Show HN: Show last Git push on an e-paper device
31 points by napsy 4 years ago | 37 comments- martin_a 4 years ago€ 899 is absurdly expensive for this device. As much as I'd love to play with non-intrusive "low-dynamic" displays, this is just too expensive.
- trok 4 years agoI was excited, until I found out how much it costs..
For some time I have been looking a small screen that would be used for displaying various information. However, I don't want to build the hardware myself as I feel that the result might not be safe for 24/7 usage.
I've been checking digital photo frames, but have not found any solution which would allow updating the image directly and without requiring reverse engineering of an app or the device itself.
- erenst 4 years agoInkplate[1] might be a good option for around 100€. Compared to Joan it's less polished. You can get 3d printed case and it requires some coding (it doesn't support rendering HTML).
I'm working on a personal dashboard for the screen. I'll create a website in React and then use rendertron[2] to get the screenshot on the Inkplate.
[1] https://inkplate.io/ [2] https://github.com/GoogleChrome/rendertron
- nathan_f77 4 years agoI've been using a first-generation iPad a digital photo frame. I use the LiveFrame [1] app, which still supports very old versions of iOS (9.5).
The iPad had just been sitting in my closet for a few years, since I couldn't update it to the latest version of iOS, and most apps stopped supporting it. I was about to throw it away before I had one last attempt at doing something useful with it. I'm really glad I found the LiveFrame app and was able to get it working.
It also has a web browser that can display almost any webpage (although it would probably struggle with the latest CSS features.) So you could show a dashboard web page to display some information.
I would recommend looking on eBay to see if there are any cheap iPads or Android tablets.
- MrGilbert 4 years agoI built a small program which takes input from HomeAssistant (a smart home self-hostable platform) and draws it over some stills I extracted from this video [1] (with night/day change). The frame I'm using has a built-in FTP server, so a small Homeserver (which I'm running anyways) is used to upload the image to the frame in regular intervalls.
That was my take on it, after I got rid of my iPad - I used it as a display, and after 1.5 years of constantly being plugged in, the battery suddenly decided to inflate.
//Edit: This is the frame I'm using: https://www.dragontouch.com/digital-picture-frame-classic10
- trok 4 years agoThat's something what I've been looking for. Never thought about possibility of frame having ftp server..
Hopefully the product is not discontinued as the good ones usually are, when i discover something cool.
- trok 4 years ago
- napsy 4 years agoFinding cheaper solutions is tricky. I myself am not that strong in electronic engineering, so assembling my own small device is a no-go for me. But yes it would definitely be possible with a small LCD and rpi.
- schwartzworld 4 years agoHonestly, your cheapest bet is to buy a used Kindle. Serve your information as a web page over your WiFi and access it using the built in web browser.
- erenst 4 years ago
- kzrdude 4 years agoI was dreaming of making a 30" e-paper stellar/planetary map wall display, until I realized the cost of these.
- martin_a 4 years agoThat's kind of what I'm thinking about. I want a large "slow" display on the office wall to show me statistics, calendar entries and whatnot for our team. Don't want to attach a bright, shining display to the wall if the information only changes twice a day or so.
- martin_a 4 years ago
- napsy 4 years agoI agree, it's expensive if you compare the price to an LCD. But as this is e-paper technology with completely different use cases, the manufacturing costs are still high. Keep in mind that, currently, e-paper is not a substitute for classic LCD panels.
Where e-paper shines for me is very low battery consumption. For example, the mentioned device can hold up to 6 months without a single battery recharge and is completely wireless.
- martin_a 4 years agoAmazon can somehow put those displays in a Kindle for what... 90€? Maybe they have some mix-calculation going on with book sales, but in comparison a Kindle should cost around 400-500€ when looking at those numbers here.
- 0_____0 4 years agoyeah those are subsidized devices
- 0_____0 4 years ago
- bergie 4 years agoWaveShare has e-paper modules between 5" and 7" costing around 50 EUR. You can drive them either from a Raspberry Pi or a ESP8266 microcontroller.
We're using a small one as an instrument panel on our boat https://github.com/meri-imperiumi/dashboard#readme
- napsy 4 years agoNice project! Yes they are indeed cheaper. It's really up to your taste. The device I'm using is already in a casing and comes with a sophisticated software that can render any modern HTML5 on the device with full JS support.
- napsy 4 years ago
- martin_a 4 years ago
- some1else 4 years agoYou might prefer the 6-inch Joan Home device[1] (€ 249). It runs a productivity app[2], but the hardware and software stack is by the same company.
- schwartzworld 4 years agoCute bezel, but for not much more you can get a full Android 10 tablet with an eink screen.
And for like $220 less you can get a whiteboard and take 30 seconds to write your meeting times on it.
- manicdee 4 years agoSomething like this perhaps?
https://laughingsquid.com/plotclock-a-robotic-clock-that-wri...
- martin_a 4 years agoDo you have any information on that 10" tablet with E-Ink?
- manicdee 4 years ago
- martin_a 4 years agoYeah, that might be nice for some people, just give me a 13" display with a HDMI input. I'll figure the rest out.
- schwartzworld 4 years ago
- robocollab 4 years agoIf you'd like a cheaper alternative (and don't mind a little DIY) I wrote a library that lets you render HTML onto low cost ePaper displays using a Raspberry Pi.
- trok 4 years ago
- longchiwen 4 years agoLooks like there is some space left for branch name and commit date :)
- napsy 4 years agoI try to keep it minimum. But I really want to focus on the stats, so maybe more details about the branch should be interesting to follow.
- napsy 4 years ago
- GTG 4 years agoI love your approach to change tracking - so frictionless and no additional distractions (like the additional back-light of the LCDs)
- napsy 4 years agoYes, I don't even notice it's there until there is a change and the screen blinks a bit. To maybe reference another comment, this is why I also like e-paper, no backlight needed, just an external source of light, like the Sun ;)
- napsy 4 years ago
- jswny 4 years agoA bit ironic that a webhook for GitLab is hosted on GitHub. Any reason behind that?
- chrismorgan 4 years agoMy guess would be that napsy uses a private GitLab instance at work, doesn’t use gitlab.com, and does have a GitHub account.
- napsy 4 years agoHello, author here. That's totally correct, I use gitlab and that is the reason why gitlab and not github. I wanted to track the commits and the number of lines added/deleted per commit and my 6" e-ink device was kind of perfect for the job, sitting next to my monitor :)
- napsy 4 years ago
- searchableguy 4 years agoBetter SEO and discoverability, likely.
- mhh__ 4 years agoKISS?
- chrismorgan 4 years ago