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I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard
- dakolli 7mo agoI love having my Calendar staring at me everywhere I look...
- bengale 7mo agoI’m always surprised how much people seem to want to constantly know the weather.
- riston 7mo agoI think with more outdoor activities, it's important to know what is waiting you in a few hour. For cycling example wind and rain information is rather good to know.
- electronvolt 7mo agoYeah, I bike regularly on and off (season/mood/goals dependent, honestly), and knowing what I should expect on my commute to work /and/ back is important... and not something I can predict without looking at the weather in the morning.
- hmokiguess 7mo agoThis may due to geographical differences, not sure where you live versus OP but I have lived in at least 7 different cities throughout my life and in some of those I had to deal with really unpredictable weather whereas in others it was easier to just wing it and not regret leaving with a jacket or umbrella for example.
- pegasus 7mo agoIt could be that they live in an area with more variable or more unpredictable weather than you. Or that they are much more outdoorsy. Or something else altogether. I'm surprised by your surprise. People live wildly different lifes and have correspondingly wide-ranging needs and preferences.
- SeriousStorm 7mo agoAgreed. Especially the current weather conditions. That's mostly useless info. Knowing the weather forecast for tomorrow or this weekend is actually useful. It's strange that pretty much every weather widget assumes you want to know the current weather conditions and not the forecast.
- 9dev 7mo agoEh, depends. If you have a dog, and live in a place with actual seasons, February requires frequently checking the current conditions before you head out—at least where we live, it could be anywhere from -10°C to +12°C right now, raining, snowing—annoying to put on a light jacket because you let the sun fool you, and discover it's freezing and starting to rain once you're on the field. That said: I seem to get by pretty well with a lowly smartphone so far.
- medstrom 7mo agoStill, isn't the forecast for one hour from now more useful than literally now? You can see that through the window (and feel it on your face by opening the window).
- hug 7mo agoAbout the only thing about the weather I can tell from my window is whether it is currently raining or not. The temperature inside is not at all indicative of the temperature outside, the sun being out doesn't mean it is warm, and I don't really have any useful indicators of wind, unless the windows are rattling, but that doesn't let me know if there's a stiff breeze. I could walk over and open up my balcony door and experience it all personally, but checking my phone or watch is faster and more accurate, and also gives me the forecast at the same time.
- bluGill 7mo agoNot really - it might not be raining where I am but rain is in the area and it will cross where I walk.
- 7mo ago
- guide42 7mo agoSame. You can always tell how is going to be the weather by yourself. Depending on how much time have you lived in the same place you can predict the weather for the day when you get up or, if you are a completely stranger to the environment, at least half an hour before.
- jameshart 7mo agoOutside my house right now it’s a cold, still evening with a high overcast. My expectation based on my years of experience living here and having seen these conditions before would be that it would likely clear out overnight, freeze hard, and be a beautiful day tomorrow. In fact, though, a massive bomb cyclone is forming a few hundred miles away and it’s likely to dump over a foot of snow on us in the next 24 hours, accompanied by 50mph winds. Weather forecasts are, not surprisingly, actually useful.
- michaelsalim 7mo agoWhile this is true in many places, i believe it is also quite untrue in many more. For example where I live, it was snowing last week. Quite cold but you can't tell csuse the snow already disappeared by the morning. And then suddenly it was sunny a few days after. Today, it was as sunny as the past few days, but the temperature was quite warm. Couldn't tell just by looking outside.
- thechao 7mo agoI had Windows^(TM) installed in my house when it was built. We're on the top of a 700' hill, so The Weather is pretty accurate.
- chrisweekly 7mo agoOoh that reminds me of my weather rock.
- conorcleary 7mo agoIf you put a roof overhead, it rains less.
- Exoristos 7mo agoStrong correlation with those who go outside.
- SchemaLoad 7mo agoHN users baffled then
- spiralcoaster 7mo agoSeems like if you were going outside often, you wouldn't need an e-ink display to tell you the weather because you'd be outside... experiencing it
- tcoff91 7mo agoThere’s a lot of places where the weather can suddenly change. People want to know if it’s about to start pouring rain in a couple hours despite looking nice right now. In Colorado the weather shifts are jarring and sudden.
- mailund 7mo agoDepending on where you live, if you're the type of person who spend most of the day away from home, having some understanding of the weather to expect throughout the day is very useful for not experiencing the weather too much. Very useful to know if it's likely to rain or be windy, and the highs and lows. I might be leaving at noon when it's comfortable and warm outside, but I might be coming home needing a thick jacket and an umbrella. If I'm already outside experiencing the sudden rainstorm and my umbrella is at home, it doesn't really matter that it wasn't raining when I left home many hours ago.
- gbalduzzi 7mo agoYes, but you need this information once, maybe twice a day, instead all smart devices tend to present it to you constantly. I have a pixel device, and by default I have the weather on both lock screen and home screen. Every morning I receive a notification with the expected weather for the day, and it keeps suggesting me to enable the weather preview right after the morning alarm. Garmin smartwatch? Same Android car / Apple car? Same MacOS has the weather as one of the most prominent widgets available, and I believe windows to be the same. Do I really need to have weather info constantly available to me?
- yellowapple 7mo agoHere in Reno, especially at this time of year, constant knowledge of the weather = constant knowledge of whether to expect road closures / traffic delays from snow, or whether I need to add extra time before going somewhere to defrost the windshield and remove snow, or whether I should grab a jacket.
- maccard 7mo agoI'm in Scotland. Looking outside and seeing blue skies does not mean it's safe to leave without a rain jacket, or a thermal layer. Seeing fog in the morning doesn't mean you don't need shorts for the afternoon. It being 0 outside today doesn't mean it won't be 10 degrees tomorrow. Knowing it's going to rain between 10 and 2 is good motivation to take the dog out before 10. Knowing it's going to rain on Sunday but be clear on Saturday is a good reason to book outdoor activites (golf) on Saturday instead.
- gbalduzzi 7mo agoYes, but it's the kind of information you need once a day on average and you are good to go. Instead you find it placed on your smartphone homescreen, on the smartwatch, on the home dashboard, on a notification you receive every morning, on your car screen, on your computer, ... I don't need to see it constantly. Personally I believe it is something that it is easy to integrate and that users don't perceive as useless, but 99% of the time doesn't add any value
- croes 7mo agoNot constantly but instantly. And because you don’t when they want it you have to show it always. Just like clocks always show the time.
- eb0la 7mo agoIf you have to walk the dog and know in advance it will stop or start raining in 20 minutes....
- prforated 7mo agoNo forecast is accurate to 20 minutes. You get x% of rain over the next hour or so at best.
- IanCal 7mo agoPlenty have short term info about the current rain situation. You can check the radar too. Frankly just knowing that while it's clear here it's hammering it down not far away and it's been heading towards us this morning gives me a solid idea even if I'm not a meterologist.
- 542354234235 7mo agoAccuweather's Minutecast is usually accurate for rain to within 5 minutes and have used it to time my bike commute. It uses your specific location and if rain is passing over that specific spot, and when, over the next 4 hours.
- taitems 7mo agoAustralia is the skin cancer capital of the world, with 2 in 3 of us diagnosed by age 70. The most used complication on my Apple Watch is the UV index, beating out weather temp, battery etc.
- koyote 7mo agoWhich is weird because it's pretty straightforward to work out if you need sunscreen or not: * Is it any month other than May-August? * Is it after 10am or before 4pm? Probably need some sun screen. If you have very light skin you might want to increase the timeframe by an hour. And if you really want to optimise your sunscreen usage and not use it if you don't have to, the real-time UV index from ARPANSA is the way to go (https://www.arpansa.gov.au/our-services/monitoring/ultraviolet-radiation-monitoring/ultraviolet-radiation-index https://www.arpansa.gov.au/our-services/monitoring/ultraviol...). All other apps simply display the expected UV index given the time of the day and the day of the year.
- AdamN 7mo agoSunscreen for the face should just be daily. My dermatologist recommends it even in Berlin in the Winter. And then, this is most critical, use mineral or at least creamy sunscreen (sprays barely do anything) and put it on a few minutes before sun exposure - not when you start feeling it. Agree that the UV index is not particularly useful - it's kind of obvious. Still good to know though.
- lbotos 7mo agoDo you own property? Does it flood? Do you live in a place where a rapidly forming storm may cause flooding? I was weather-status neutral until I bought a house that has flooding challenges. Knowing that enough rain that could trigger flooding helps me avoid surprise cleanups and property damage.
- spiralcoaster 7mo agoSo what do you do with the information that your house is about to flood? Do you have a special flood prevention technique that you can only put into action when you know the rain is coming?
- DANmode 7mo ago> Does it flood? Do you live in a place where a rapidly forming storm may cause flooding? Emphatically no, as someone who cares about avoiding chronic health problems for myself and my family. Even water-damaged concrete is enough to drive CIRS. Been there, done that.
- benhurmarcel 7mo agoI commute by bicycle so I choose my remote working times to avoid rain. So yes weather affects my day-to-day.
- NikxDa 7mo agoThis is super cool, and I wish something like this existed at my place, as it enables information sharing without the need for phones/actual screens that shine in your face when the lights are low or tempt you to doomscroll. That said, the large primary display this uses is $2000. That's very hard to justify for any "normal" household, and that's without any mounts, backend, services etc.
- lakid 7mo agoYou can make smaller ones for much much less. I’ll post pics of mine a bit later but waveshare 7.5” display in a photo frame and almost any ESP32 dev board and you are set for less than $100 (along with suitable HomeAssistant and ESPhome infrastructure to support it). The original article is a very slick bit of work, so well done
- fenykep 7mo agoThe article also mentions using jailbroken kindles which I assume should be the cheapest way to get a decent sized epaper screen with builtin connectivity. edit: https://github.com/sibbl/hass-lovelace-kindle-screensaver https://github.com/sibbl/hass-lovelace-kindle-screensaver
- scary-size 7mo agoYep, it’s super cheap. I wrote about mine here:: https://franz.hamburg/writing/kindling-e-ink-dashboard.html https://franz.hamburg/writing/kindling-e-ink-dashboard.html
- Jyaif 7mo agoYou can also buy some for less than $100. I can vouch for the reTerminal: the build quality is excellent, and they come with a battery, sd card reader, and some sensors: https://www.seeedstudio.com/reTerminal-E1001-p-6534.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/reTerminal-E1001-p-6534.html
- boneitis 7mo ago
- seanieb 7mo agoWhy is e-ink still so expensive?
- smcleod 7mo agoPatents
- rsl1 7mo agoReally? Feels like there's a bunch of companies
- bluGill 7mo agoIt is complex. The early patents have expired, so a bunch of companies wouldn't surprise me. I can't follow the chains, but it appears that there are not really a bunch of companies, it is one company (maybe two) that makes just the displays and sells to others.
- magicmicah85 7mo agoThe prices on Ali Express for e-ink are not that bad, but certainly can't get anything as big as the Mira Pro. The Boox premium is plug and play compatibility, high fidelity/refresh rate and support.
- whynotminot 7mo agoI would guess there's not enough volume due to limited use-cases of the tech compared to more traditional screens. The typical e-ink uses cases boil down to e-readers, dumb-phones, and hobbyists, which is not a huge market. Anything niche or specialized tends to carry a higher cost.
- shellfishgene 7mo agoThere are probably billions of e-ink price tags in supermarkets around the world, but I guess scaling it up is not easy?
- 7mo ago
- candiddevmike 7mo agoI'm actively looking for someone who wants to create B2C devices like this for an app that I built. Email in my profile!
- scary-size 7mo agoMaybe the folks at TRMNL? https://trmnl.com/ https://trmnl.com/
- riston 7mo agoThat is one interesting experiment, also hoping for cheaper and larger panels. Here is my ~75euros ESP32 eink panel experiment: https://github.com/riston/eink-assist-screen/tree/main https://github.com/riston/eink-assist-screen/tree/main
- ojagodzinski 7mo ago~3000€ to show information in some random places in the house even though the household members have a device with a screen called a smartphone next to them 24/7 ? Well, it's cool, but the usability of it all is below average. Declutter your life and don't install any more screens in your home ;)
- galleywest200 7mo agoAlternative: just keep your phone on your charger in your room and declutter your life by using just the one screen in the kitchen.
- lm28469 7mo agoKeep it in airplane mode until you need it, the friction is enough to keep it out of hand, and it never asks for your attention by itself. Or at least disable every notifications
- darkwater 7mo agoAirplane mode has wifi enabled by default nowadays
- huijzer 7mo agoJust go to settings and disable. I do that every night. I don’t want or need to be available.
- bluGill 7mo agoIf someone is contacting you in the middle of the night when it isn't a genuine emergency you need to apply social pressure. If something were to happen to my mom in the middle of the night I hope people don't wait until I'm awake to call. If a coworker sitting in an airport at 3am waiting on a transfer it is basic social norms that they will not call me. You should leave your phone on when you are asleep with full trust and confidence that you won't be disturbed except in a real emergency. The do-not-disturb mode is for Friday nights where they is no way for someone to know if you are the theater or just chilling at home - the latter is an acceptable time to call.
- AuthAuth 7mo agoThis is awesome but I still find it funny that he said he wants a healthy relationship with technology then goes and fits his entire house out with technology. It doesnt seem like any of this would really be useful as you'd have to enter all the useful data manually(calendar). For example the washing machine. You dont need real time information because you know how long it takes since you've done it 1000s of times and it beeps. All these things are just managed in our heads subconsciously.
- JoshTriplett 7mo ago> For example the washing machine. You dont need real time information because you know how long it takes since you've done it 1000s of times and it beeps. It beeps, on the other end of the house (or on another floor), where it's inaudible. (And, thankfully, where the loud sounds of it operating are also inaudible.) > All these things are just managed in our heads subconsciously. And when you remove the need to track that in your head, your head gets freed up for other things. To be explicit, I don't like "smart appliances" that connect to a cloud server. I do like the idea of devices that can connect locally to something like Home Assistant.
- letsgethigh 7mo ago"hey Siri, set timer for washing machine"
- bdangubic 7mo agobut then apple knows about your cycles
- bluGill 7mo agoAnd the timer goes off when you are in the shower - by the time you are done you forgot about the alarm. (I have more than once stopped an alarm I intended to just snooze)
- spiralcoaster 7mo ago
- bcyn 7mo agoThis is really awesome! Dream home project for me as well, but can't justify the cost of large e-ink displays so far (was shocked at the nearly ~$2k sticker price of that Boox Mira Pro!)
- connorshinn 7mo agoThis is really cool, thanks for sharing the journey so far. One potential idea - it might be worth looking at overseas manufacturers to see if they can offer a similar display at a better price point. I did a bit of digging on Alibaba, for example, and found a 25" E-ink display with the same resolution as the Boox for around $1000 (and the price goes down to $500 if you order 100 units or more): https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/25-3-inch-e-paper-display_1601451061504.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/25-3-inch-e-paper-dis... Seems like they offer a color E-ink display option as well, which could be worth exploring. Note: I don't have any affiliation with the above company, it was literally just the first one I found when searching. I'm sure there are many other options available as well.
- JoshTriplett 7mo agoHave you seen any that include a touchscreen? Would be nice for extremely simple home controls (e.g. thermostat, music).
- connorshinn 7mo agoAgreed! I was able to track one down (at least I think): https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/31-5-e-ink-13-3_1601398976930.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/31-5-e-ink-13-3_16013... A bit more expensive than the one I linked previously at $1,400, though it's a full color display. It's unfortunately missing a description, so the only evidence that it's a touch screen is in the title itself. Would obviously require some due diligence with the manufacturer. I'm sure there are other options as well (the breadth of vendors on Alibaba is pretty impressive actually)
- JoshTriplett 7mo ago> Operation System ANDROID7 > Communication 4G Wifi BLUETOOTH A world of no in so many ways. Nothing still running Android 7 should be connected to the Internet, and in any case I don't want a display that has a computer and networking in it (though I realize some people do want that). I'm specifically trying to find an E-ink touchscreen that's just a display, to be attached to a real computer whose software can be updated and customized. Thank you for the pointer, though!
- hinkley 7mo agoInformation radiators are basically 80% of the reason I try to keep tabs on wireless power delivery. Then a Kia and Hyundai vendor thought they were going to get their wireless charging added to the EV6 and Ioniq vehicles and that’s the other 20%. Essentially they removed the transformer from the PSU and moved it to the air gap between the charging coil and the vehicle to halve the parasitic losses. You’d have a car you didn’t even need to plug in. I’ve been following Information Radiators since practically the beginning, and wiring has always been one of its problems. First networking and now power. In homes, but also in office spaces. The best locations for radiators are often the worst for wiring. And eInk displays move the needle because you have a device that can go completely to sleep between updates, which means it can trickle charge.
- rsl1 7mo agoVery nice, looks great
- lukebuehler 7mo agoWall-mounted dashboards are a huge life-hack, especially if you have a family. We got a 37-inch touchscreen one, running DAKBoard. We have several kids and have been organizing our daily todos and calendars on it for several years. We used to drop the ball quite a bit due to a hectic schedule and the dashboard has helped us tremendously. Since it is mounted in the kitchen, being able to pull up recipes is a plus.
- mh- 7mo ago> 37-inch touchscreen [..] in the kitchen I think I need a bigger kitchen, haha. That sounds really cool, though. I'm currently trying to "train" our kids to manage their own schedules, e.g. reminding me that they have somewhere to be instead of vice versa. Maybe a wall-mounted solution would help put it front and center for them.
- IshKebab 7mo agoThis is cool. I bought an Inkplate for this and got as far as writing a custom image format suitable for e-ink sort of things (4-bit RLE; trivial to decode, but good compression for diagram/text type images). Where I got stuck is calendars... Unfortunately Google Calendar doesn't seem to provide a nice API where you can just say "give me the events for these days", instead you can only download all of your events in iCal format. It's then extremely non-trivial to convert that information into "what is happening today".
- ekjhgkejhgk 7mo agoMaybe I'm missing something, but I believe that any app that can understand caldav etc can show you "today".
- xd1936 7mo agoThere are several ways to get all events for the day! The easiest one in my experience has been to write a simple Apps Script project and expose that as a published Web App[1]. That moves all of the oAuth logic and Calendar API plumbing to Google's server-side code, and gives you a simple long URL that contains exactly what data you want. Something like: ``` function doGet(req) { let start = new Date(); start.setHours(12,0,0,0); let end = new Date(start); end.setDate(end.getDate() + 3); let events = CalendarApp.getEvents(start, end); return ContentService.createTextOutput(events.map(x => x.getTitle())); } ``` 1. https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/web https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/web
- IshKebab 7mo agoOoo sweet, thanks for the hint!
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- noelrock 7mo agoA project, ZerryBit, are working to do something similar - albeit on a far smaller scale physically than what you’ve done here. Might be of interest to OP or others though - further info at https://zerrybit.com/en-us https://zerrybit.com/en-us (I have no link to them bar placing an advance order)
- stared 7mo agoNice! Though, $2000 is a step price. I had some fun with using an Inkplate e-ink display - bough a bare 5" for €74 (a 10" with batteries is there €219). Smaller, but also way more affordable. It connects via WiFi, and make it display random, vide https://github.com/SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-library/pull/290 https://github.com/SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-libr....
- sailfast 7mo agoWe do this with a raspberry pi and a decent lcd screen in a picture frame in our kitchen. I like the idea of e-ink but there isn’t a reason to go that route if you want to see everyone’s calendar color-coded while also saving a few bucks. Love the artistry and dedication in this effort - getting something just right for your own tastes and honing it over time can be really fulfilling.
- RadiozRadioz 7mo agoYou can get multicolour e-ink displays. Still expensive though
- knallfrosch 7mo agoMy solution is based on 12.48 inch Magic Ink Calendar: https://github.com/speedyg0nz/MagInkCal https://github.com/speedyg0nz/MagInkCal A 12.48 Waveshare eink display costs $175. Sadly haven't gotten it to work with the Raspi Zero and therefore can't use it battery-powered. Got an ugly cord right now. Running power to the right place through the walls is definitely dedication!
- tibbydudeza 7mo agoInteresting but it assumes the teens will bother to look at it. We use a WhatsApp channel for our family to manage breakfast meetups and who needs what from the shops or the pharmacy (they are on our healthcare plan) and general conversation about events or troubles and parental advice in their lives. One kid live on her own with her bf a few minutes from us but she can't drive so we sometimes have to pick her up from work. It gets muddled but works for us as the rule is no pet photos unless it is very cute (cat with a dustbin cover on his head) or inspirational daily quotes.
- JoshTriplett 7mo agoI love the idea of putting this under portrait lighting rather than using a backlight.
- the_gipsy 7mo agoYou can run rust on kindles, so you don't need a separate webserver. You can fetch stuff and render the image directly on the kindle. Second hand kindles can be very cheap. https://github.com/benjajaja/kindle-bueno https://github.com/benjajaja/kindle-bueno However, I would now go for some ~100€ e-ink that is built for hacking.
- anjel 7mo agoThe cost differential between ePaper displays and the comparatively cheap jumbo tablets will offset higher current consumption for a good long while: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808694032679.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808694032679.html
- medstrom 7mo agoI don't see that TFA claimed any cost savings. That is not the reason people go for e-paper.
- anjel 7mo agoEasy now, I wasn't saying they did make that claim. I simply provided a comparatively low-cost alternative for the very expensive display for those for those for whom the display would otherwise be cost-prohibitive. Best Buy sells 24" touchscreen displays for $339 right now. So you can spend $3000 on a display that sips current or spend 10% of that and you get $2700 to pay towards the higher electric costs. I call that an interesting trade-off. YMMV
- hasbot 7mo ago$338 shipping!
- dintech 7mo agoI'd buy this. Good luck with the project.
- david_shaw 7mo agoThis is for sure an inspirational project, but I wish the barrier to entry was lower. I've noticed e-ink/paper displays having somewhat of a moment right now (especially very small "phone-like" form factors as portable ereaders), and I hope this trend continues. I'm very far from a meaningful reduction in "screen time," but looking at e-ink displays instead of OLEDs feels like a nice step in that direction.
- phailhaus 7mo agoI love TRMNL for this exact type of usecase! Only ~$150, and you can self-host if you want.
- valiant55 7mo agoI got the battery extension and it lasted more than 10 months (I have it on a 30 minute refresh). Highly recommend TRMNL if you want something to hack on without fussing with hardware.
- ryanckulp 7mo agoglad to hear this. we made a couple more power savings improvements this week, publishing something on the blog about it ~tmrw.
- ktzar 7mo agoI LOVE this, but I am still love the Sunday night family bonding moment of planning the week in the pen and paper weekly planner that also costs us $10 a year.
- eddieroger 7mo agoThere’s nothing stopping both from happening together.
- tertius 7mo agoWhich planner do you use?
- AlotOfReading 7mo agoIt'd be interesting to downsize this back to the LCD screen from a DC-1 [0]. These large format E-ink screens are cool, but outrageously expensive. [0] https://daylightcomputer.com/product https://daylightcomputer.com/product
- tern 7mo agoIt's possible an ordinary R-LCD would be good enough, perhaps with a DIY diffuser over the screen
- cdelahousse 7mo agoThe developer recently had a home tour where you can see this software in use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkzg8sNkm8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkzg8sNkm8Y
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- preisschild 7mo agoWhich OLED screen is shown in the "A more reliable approach" paragraph?
- hawksley 7mo agoIt’s the Dell Venue: https://youtu.be/eTFkE9yjfoc https://youtu.be/eTFkE9yjfoc
- preisschild 7mo agoThanks!
- a2dam 7mo agoThe Inkplate10 is an excellent, much lower cost way to get into this
- saeedesmaili 7mo agoA video demo of this e-ink frame is shown in this video: https://youtu.be/Wkzg8sNkm8Y https://youtu.be/Wkzg8sNkm8Y
- kristofferR 7mo agoCame here to recommend the same, great video!
- dddgghhbbfblk 7mo agoThis is really cool. With a newborn in the home I've been really thinking about projects like this recently. When you have a newborn things are so busy and hectic that it's easy to get overloaded and for things to slip through the cracks so I've been really wishing I had a dashboard like this somewhere to remind me that we need to take the dogs out or show how long it's been since the baby last ate or whatnot.
- ekjhgkejhgk 7mo agoYou have a newborn, and you think spending time installing and maintaining something that displays the calendar around the house is a good use of time?
- orsorna 7mo agoFrom what I can tell, the author (of the submission)* can afford being a multimillionaire buying thousand dollar displays and moving into extremely expensive detached housing, so his efforts don't apply to us breeder peon. That being said, I see a lot of COTS products that fill this niche but all have privacy issues sadly.
- bluGill 7mo agoThat depends on how much time it takes. Newborns grow up fast, in a few years he (she? - I'll assume he for convenience, adjust if you have better information) will have a kid needing to get between soccer and violin (or some such things). If there isn't too much effort he can find time for this project and it will help his life to have it all working. We have no way of knowing, but it would not be at all a surprise if he has more kids in a few year - which makes accurate calendars around the house even more useful as everyone needs to know what everyone else is doing.
- dddgghhbbfblk 7mo agoI said "thinking about"... I have been thinking about many other things I wish I had time for too, like "getting eight hours of sleep" or "responding to a growing pile of emails that need attention". And while your rude, completely unnecessary comment displays a lack of the basic human empathy that may be necessary to understand this, it is precisely during a time when my life and home are so busy and chaotic that I would most appreciate having them be better organized, yes. But how dare I simply leave a comment saying I liked a project that someone shared.
- asjldkfin 7mo agoWhy e-paper over a monitor with a presence sensor? Wouldn't it be cheaper and higher fidelity?
- ekjhgkejhgk 7mo agoAesthetically, that e-ink screen looks gorgeous. But the idea of having to maintain a bunch of services and hardware so that I can see my calendar, I hate it.
- hawksley 7mo agoAs I mentioned at the end of the post, I'm working towards having this work as a Home Assistant App, which would make it a lot easier to set up yourself.
- fassssst 7mo agoWe use a family paper calendar and I use my watch to check the weather and reminders. Still allows my phone to live in a box at home.
- jaygreco 7mo agoI really like epaper displays for all of the reasons mentioned in the article. Shame the patent locks continue to keep prices high even though the core technology has improved enough for prices to drop. A few years ago I came into a couple of e-ink displays that had been previously used for storefront/product pricing. The hardware to drive them was locked down but I was able to reverse engineer the panel by finding a datasheet that was close enough and hacking up an adafruit thinkink. I had a lot of fun writing my own driver/abstraction layer. I originally intended to support a bunch of different panels but ran out of steam after the first one did exactly what I wanted. https://github.com/jaygreco/MagInkCal https://github.com/jaygreco/MagInkCal
- fanatic2pope 7mo agoCool project. I solved a problem (not really the same problem as this, mind you) for my family using a much older technology. I bought a big pane of glass from the hardware store, built a wooden frame for it with a shelf for an eraser and dry markers. I hung it up in the kitchen and now when we need to leave "sticky" notes to each other we just write on it. We keep our shopping list on it, we write small poems and draw funny faces. It has become a fun ephemeral space for communicating. Tons of fun and super cheap to build.
- chrneu 7mo ago[flagged]
- bongripper 7mo ago[dead]
- xomiachuna 7mo agoCool idea! At some point I was musing about making or buying a dashboard tool like in the post, but over the years I found that I dont actually need the complexity that comes with it. An analogue communication medium for myself and others is indeed something that might be much more impactful and human-cetric than a smart system. Thanks for the inspiration!
- greatgib 7mo agoWhen you think about it, it is crazy to think that the world is spending thousands of billions on AI stuffs, but still we haven't yet any affordable big size epaper display. It could change a lot of things in the world, especially regarding the power consumption of most commonly used screens for a lot of signage everywhere. But not that much company looks like to be interested in developing the field. I think that a few years a go, a lot of possible innovation were blocked by a few aggressive patents. I don't know if it is still the case.
- jeron 7mo ago>it is crazy to think that the world is spending thousands of billions on AI stuffs, but still we haven't yet any affordable big size epaper display. why is that crazy? the demand for big epaper isn't really there, but demand for AI has been pretty clear
- TurdF3rguson 7mo agoMaybe once AI is doing everybody's jobs we'll all have free time for giant epaper dashboard nook projects.
- mcphage 7mo agoLater: ohno
- fastball 7mo agoePaper displays are niche, and worse for most personal and business use-cases compared to LCD et al. AI is re-structuring entire industries.
- r14c 7mo agoWell its easy for the 1000 guys who control 50% of the total money supply to tell their CEOs and boards to push AI so they get a good ROI. Starting an epaper business would involve actual work and risk.
- drumttocs8 7mo agoSuper cool. To be fair on your point about only displaying status when they need attention vs displaying everything at once- this is easily achievable with a bit of IF ELSE logic with most cards in Lovelace.
- sublinear 7mo ago> There are still several data sources I fetch directly outside of Home Assistant. Once HA is the sole source of data, I’ll be able to have Timeframe be a Home Assistant App, making it significantly easier to distribute. Yes, please distribute this as an HA app. I can't wait to see that.
- jason_zig 7mo agoI think you're ready to go to market!
- dave_sid 7mo agoThis is great. Always wondered why this didn’t already exist.
- idontwantthis 7mo agoThis is a cool project and I know hacking is good in and of itself, but I wanted to share that my family and I use a whiteboard on the fridge and a paper calendar to great effect. It brings us closer to each other while keeping us from missing appointments and events, and allows us to leave messages for each other to be viewed in slow time.
- stavros 7mo agoWhat a great name! https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-the-timeframe/ https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-the-timeframe/ Joking aside, great project. I love e-ink displays.
- bpmct 7mo agoFor those on a budget, I highly recommend checking eBay for old e-ink readers. Many of them can be rooted and are by far the most affordable way to get e-ink (plus compute). The Nook Simple Touch is one of my favorites
- normie3000 7mo agoHow is the Nook Simple Touch dev scene these days? Is there any functional alternative to a very old Android version?
- bpmct 7mo agoNot that I'm aware of, but there are some great projects on the XDA Forums and GitHub I was able to reference in order to make basic apps for Android 2.1. e.g: https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-nook-simple-touch https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-nook-simple-touch
- 01100011 7mo agoWeird, I was just looking into something like this yesterday. I really want a touchscreen though. It would be 100x more useful if I could put up a daily checklist that didn't require using a separate device to clear the checkmarks.
- wewewedxfgdf 7mo agoThis device has magnets build in so you can stick it on your fridge: https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5paper-esp32-development-kit-v1-1-960x540-4-7-eink-display-235-ppi https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5paper-esp32-development-...
- someday-46 7mo ago[dead]
- jareklupinski 7mo ago> It has a powerful function: if the status on the display is blank, the house is in a “healthy” state and does not need any attention. This approach of only showing what information is relevant in a given moment flies right in the face of how most smart homes approach communicating their status the best user experience is sometimes no experience
- bluGill 7mo agoDepends - my family almost always has events coming up for something, so there is always something that needs attention in the next couple days. The display has no idea when I look at it if I'm asking "is there anything tonight" - that is things where the answer is sometimes no; or if I'm asking what is planned for the rest of the week. Likewise there are always chores. Cleaning the litter box is daily, but in the rare case where everything that must be done is done there are things like washing windows that can wait a few months but if I have time... It is also useful to put a clock on this display - computers are accurate unlike the battery powered things you have on the wall. (though it is a matter of taste if this is worth it...) And at least where I live I always need to know the weather for the day (if storms are expected it might be deadly to ride my bike to work even though it is fine now). Sure knowing the temperature and relative humidity in the house isn't really useful if the system is working correct. Though it does settle some arguments so it is worth having anyway.
- jareklupinski 7mo agothe litter box user experience uses a different sense to signal intent than sight ;)
- BLKNSLVR 7mo agoThis is almost the only kind of application that makes a 'fridge with a gigantic screen on it' make sense. But do said fridges have the ability to display useful information like this? Someone I know has one of these fridges and the screen is just a toy. Doesn't really show anything useful for day-to-day life. Although it provides amusement when it detects bald heads as eggs.
- tuananh 7mo agoas long as they can do website in fullscreen, that should work.
- 0xbadcafebee 7mo agoHas anyone solved the e-paper ghosting issue? Do you just have to set a complete screen re-render every few seconds or something? Fwiw, there are 13-inch eInk displays for ~$140 (https://www.waveshare.com/13.3inch-e-paper-hat-b.htm?sku=27236 https://www.waveshare.com/13.3inch-e-paper-hat-b.htm?sku=272...) which you can pair with a Raspberry Pi (~$40) or ESP32 (~$15) and battery (~$10). Smaller displays are cheaper if you don't need all that real estate. You can then use AI vibe coding and open source projects to throw together your own apps
- hawksley 7mo agoThe Mira Pro rendering engine is very good. Little ghosting and I only have it refresh the entire screen at the top of the hour.
- ctl0v0 7mo agoNot to hijack, but if folks are interested, I built a similar project based on a very similar premise, but since I had a old touchscreen monitor laying around and some woodworking experience I used a raspberry pi, LineageOS, along with Nova Launcher to build a similar implementation based on android. I posted about it here if interested. https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/1ik3myy/turning_an_old_touchscreen_into_a_home_dashboard/ https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/1ik3myy/turni...
- MarcLore 7mo ago[dead]
- jagged-chisel 7mo agoI’m sure there’s another number to go ahead of those zeroes for the price :-)
- hawksley 7mo agoThe Visionect devices can run on battery for about 3 months at a 10-minute update interval. But it's a huge difference to have real-time updates for smarthome data, hence the Mira Pro.
- pmarreck 7mo agoThe Nerves project would actually be perfect for this: https://nerves-project.org/ https://nerves-project.org/ Elixir’s fault tolerance and ease combined with simple devices to run on
- nanobuilds 7mo agoHaven't followed e-ink display for a while but $2000 for the display is surprising! Assumed these e-ink displays were much cheaper these days.. and I thought we were closer to color ones as well. Great project though!
- muyuu 7mo agoyep it seems like they're remaining niche, and thus prices barely move
- with 7mo agoAwesome
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- s0a 7mo agogreyscale no longer available for purchase
- RoadieRoller 7mo agoI've this that I bought from costco. https://myskylight.com/products/skylight-calendar/ https://myskylight.com/products/skylight-calendar/
- sockbot 7mo agohttps://soldered.com/collections/inkplate-e-paper-displays/products/inkplate-10?variant=62541030981981 https://soldered.com/collections/inkplate-e-paper-displays/p... Inkplate devices are a great entry point. They're recycled Kindle displays with an ESP32.
- a2dam 7mo agoI have one of these for this exact purpose and it's amazing, really underrated. Makes me want a bigger one for sure, though.
- mfld 7mo agoAgree. I used a color e-ink to display my son's school timetable (previously discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42408546), and it has been running reliably for 18 months, with charging needed every 4-5 months. I note that the author (cool project!) also earlier took the route of displaying websites as PNGs.
- b8 7mo agoFor a smaller display, have you tried the reMarkable 2? Also, perhaps buying an anti glare oled monitor with high brightness and nits (e.g. LG G4 brightness) would help with the price issue.
- wangzhongwang 7mo ago[dead]
- shaklee3 7mo agoI built the same thing and it gets calendar updates from the Google API and weather from wunderground or AccuWeather.
- qixv 7mo agoI would love to get rid of my phone more at home, eg at the dinner table, the couch etc. But I need it around to control our sound (music, tv-sound) as well as calendar, phone (heh) etc. Such a display looks awesome but it wont fix all my needs.
- schrijver 7mo agoIt’s one of the reasons I don’t like the current fashion of controlling devices from your phone. Each time you change the channel you risk seeing your notifications or are tempted to go to the apps. Yet AV remote controls were UX hell and phones are an improvement. So maybe a separate old phone just for that ?
- tecoholic 7mo agoReally happy to see e-paper home dashboards as a thing. Last month or so I saw a Melbourne public transport one, which showed times of the next tram/bus. We tried something like this using the iPad when we moved to a new country with one year old, because there was so much to figure out and track, it felt impossible. Now after a year, it’s gone and things are more internalised. That’s my main concern with spending time and money building something like this. We thought about everything from commercial displays, Raspberry PI and e-Paper to finally just buying a 10$ wall mount for IPad. After sometime it becomes redundant as routine is formed. If the author happens to read this, do tell us how have you found the motivation to keep using this? Doesn’t it get redundant after a point? I get adding new information and adapting routines around can be a factor, but people don’t really change that much
- samspot 7mo agoI envy your life of peaceful routine. For me every evening is a trip into the unknown. Sure some things repeat on the same days. But there is always something new. This week the one I'm aware of is daily Soccer tryouts. I have to check my spouse's paper calendar every day to keep up.
- tecoholic 7mo agoI wouldn't call my life "peaceful routine" :D But the moving parts are limited for sure. I don't have multiple kids whose routines need to be synced with mine. Maybe that's the point I would have this mounted on a wall.
- tamimio 7mo agoI have made something very similar, also using HA, but instead of the e-papers I used old tablets I found at the thrift stores, the reason is because I have my CCTV also integrated and e-papers won’t really do a good job that way.
- notenlish 7mo agoPlease don't blur sensitive info, blur can be deblurred.
- matada_ 7mo agoFor those interested in colour weather dashboards, I built this specifically for colour EPD https://github.com/mt-empty/pi-inky-weather-epd https://github.com/mt-empty/pi-inky-weather-epd
- xixixao 7mo agoI’ve been dreaming about this for so long. Clearly I’m not the only one. While power delivery could be an issue, I’m surprised no tech company has come up with a real product. It does remind me though of Portals from FB/Meta, which were really nifty, but not profitable enough for otherwise highly profitable company to continue investing in.
- blkhawk 7mo agowow the markup on the larger E-ink displays is crazy and the price curve is well above the bare added area. looking at the smaller displays it seems to me like prices have even gone up especially for the 7.5" ones and that's surprising considering reTerminal and clones being about 75EUR-ish. That said there are some displays for the adventurous with no clear ready made interface boards that would need some effort to connect to. Like the ES120MC1 12" high res ones for 50ish USD with some gnarly zif sockets.
- Thev00d00 7mo agoI wish they would hurry up and ship my TRMNL X please
- tb303 7mo agoI went down the same path and up until last week had three e-ink surfaces in my house for this running off HA. We got a skylight 27 today. It’s better. I give in. E-ink is fine for display but too slow for interactivity.
- eddieroger 7mo agoI feel very torn between the “make something” or “buy a Slylight” decision, so I’m curious what makes it better in your eyes, so much so that you don’t think it’s worth attempting anymore. I’m struggling to justify a monthly fee for what I perceive is a daily calendar view with chores.
- Bishonen88 7mo agoanyone got recommendations for a 20' touch screen, auto motion enabled monitor like the skylight but to run custom software on? Most likely just a web page.
- bavaga 7mo agoThis article makes me want to finally start the dashboard project that's been living in my procrastination backlog for years. One of the main blockers has been the cost of larger, high-resolution e-paper displays. I was considering using an ESP32 to drive one, but the display pricing always felt like the convenient excuse. Reading through the helpful comments here, I'm starting to think there might be more viable options than I assumed, especially in terms of display size trade-offs and keeping the overall cost reasonable.
- MillionOClock 7mo agoThis is so elegant, especially with the art lights! To me, the desirable future for connected homes is one where technology is everywhere but mostly hidden and this is such a good example! This feels like an upgraded version of a chalkboard or sticky notes, but quite an optimal upgrade: one that makes it more useful and dynamic while keeping it mostly unintrusive. On the subject of dedicated home control dashboards, I'm not sure I see their value at all given we all have screens in our pockets, so when it comes to enabling interactive controls I feel like using your existing devices or voice controls is the right approach.
- leokennis 7mo agoThis seems like a very nice project to learn stuff, including hardware design/implementation. Are there similar options on the market for "set and forget" people like me?
- theodric 7mo ago> Visionect started charging a $7/mo per-device fee to run their backend software on premises with Docker, after years of it being free to use. I'd have had these up on Marketplace the same day if I couldn't figure out a way to drive the panel directly
- beratbozkurt0 7mo agoWow, I really love products and solutions like this. It's a great blog too, I'm adding it to my bookmarks.
- fuckinpuppers 7mo agoI’ve had an idea for something like this myself, more about the different things it would do rather than the design. But this looks cool too.
- wangzhongwang 7mo ago[dead]
- da_rob 7mo agoWow, this project (and actually the whole thread here) is awesome. Love it! Our (iPad-based) kitchen timetable[1] is nothing compared to the work (and money) Joel sank into this. If someone wants to go the easy route towards something like this: iPad (Air 1, I think) is connected to the charger 24/7 and runs in Kiosk mode. Application is just a React website hosted on Vercel, client credentials are stored in localStorage … [1]: https://roblillack.net/unser-stundenplan-family-timetable-viewer https://roblillack.net/unser-stundenplan-family-timetable-vi...
- bongripper 7mo ago[dead]
- pietroppeter 7mo agoRelated project discussed here 2 years ago FrameOS https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38855337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38855337
- nivcmo 7mo ago[dead]
- pathikrit 7mo agoRelated: My project to display daily newspaper: https://github.com/pathikrit/newswall https://github.com/pathikrit/newswall
- jmuguy 7mo agoI think you can divide the comments in here between people that have a family and don't. "Why would you need to know when the washer is done! Just set an alarm". When you have (young) kids, you'll be wandering around the house looking for the pen that's in your left hand. Little reminders like that are really nice.
- alkonaut 7mo agoI'd like something similar to his first prototype: Battery powered if needed, and 10 minute refresh (or scheduled push). But the key is that it has to be sub $500 total cost, and work free or locally. If I need to pay for a service or the hardware is $1k then it's already not paying for its own utility.
- nicbou 7mo agoTRMNL seems like a good option. I found it in another comment here. https://trmnl.com/ https://trmnl.com/
- nkotov 7mo agoI love the design of this. All the small touches like the front door open.
- idiotsecant 7mo agoIt's interesting how much the home automation folks are relearning the lessons that industrial automation people have been writing down for a century about how to manage information displayed to a busy human.
- dec0dedab0de 7mo agoI have dreamt of doing something like this for years. Well Done!
- Eric_WVGG 7mo agoso… what are “ice cookies”
- alexjm 7mo agoI read it as a to-do or calendar event: at such-and-such time, we will put the icing on some cookies.
- jp1016 7mo agoThe insight that a blank status area means "the house is healthy" is the best part of this whole project imo. Most smart home dashboards try to show you everything all the time and you just end up tuning it all out. This is basically the opposite approach and it makes way more sense for something you glance at 50 times a day. I tried something similar with a Kindle a few years back for just weather + calendar and ran into the same jailbreak maintenance hell. Ended up giving up. The Visionect displays look great but $1000+ per screen is brutal. Curious if the author has looked at the Waveshare e-paper panels driven by an ESP32, they're like $40-80 for a 7.5" screen and you can do partial refreshes. Obviously way smaller than the Boox but might work as a cheaper bedroom/mudroom option for people who want to build something like this without spending $3k.
- j45 7mo agoSame experience, the job of the display is to help manage attention, instead of information delivery. If we think about paper calendars hung on a wall, and updated sporatically we know what's there is likely good information, only that it might not be up to date. If a calendar can be calm by default, surface what's changed or newly relevant, and fade when it resolves. The next level could be understanding who's attention something needs, and when, in a personalized way.
- edgecasehuman 7mo agoLove the attention to UX and power-user polish. This is exactly the kind of small, thoughtful personal tool that reminds me why HN community values craftsmanship over hype
- six_arm_spidey 7mo agoThis is such an impressive tool. As others have noted, the price of entry is high, but it's incredible what it pulls off. I've been doing a cheaper version using a Waveshare 7.5 inch screen, a Raspberry Pi and a 3d printed case coupled with Inkycal: https://github.com/aceinnolab/Inkycal https://github.com/aceinnolab/Inkycal. This works well for my needs, but seeing what else can be done maybe it's time for an upgrade.
- calrain 7mo agoI'm interested in this as a way to manage a calendar for my mother that is showing early signs of Dementia. If we can centrally manage her bookings and all she has to do is look at the calendar and clearly see what is happening today, and in the near future, there is a real use-case for that. Especially as I don't live near her, and remotely managing a calendar in her house would be amazingly useful.
- Fred27 7mo agoI found some of these Visionect displays cheap on eBay and was planning to do the same. I found the backend Docker conatiner was unstable and kept crashing so I parked the project. Maybe I'll have to look at it again.