I did that for my Rust/LLM-based e-ink AI newspaper: https://imgur.com/a/NoTr8XX https://imgur.com/a/NoTr8XX Custom frame by Halbe Rahmen, who I think make the most magnificent frames in the world, with the most loving team behind them. Not a shill; whenever I interact with the Halbe staff for anything I feel it.
- iamacyborg 3y ago
  > Custom frame by Halbe Rahmen, who I think make the most magnificent frames in the world, with the most loving team behind them. Not a shill; whenever I interact with the Halbe staff for anything I feel it. Bold statement, what are they offering that's better than going into your typical framing store?
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    I really like their magnet lock thing :-)
- rob74 3y ago
  Thanks for the pointer! I'm from Germany too, and been considering a similar project (using an old tablet) for a while now. This is another company however that would have been better off if the founder wouldn't have used their own name for it. My first thought was "why buy half a frame from these guys when I can get a whole frame elsewhere?" Nice project BTW! However the coffee stain doesn't look very realistic in black-and-white...

rahimnathwani 3y ago

The device is running an Android app, rather than an OS and app optimized for an always-on device. I wonder whether the power consumption is much lower than that of a regular tablet?

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Come on, Isn't Android, the mobile OS, optimized for always on devices?
- rahimnathwani 3y ago
  I guess, but perhaps having an app in the foreground increases power usage? For example, if this app accesses the network a lot (not just when it's time to update the image) this would result in the wifi chipset being awake for longer.
edent 3y ago
The device is an eReader. The majority of battery power on tablets goes to keeping the screen on and updating it 60 times per-second. The eInk screen is low power to change, and requires zero power to stay on. The device sleeps between screen refreshes, and the WiFi power use in minimal. My nook art screen lasts over a week with refreshes over the day. I don't know of a tablet which has a screen-on time for that long. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/turning-an-eink-screen-into-a-monochrome-art-gallery/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/09/turning-an-eink-screen-into...
- rahimnathwani 3y ago
  Awesome. I now see that the app's Play store listing explains this: When started, Electric Sign will download and display a user-specified web page, then go to sleep for a specified number of (minutes/hours/days). It will then wake up, re-download and refresh the web page, and go back to sleep again.

mrhargro 3y ago

blahhh i really want to do a larger format one for art but scared of the hardware part of it not being that technical. seems like there are more people doing it.

eli 3y ago
Visionect makes some excellent eInk displays that take care of all the hardware for you. The tradeoff is they're not cheap.

dharma1 3y ago

Nice! The wood frame makes all the difference. Any way to add auth so it doesn't have to be a publicly shared album? Might do the same with a cheap/used OLED android tablet, though I like the minimalism and power consumption of the e-ink tablet

cchance 3y ago

I mean cool but... but really wasn't expecting shoving an eink tablet in a frame lol, was excited for a new big eink display with esp32 or raspi

bageler 3y ago

very nice. Years ago I did something like this with an old broken-but-working macbook for showing photos and cinemagraphs in a frame. Similar matte, but I added a webserver so it would run offline.

kkukshtel 3y ago

Small promo here but: the inability to make collaborative photo albums without some onerous signup/login/auth flow was one that that recently inspired me to make this really simple moodboard website: https://mood.site https://mood.site When you got to the site (a SPA) it generates a new view/edit url for you. You can immediately drag photos onto the page to add to the gallery, remove them, etc. If you share the edit link with someone else, they can do all the same things. However if you share the link without the edit portion, the site is view only. The API is also public and just uses the edqit key query string for auth (check the network traffic), so I've been building a few apps on top of this as a sort of ad-hoc collaborative CDN thing. I'm also working to build something similar to OP for my own grandparents and use mood.site as the image backend.

paxys 3y ago

While I'm sure this is great as a nerd project, I can't imagine giving someone this as a gift over, say, a $30 digital picture frame which is better and more functional in basically every way.

apwell23 3y ago
what about battery life, picture that looks like a printed photo, a thin frame and something thats not yet another screen to look at.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
As a parent your perception of value changes. I would much rather have a pile of garbage my daughter spent hours creating than something drop shipped from China at any price point or functionality. I can imagine the authors parents showing all their friends and family the frame their nerd child made for them and explaining that while it’s not as functional as the $30 frame from China their child made it from a used nook and was so excited about how it uses e-something that uses less battery or something. The $30 frame would go in the corner until the plug unseated and then a few years later into a drawer.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I think it depends. My dad would absolutely prefer something that just worked. He certainly appreciates things I make and do but, even the books I've written, he appreciates that I've written something and leaves it out in his apartment but I'm quite sure he's only flipped through the semi-technical content.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    I bet he leaves it out in his apartment more reliably than if you gave him a book off Amazon. The fact he can’t access the contents of the book isn’t the point. It’s that he takes pride in something he wouldn’t normally read is because it’s yours. That’s why a DIY project for your parents is better than a shrink wrapped piece of future garbage.

afhfah834 3y ago

To me the interesting part of an e-ink frame is that it wouldn't require any battery/cables (otherwise you might as well just get a regular digital frame) I would love if there were a product where you just program the frame with a picture once by plugging it into your phone and using an app Then you never worry about batteries/cables and you can always change the image later To me that is the killer app

ghaff 3y ago
At that point, why not print a few photos, put one in an easy to change photo frame, and spend a couple minutes swapping them out now and then? My brother tried to get my dad setup with Apple Music which he spent an afternoon frustrated with. OK, the UI isn't the best but I'm not sure anyone else's is better. I ended up getting him a desktop CD player, gave him a bunch of CDs I don't need any longer, and he's very happy. Sometimes the old (OK not quite) analog approaches are better. ADDED: My (younger) brother rolled his eyes a bit and was a bit surprised CDs even existed any longer but sometimes simpler approaches really are better. And I'm the one with engineering degrees :-)

troyvit 3y ago

This is really cool! How many photos are in your album? Do more photos slow it down?

k8svet 3y ago

Random memory/story, when I was a junior in highschool (so 2007), my friend and I coverted two old laptops to picture frames, using shallow shadow boxes. I took Dillo? Linux, and customized the squashfs (or whatever it was at the time) to run a wifi setup script from outside the squashfs that configured wifi, connected as a samba to their desktop computer with photos in folders, and then would loop through photos with, feh, I think? Definitely my first real use of Linux and probably another pivotal moment in setting me up for the 16 years since then. Thing ran up until a few years ago when the home wifi got replaced with Unifi and the house got re-decorated. I think I even took the CF drive (because yes, I even got CF->IDE adapters) out and imaged it about 6 months ago, for nostalgia's sake. Anyway, this is a super neat project - re-used hardware, eink, and I'm getting to start to really appreciate glancing around and thinking of friends/memories. And though I know I'd end up giving it away if I built one, I am regretting giving away my old Kindle now!

garrickvanburen 3y ago
A couple years ago, I did this with an old Chromebook.

robluxus 3y ago

> iCloud photo albums have no API. However, if you share an iCloud photo album to a public link [...] How do folks feel about the security vs. convenience aspect of this? I almost talked myself into doing this for our shared family albums, but I know I really shouldn't do it. Some of our older family members run Windows and iCloud sharing is just horrible there. Basically, the photos keep disappearing from their computer. It looks like we're not the only one with the issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/iCloud/comments/150nq4i/icloud_windows_and_shared_albums_disappearing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/iCloud/comments/150nq4i/icloud_wind...

croutonwagon 3y ago
By most standards im fairly security conscious. IE: No listening devices/alexa/google home in the house. For the most part no cameras or mic's inside (obviously cant get past the phone thing). Generally i prefer to self host stuff (ie: my security cams are local only and have no interenet access.) That said I DID setup a public shared album to share to a Dakboard....Its also one i share with family. The URL is so long, from a privacy standpoint its less a concern. The facial details are already on the internet due to family sharing stuff on facebook etc. None of the photos are particularly revelealing and nothing i wouldnt care if they were on a billboard...So meh. I doubt i could be targeted to find it and anyone stumbling across it wont see anything they wouldnt see if they drove by my house and saw my kids playing in the front yard. We also dont religiously post to it, so its not like anyone is going to glean we are out of town because of something we put there. TL:DR - meh, not much a concern on my end, despite other concerns that may border on tinfoil.
gigglesupstairs 3y ago
Apple should just pull that windows app/feature if they’re being this shitty with their users. That thread was infuriating.
- rockooooo 3y ago
  The iCloud file syncing on Windows destroyed my files twice and I never touched it again.
3y ago

gigel82 3y ago

I'm curious how long the battery lasts. Since it's Android based I presume it doesn't have a deep-sleep option. Ideally I'd want it to wake up once every 10-30 minutes, fetch a frame to display from a LAN server and go back to sleep. I know it's doable with a custom e-ink display and something like an ESP32 but reusing an e-reader that already has a nice frame and everything is so much nicer.

LASR 3y ago

For those who want less tikering: Two 24 inch monitors bought from a design house auction connected to 3rd Gen Chromecasts. They automatically boot up and display a Google Photos album that contains pictures of the family and pets. These monitors are set to power on at 8 AM and off at 10 PM. Initially my wife hated the idea of having two monitors in the living room. But after I put them in place, we both found it is a constant reminder of good times - which was helpful in many subtle and unexpected ways.

josefresco 3y ago
+1 for Google Photos and Chromecast or Nest Hub I take photos on my iPhone, Google photos automatically uploads and I can set my Google devices to show a specific album or a "highlight" reel which is pretty awesome. Not only does it show recent photos, but also photos from the same time the previous year (ala social media "memories"). It's a wonderful, automatic memory machine! More info here: https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9136992?hl=en https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9136992?hl=en
vineyardmike 3y ago
…or buy a cheap digital picture frame from <mass market retailer>. When my g-parents passed, and the family moved away, we bought everyone a cheap digital frame linked to a shared family album. They’re like 50-200$ depending on size. My grandmother was always bringing the family together, and we wanted to honor that with way to see each other across geographies. Our chosen company’s albums have an email address that you email a photo to, and it displays on everyone’s frame. Very easy for everyone to contribute.
- riotnrrd 3y ago
  What brand and model did you buy? I've been looking for something like this for my family.
  - meowtimemania 3y ago
    I got an "Aura" one. It works well and supports connecting a google photos album.

nelgaard 3y ago

Interesting. I have an old nook in the drawer. I made a picture frame project a long time ago (> 15 years according to file timestamps) https://agol.dk/elgaard/picframe.html https://agol.dk/elgaard/picframe.html I think it is overkill to use a browser just to show images. feh still works great if you are running linux/unix I also still would prefer to sync pictures using ssh and maybe rsync on top.

viralpoetry 3y ago

I have tried to build one out of the PocketBook Basic Touch e-reader last October. It has way less functionality tought... https://www.malgregator.com/post/pocketframe/ https://www.malgregator.com/post/pocketframe/ https://hackaday.com/2023/11/13/obsolete-e-reader-gets-new-life/ https://hackaday.com/2023/11/13/obsolete-e-reader-gets-new-l...

spuz 3y ago

I want to do something similar as a gift for my brother. Did you consider removing the bezel of the nook? How hard would that be?

boringg 3y ago

Can someone explain to me what the obsession with e-ink is on hackernews? I understand that it has a lot of great qualities to it but it so far out of price range that it negates the upside. Or am I completely misreading the benefits?

urbandw311er 3y ago
It's hard to explain, but I also have a bit of a love of e-ink. I'd describe it as more of a fascination than an obsession. I think it's because it so closely resembles its analogue equivalent (paper & paint) and draws no power. For me, the holy grail will be when I can build, for less than 50 USD, a colour e-ink photo frame, of at least 12 inches diagonal, that I can wall-mount and have it display my photo memories each day, forever changing. Seriously excited about that day. PS: I un-down-voted you. I think it's a fair question.
boringg 3y ago
Why did I get downvoted - I am asking a legit question. I don't understand.
- ska 3y ago
  I suspect because you came across as judgmental and opinionated more than questioning. I'm not saying you meant to, just that is how it could read.
  - allarm 3y ago
    > I suspect because you came across as judgmental and opinionated No, they did not.
    - ska 3y ago
      Note I said it wasn't clear that they meant to be, just that you can see how people (those downvoting) could read it that way. It was quite categorical, and "obsessive" has negative connotations.
3y ago

rmccue 3y ago

For anyone who wants a hackable e-ink display, the Inkplate combines a recycled Kindle display with an ESP32 (which also supports the Arduino framework). You can also buy them with both a 3D printed frame and a battery already attached, so all you need to do is program it. (No affiliation, although I recently bought an Inkplate 10.)

j1elo 3y ago

This made me think... it would be awesome to build for my parents a picture frame that could show family photos, and was integrated with an LLM, such that e.g. my mother could say "now I want to see a photo of us during last years's vacations in Italy" or where a given person appeared, or things like that. It would be quite a bit of work, though! Something to add to the pile of personal projects that never seems to progress :-)

melagonster 3y ago
Maybe you can try the automated classifying function of iPhone?

jamez 3y ago

So great to see interest in ePaper screens. Picture frame projects specifically seem to be gathering steam. Shameless plug: I built a solar ePaper frame that displays Google Photo albums or loads pictures from an sd-card. https://jamez.it/blog/2023/05/16/version-2-of-my-solar-powered-epaper-digital-photo-frame/ https://jamez.it/blog/2023/05/16/version-2-of-my-solar-power...

clash 3y ago

Very nice. If you don't have the time to build one yourself, you can also buy them here: https://framelabs.eu/ https://framelabs.eu/ Note: I sell them.

literallyroy 3y ago
These don’t support an iCloud album do they, only photo uploading over WiFi?
- clash 3y ago
  Actually my devices can download from remote sources as well. An iCloud bridge is be necessary, though.

foxandmouse 3y ago

On a sidenote, what happened to all the Gallery 3 eink devices we were supposed to get this year? I can't wait to finally have a proper comic book e-ink reader.

codethief 3y ago
Good question. Having had a quick look at my favorite search engine's results, screen responsiveness and ghosting seem to have been major issues, which is why many people suspect manufacturers are abandoning the technology. https://goodereader.com/blog/e-paper/what-happened-to-all-the-gallery-3-e-readers https://goodereader.com/blog/e-paper/what-happened-to-all-th... https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/15s7tgo/what_happened_to_all_those_gallery_3based_tablets/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/15s7tgo/what_happe... https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/zms0br/new_eink_gallery_3_review_amazing_colors_but_slow/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/zms0br/new_eink_ga...

ulwtekwcuhwj 3y ago

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David_FF 3y ago

So you had to inspect the network requests Apple was making with the Developer Tools. Nice that you got it working. I would have assumed they had an API for that already Overall, looks like a nice and fun project

seejayseesjays 3y ago

Super cool work!