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I recently researched USB connected information displays but I am interested in e-Ink. I want - USB power + data - Open interface so I can drive it from my ow

I recently researched USB connected information displays but I am interested in e-Ink. I want - USB power + data - Open interface so I can drive it from my own software on the host (but not like a traditional monitor, I imagine more uploading pre-rendered bitmaps) - Image retention when powered off - High resolution paper like appearance - Between A5 and A4 in size - At least black, red and yellow as colors - Buttons or a way to connect buttons would be a bonus If anyone has a tip, I'd be grateful.

teruakohatu 1y ago
People have had this dream for probably close to 20 years (since Kindle v1). And yet it still seems out of reach beyond going with a full hdmi eink display. The closest I have found is the M5Stack 4.7” eink display with built in esp32 and lipo battery.
- martin8412 1y ago
  A single company controls the patents for eInk displays, so that’s why it hasn’t happened. China could probably pump them out for cheap.
adolph 1y ago
Seeed Studio is pumping out somewhat smaller sized e-ink with relatively open hardware for Trminal use https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/09/06/reterminal-e1001-e1002-esp32-s3-monochrome-color-epaper-displays/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/09/06/reterminal-e1001-e10...
- cvp 1y ago
  I’ve been super happy with the black and white version although I do wish the display was a little higher res. Great piece of tech though overall.
  - adolph 1y ago
    Did you load up the TRMNL software or something else?
wewewedxfgdf 1y ago
>>Between A5 and A4 in size Very expensive. For $59 you can get M5PaperS3 ESP32S3 Development Kit (960x540, 4.7" eInk Display, 235 ppi) https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5papers3-esp32s3-development-kit https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5papers3-esp32s3-developm... Or you can get: https://lilygo.cc/products/t5-e-paper-s3-pro https://lilygo.cc/products/t5-e-paper-s3-pro But these have 4.7 inch display. You can probably hack and repurpose old e-readers if you can be bothered with the technical pain.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- franga2000 1y ago
  Soldered.com makes some really nice eInk dev boards, including one with a 5.8" 7-color display: https://soldered.com/categories/inkplate/color-e-paper/ https://soldered.com/categories/inkplate/color-e-paper/
  - gregsadetsky 1y ago
    +1! I love their Inkplate 2 - quite affordable, color eink, wifi (via esp32). Absolutely super fun and affordable.
- curious_riddler 1y ago
  This is great! Thanks!
- reachableceo 1y ago
  Why is that expensive ? I’m genuinely asking. Considering the time / labor / troubleshooting etc to put something like this together yourself , plus cost of materials ? In my mind , the labor rate for a professional is a minimum of 1.00 per minute. This package would be essentially one hour of billable time at the (lowest) rate a professional would bill themselves out at. Presuming it’s FLO or at least some kind of simple AT command set and meets all the other requirements, I’m really struggling to understand how it’s expensive ? I mean , sure if you need 10k of them or something. Are people really this price sensitive ?
a2dam 1y ago
Color is the hardest thing on your list. I think something that meets most other requirements is the Inkplate 10, which I’ve been using as an apartment status display for a few years now. It’s ESP32 based and I have it grabbing an image from Home Assistant every minute, which it works great for. Black and white only though.
Nursie 1y ago
So a few years ago I hacked up this sort of thing. I bought a generic epaper display from aliexpress, a 5.8 inch 648x480 one that could do white/black/red with an SPI interface, then I wired that to an RP2040 board, then wrote a bit of circuitpython firmware for that which could receive commands over USB and draw stuff on the display. I got as far as being able to send images to it, and writing a little host program on my PC that would do a partial screen update on a clock display and CPU/GPU temperatures once a minute, and draw a Mandelbrot set in the remaining space, with a full screen refresh every 15 minutes because it needed it, and a several minute “exercise” routine that would take every pixel from white to black to red and back to white at midnight, to improve screen appearance longer term. And then I got bored/annoyed with it as the refresh was so slow (~30s for a red update) and the rp2040 needed me to manually press its reset button after every windows boot or the usb device wasn’t recognised. I thought about rewriting the firmware in C in case it was circuitpython that was flakey … but lost the impetus.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
leohart 1y ago
This is the one you want https://www.seeedstudio.com/reTerminal-E1002-p-6533.html?srsltid=AfmBOooKoePrCUYMYWxajSOLoeggk8krMpuZ256Bm_Sn5l8Elh_RYy1h https://www.seeedstudio.com/reTerminal-E1002-p-6533.html?srs... Spectra color so high res and beautiful with built in esp32.

teruakohatu 1y ago

People have had this dream for probably close to 20 years (since Kindle v1). And yet it still seems out of reach beyond going with a full hdmi eink display. The closest I have found is the M5Stack 4.7” eink display with built in esp32 and lipo battery.

martin8412 1y ago
A single company controls the patents for eInk displays, so that’s why it hasn’t happened. China could probably pump them out for cheap.

adolph 1y ago

Seeed Studio is pumping out somewhat smaller sized e-ink with relatively open hardware for Trminal use https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/09/06/reterminal-e1001-e1002-esp32-s3-monochrome-color-epaper-displays/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/09/06/reterminal-e1001-e10...

cvp 1y ago
I’ve been super happy with the black and white version although I do wish the display was a little higher res. Great piece of tech though overall.
- adolph 1y ago
  Did you load up the TRMNL software or something else?

wewewedxfgdf 1y ago

>>Between A5 and A4 in size Very expensive. For $59 you can get M5PaperS3 ESP32S3 Development Kit (960x540, 4.7" eInk Display, 235 ppi) https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5papers3-esp32s3-development-kit https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5papers3-esp32s3-developm... Or you can get: https://lilygo.cc/products/t5-e-paper-s3-pro https://lilygo.cc/products/t5-e-paper-s3-pro But these have 4.7 inch display. You can probably hack and repurpose old e-readers if you can be bothered with the technical pain.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
franga2000 1y ago
Soldered.com makes some really nice eInk dev boards, including one with a 5.8" 7-color display: https://soldered.com/categories/inkplate/color-e-paper/ https://soldered.com/categories/inkplate/color-e-paper/
- gregsadetsky 1y ago
  +1! I love their Inkplate 2 - quite affordable, color eink, wifi (via esp32). Absolutely super fun and affordable.
curious_riddler 1y ago
This is great! Thanks!
reachableceo 1y ago
Why is that expensive ? I’m genuinely asking. Considering the time / labor / troubleshooting etc to put something like this together yourself , plus cost of materials ? In my mind , the labor rate for a professional is a minimum of 1.00 per minute. This package would be essentially one hour of billable time at the (lowest) rate a professional would bill themselves out at. Presuming it’s FLO or at least some kind of simple AT command set and meets all the other requirements, I’m really struggling to understand how it’s expensive ? I mean , sure if you need 10k of them or something. Are people really this price sensitive ?

a2dam 1y ago

Color is the hardest thing on your list. I think something that meets most other requirements is the Inkplate 10, which I’ve been using as an apartment status display for a few years now. It’s ESP32 based and I have it grabbing an image from Home Assistant every minute, which it works great for. Black and white only though.

Nursie 1y ago

So a few years ago I hacked up this sort of thing. I bought a generic epaper display from aliexpress, a 5.8 inch 648x480 one that could do white/black/red with an SPI interface, then I wired that to an RP2040 board, then wrote a bit of circuitpython firmware for that which could receive commands over USB and draw stuff on the display. I got as far as being able to send images to it, and writing a little host program on my PC that would do a partial screen update on a clock display and CPU/GPU temperatures once a minute, and draw a Mandelbrot set in the remaining space, with a full screen refresh every 15 minutes because it needed it, and a several minute “exercise” routine that would take every pixel from white to black to red and back to white at midnight, to improve screen appearance longer term. And then I got bored/annoyed with it as the refresh was so slow (~30s for a red update) and the rp2040 needed me to manually press its reset button after every windows boot or the usb device wasn’t recognised. I thought about rewriting the firmware in C in case it was circuitpython that was flakey … but lost the impetus.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

leohart 1y ago

This is the one you want https://www.seeedstudio.com/reTerminal-E1002-p-6533.html?srsltid=AfmBOooKoePrCUYMYWxajSOLoeggk8krMpuZ256Bm_Sn5l8Elh_RYy1h https://www.seeedstudio.com/reTerminal-E1002-p-6533.html?srs... Spectra color so high res and beautiful with built in esp32.