The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

136 points by spansoa 1 year ago | 128 comments
  • paxys 1 year ago
    Products like these make me realize that a standard e-reader has the perfect general purpose e-ink display. The Kindle for example is about the same size as this but much sleeker, is backlit, multi-tone, has a battery, wifi, bluetooth, all for less than half the price. I wish there were more mainstream jailbreaking projects and alternative operating systems to really unlock their potential.
    • konschubert 1 year ago
      Yea, when you make like a million of these you have different economies of scale, plus an ability to negotiate with suppliers.

      This is the power of making a product at huge scale.

      The amount of technology I can buy in a $90 Android phone is mind boggling.

      • beAbU 1 year ago
        Also consider that the devices you mention are probably heavily subsidised.

        The kindle is a gateway drug into the rest of the Amazon ecosystem, and you probably need some form of subscription to get full use out of it, or at the least you need to buy ebooks on Amazon for it.

        The $90 phone probably comes with facebook and other social apps + bloatware pre-installed, that no doubt ended up there because of some commercial deal.

        • dredmorbius 1 year ago
          Outside a handful of providers (Amazon, Barn & Noble's Nook, possibly Kobo), e-ink devices tend to not be subsidised.

          You can look at pricing for, e.g., Onyx's product line to get a good sense of what the cost of a given mass-market device at a given e-ink size (and capabilities, e.g., Wacom, frontlight, touch interface) are.

          Smaller e-ink devices are quite affordable. At 10" and above, you start seeing a pretty significant price premium, though IMO the benefits are worth it.

          (I own a 13" Onyx device, for three years now.)

          • dmd 1 year ago
            The (eink) kindle is a fabulous device and in absolutely no way requires you to buy ebooks from Amazon. you can just plug it in and put Mobi files on it.
          • esperent 1 year ago
            More like a 100 million, from a quick Google search. It seems highly unfair to complain that a small company can't match Amazon's pricing.
          • Rebelgecko 1 year ago
            I dont have the link handy, but there's a company that sells 6-8 inch eink screens that are just recycled kindle parts with a more hobbyist-friendly interface attached
            • merelysounds 1 year ago
              Sounds interesting! I found the following (below); was it that?

              https://soldered.com/product/soldered-inkplate-6plus-with-en...

              > What is especially interesting is that Inkplate uses recycled screens taken from old e-book readers (...)

              • Rebelgecko 1 year ago
                I think so! Unfortunately they're actually more expensive than buying a Kindle, but I guess that's the price you pay for something that's conviently hackable
                • samstave 1 year ago
                  Are there any touch screen/sensitive e-inks - such that you could have one as usb WACOM tablet with a pen?
              • chrisco255 1 year ago
                The main reason there isn't is because e-ink tech is controlled by a company with a strict and expensive licensing arrangement. Until the patent expires, we're unlikely to realize the technology's full potential.
                • Qwertious 1 year ago
                  This is a myth, endlessly repeated without a source. Not only have the original patents expired, but there's a competing tech called Display Electronic Slurry (DES, or the cofferdam tech).

                  The real reason e-ink hasn't seen much innovation is that it's a tiny niche market, because e-ink is useful for e-readers and not much else. In contrast, LCDs are produced at a rate of billions per quarter, which gives room for lots of companies to compete furiously.

                  • eternityforest 1 year ago
                    E ink would be great for almost any tiny device that currently uses 1" OLEDs or 7segment displays, if it could be made cheap enough.
                  • braunboffel 1 year ago
                    > The main reason there isn't is because e-ink tech is controlled by a company with a strict and expensive licensing arrangement

                    When? Where? How? Is this based on your direct experience? Please share some evidence so that your claims can be verified.

                  • landgenoot 1 year ago
                    You can also flash electronic shelf labels and display your own content on it. They work over ZigBee

                    https://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/2167906 (in Dutch)

                    • ghostly_s 1 year ago
                      You're comparing a product from one of the largest companies on earth with an upstart. and even the cheapest ad-supported Kindle is only 2/3 the price of this in US?
                      • paxys 1 year ago
                        The cheapest Kindle is routinely on sale for $60-70. And spec wise there is really no comparison. The Kindle has a backlight. 1448x1072 resolution (compared to this one's 800x480). Battery that can last a month. USB-C. 16GB storage. Bluetooth. It's a very capable device. The fact that this one is made by an "upstart" means nothing. You have to compete on price and quality to be successful. Plus if this company goes out of business and shuts their servers you are left with a $150 paperweight.
                        • a1o 1 year ago
                          > if this company goes out of business and shuts their servers you are left with a $150 paperweight

                          Wait, this doesn't work offline or just in a local network? Why does this has to phone home?

                          • Timshel 1 year ago
                            Tracking on keepa lowest price is 95$ (https://keepa.com/#!product/1-B0B92489PD) and it's the 6inch. The 6.8inch has not been under 120$.

                            Anyway yes the Kindle has better spec but as you mentionned in your first post the fact that it's locked is the whole point. Amazon is not making money on the device ...

                          • yftsui 1 year ago
                            The largest company you mentioned outsourced the manufacture to factories like Foxconn. A common pattern of those "upstart" is they are just a different thin wrapper around some other factories, with a crappier spec but able to sell the BOM with higher prices.
                          • arsome 1 year ago
                            Kobos are pretty trivially jailbroken if you're looking for a similar competitive device.
                            • esperent 1 year ago
                              Old Kobos were awesome, I had one for years running Kohreader. Sadly I lost it. Then when I researched new Kobos, about two years ago, it seemed like the quality has gone down a lot as the company has been sold several times. Is that still the case?
                              • 6bb32646d83d 1 year ago
                                I use a Kobo Libra 2 and I find it great. It replaced my Paperwhite. It's easy enough to side load apps if you want too (but I find that I don't - I just need it to read books and it does that well)
                                • ornornor 1 year ago
                                  I have two Clara HD and they’re pretty good. They just work. I use Calibre with them.

                                  Inside is a micro SD card so if I ever need more storage I can just clone the original SD and extend the partition to upgrade the storage.

                                  The Kobo are so much better than the kindle imho: more open, not locked down, and the typesetting engine is Mike’s ahead: no ragged edges or page long rivers unlike I was getting on the kindle.

                                  • TheFreim 1 year ago
                                    I picked up a Libra H2O a while back, I've had no issues whatsoever. I used the default software without issue before discovering KOReader, installation was easy. The hardware is very solid, have not noticed any problems with the outside casing, screen, or issues related to power.
                              • gklitt 1 year ago
                                I bought one of these for my house recently and it’s been great. We wrote custom software for our own info display, straightforward since you just serve images over an HTTP endpoint. I’m sure there are cheaper ways to achieve this result but it’s nice to have a prebuilt package like this. My only complaint is that the custom software requires using a proxy server managed by the device creator which is bad for longevity, hope that changes eventually.
                                • rubatuga 1 year ago
                                  Why wouldn't you just buy a used kindle touch? Once rooted, it runs python3, curl, and imagemagick, I use it to query the Canadian weather API and display the forecast. No proxies needed! Plus it only costs $40 used... Essentially a local-device version of my earlier attempt at an e-paper weather display: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oel08SDFyIY

                                  If there's enough interest I can release a new video.

                                  • vosper 1 year ago
                                    Please do release a new video! There’s a comment thread about “it’s a pity kindles don’t seem to get jailbroken” so presumably some people are confused (me included)
                                    • nolongerthere 1 year ago
                                      Yea, the video is 7(!) years old, Amazon regularly patches jailbreaks just like Apple does, and for certain fire tablets it’s apparently impossible to jailbreak fully at all for the last 2 years. So you either need to find one that didn’t get the OTA update or find some way to downgrade to a previous OS/bootloader.
                                  • lostmsu 1 year ago
                                    > custom software requires using a proxy server managed by the device creator

                                    Ugh, otherwise sounded attractive.

                                    • esperent 1 year ago
                                      While I love the idea of this, I can't justify the effort and time required to get it to work versus just using a tablet, or even a normal display connected to a home server. If you want a less shiny display you can get matte screen covers, or even just de-saturate the colors in the settings.
                                    • declan_roberts 1 year ago
                                      I can’t believe the price on e-Ink displays still. Unbelievable that they’re more expensive than IPS OLED screens of similar size.
                                      • konschubert 1 year ago
                                        Small market dominated by a monopoly.
                                        • throwoutway 1 year ago
                                          Wasnt this suppose to end (the patents expire) in 2022/ 2023?
                                          • cendyne 1 year ago
                                            It might take a few years to refine the manufacturing process in other factories under different management. There is certainly a lot of knowledge and equipment to replicate.
                                      • simonebrunozzi 1 year ago
                                        I love e-ink displays, and I wish there would be more options out there for creartive use, like this one by Invisible Screen (hello Konschubert, thanks for creating this!)

                                        What I'd love is a large, high-res, perhaps color, e-ink display that I can use either as a second screen, or as an indipendent computer. I read hours every day on an LCD screen, and most of that reading would be much better on an e-ink.

                                        • bloopernova 1 year ago
                                          I'd like a version of Firefox's Reader Mode where it instead sends the text to an e-ink display. Remotely to a Kindle could work, or locally to an attached e-ink monitor.
                                          • infinityio 1 year ago
                                            They're very expensive, but I've heard good things about Dasung's e-ink monitors for this purpose
                                            • dcreater 1 year ago
                                              It sounds like you're looking for the reMarkable 2
                                              • simonebrunozzi 1 year ago
                                                Reviews for the reMarkable 2 are mixed. Not sure it's a great product.
                                            • m-p-3 1 year ago
                                              What I'm wondering is how open the device is for being operated entirely locally. I want to make sure I can still operate it myself so that I don't have to generate e-waste when it becomes "obsolete" by the maker.

                                              Otherwise the form factor is really good-looking and I'd put this in my kitchen.

                                              • hau 1 year ago
                                                Apparently it could be configured to use self-hosted local visionect server.

                                                https://hub.docker.com/r/visionect/visionect-server-v3/

                                                • napsy 1 year ago
                                                  The device in the article is not compatible with Visionect, but Visionect does offer digital signage devices (with even 13", 32" or even 42" e-ink displays). The prices of these devices are a bit premium but you get what you pay for.

                                                  Disclaimer: I work for Visionect

                                              • Animats 1 year ago
                                                Invisible? Looks very visible in the pictures.

                                                E-Ink prices for large displays are still too far high. Not much improvement in the last year. Little watch-sized ones are only a few dollars, though. Ought to be good for something. Auto gauges? Status displays on low-power devices?

                                                • dredmorbius 1 year ago
                                                  Gauges are one instance where e-ink's principle characteristic, persistence, might actually be a strong drawback.

                                                  For an instrument dashboard, you're better with an active display whose failure mode is to not display any information (or some nominal low/nil response) rather than continue to show the last updated value through all eternity.

                                                  That last would be particularly bad for speed, fuel, or battery-status displays, say.

                                                • 0ct4via 1 year ago
                                                  From the creator:

                                                  "It’s not open source and you need the backend for it to work."

                                                  They alluded to open sourcing the software/API if the business ever goes under, but obviously that'd not guaranteed.

                                                  Such a shame, I'd be willing to pay more for a product that was actually open.

                                                  • drdaeman 1 year ago
                                                    Thank you, this is exactly the information I was looking for.

                                                    If it would be a nicely built frame with a display and a microcontroller (flashable with a custom firmware, or with a simple and sane local API where I can upload a full bitmap via USB and/or WiFi, with no cloud requirements) I'd buy this in an instant.

                                                    I have a Waveshare 7.5" display for some Grafana dashboards, but I'm all thumbs when it comes to building a physical case for it, so the circuit board just dangles on a wire in an ugly cardboard box.

                                                    A shame, indeed. I have no use for a display that can't even show what I want (or needs a third-party service and Internet connectivity for this). I guess, it's most likely hackable if the case can be opened, but I'm not exactly willing to fight it for $150.

                                                    • vladxyz 1 year ago
                                                      I have a 3D printer to supplement my thumbs for things like this. Let me know if you want some help upgrading that cardboard to plastic!
                                                  • azinman2 1 year ago
                                                    I love eink. It’s so underused, especially in the home setting, where it can be a real asset as a calm technology. I think it could be a good passive screen for young kids as it’s not a traditional “screen” yet can still communicate information.
                                                    • Zetobal 1 year ago
                                                      Have done the same with a rooted kindle... and you can get them for 20$ on the bay. The price really seems a bit high for a novelty item.
                                                    • octobus2021 1 year ago
                                                      Nice job, creator. I was working on starting up something similar, went through 3 prototypes but never finished it :(

                                                      A few ideas for your consideration:

                                                      - 7 inch is waaaay too small, should be at least 10/11 inch.

                                                      - Touchscreen is a must. To switch between views, scroll to next/previous day/week, and even insert/update events.

                                                      - Voice control is really nice to have, eg to read back events for today/this week etc. Maybe to wake up so that the screen does not stay on all the time.

                                                      - Would be cool to have it running off internal power source. I used LCDs which are power-hungry, but with e-paper you are constrained only by the controller which I think is much less draining (voice control would not be an option in this case I think).

                                                      - Consider offline mode. Yes it does introduce difficulties but allows people to own the data instead of renting it and sharing with others.

                                                      Again, great job!

                                                      • passive 1 year ago
                                                        The lack of a battery kills this for me. Minimal power usage is one of the benefits of these kinds of displays, so it seems a very strange omission. We have too many cords running along walls as it is, and it makes the placement a lot harder.

                                                        Neat idea though.

                                                        • hinkley 1 year ago
                                                          I got into arduino when they first come out because I wanted to build information radiators. Every five years since I look at whether or when it will be possible to hang a picture frame on the wall that has no wires and updates. I’m just about overdue to look again. It seems like we are close, but charging it wirelessly or off of solar hidden in the frame is a while yet.

                                                          The desktop model really stands out here. The foot needs to be heavy, and there’s plenty of space for batteries in there.

                                                          • hiddencost 1 year ago
                                                            I have a home made one running on a battery for 8 months. 10Ah, but it only updates every 8 hours.
                                                          • chomp 1 year ago
                                                            I really want to do this with a pi zero w, but with a larger screen. 7.5” is barely larger than a door placard.
                                                            • ta988 1 year ago
                                                              You can find waveshare panels that are bigger, 13.3" for around the price of that thing. They are not that hard to drive.
                                                            • hmottestad 1 year ago
                                                              The best displays seem to be reserved for ebook vendors. I’m using a boox device with a PWA (webpage that works as an app).
                                                              • rattus_rattus 1 year ago
                                                                I have a similar thing running using a Zero WH and Inkycal. The screen I have is the same size (7.5 inches) but you can use bigger ones too. I didn’t want to shell out more money initially for a larger screen, but I may upgrade it later.
                                                                • mushufasa 1 year ago
                                                                  Seems like this is/was meant to be a door placard for meeting room availability.
                                                                • speps 1 year ago
                                                                  Pictures are deceitful, screen is only 7.5", fair price I'm not sure, no details on SDK.
                                                                  • omoikane 1 year ago
                                                                    > no details on SDK.

                                                                    The "develop your own content" link on the top page links to:

                                                                    https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image...

                                                                    I guess being able to display custom images is a plus, but I am not sure I would call that a SDK.

                                                                    • MPSimmons 1 year ago
                                                                      In some ways, it's actually way less limiting than any other SDK. You can directly control every pixel it displays, which is pretty freeing. I like that idea a lot, but I don't like that it's proxied through their server :-(
                                                                    • throwaway8877 1 year ago
                                                                      It certainly appears like 15".
                                                                      • konschubert 1 year ago
                                                                        Wow, sorry, that was not my intention.

                                                                        I am going to have new pictures taken anyways, I will try to make sure to add some size references.

                                                                        There are a bunch of photos here. Which ones would you say are the most suggestive of a bigger screen size? I can maybe re-sort the images to prevent confusion.

                                                                        Last thing I want is a customer ordering something, them being unhappy and me having to process a return. That's always a loss for me.

                                                                        • CharlesW 1 year ago
                                                                          Definitely include a banana for scale.

                                                                          (But seriously, showing something like car keys hanging next to the currently-isolated shots would help a lot.)

                                                                    • 999900000999 1 year ago
                                                                      This seems like a fair price. I couldn't an Eink display to work with a Pi Zero. It's seriously difficult to get working.

                                                                      I don't have an exact need for it now, but once I have a project worthwhile I might pick it up.

                                                                      • IshKebab 1 year ago
                                                                        It's definitely a fair price. Just a shame it is closed source and not battery powered. The Inkplate series of displays are better on both fronts (open source and support batteries). The downside is you'd need to make a nice wooden case, and do some programming.
                                                                      • WalterBright 1 year ago
                                                                        I'd buy it if it would display the front page of today's paper.

                                                                        Oh, I wish the Kindle would use, as it's "off" screen, the last page I was reading.

                                                                        • dredmorbius 1 year ago
                                                                          Using the most-recently-active application (or book) as the sleep / poweroff screen is a feature of many e-book readers. If not Kindle, then Onyx's BOOX line, and from what I've seen elsewhere, others.

                                                                          Front page of a paper: any e-ink tablet with a PDF viewer or web browser will get you there.

                                                                        • 1 year ago
                                                                          • ta988 1 year ago
                                                                            So only usable with their own app that may disappear with the company in a year? That sound like potential e-waste in a short amount of time.
                                                                            • downrightmike 1 year ago
                                                                              They've been around for at least sine the pandemic started
                                                                            • CPLX 1 year ago
                                                                              I bought one of these the last time it was on HN and I’m happy with it.

                                                                              I have been trying to eliminate reasons to use my phone when at home, and have totally stopped picking it up in the morning.

                                                                              The problem then is I can get blindsided not knowing what my schedule is or if I have an early call.

                                                                              So now I have one of these things by my sink and it shows me just the calendar for the current day.

                                                                              • User23 1 year ago
                                                                                I would pay good money for a tabloid eink reader, so 17x11 inches. Ideally it would fold. A folding pair of 8.5x11 screens designed to work together would fit my use case too. So far as I know, nobody makes such a thing. Ideally it would be color but I’d settle for monochrome.
                                                                                • mwagstaff 1 year ago
                                                                                  I bought one of these a few months back. Excellent product, can definitely recommend.

                                                                                  Very simple, but very effective.

                                                                                  • jot 1 year ago
                                                                                    I purchased one of these after seeing it posted to hn a few weeks ago. Very happy with it. Super easy to setup and just works. Maker has clearly put loads of work into refining the experience.
                                                                                    • ulrischa 1 year ago
                                                                                      I was looking for something like this. But the API looks not so good. I always dreamed of something like this that has an API where I can send html to render and completely locally.
                                                                                      • konschubert 1 year ago
                                                                                        Creator here. I plan to support HTML rendering but I can't promise anything.

                                                                                        You can already point it to an image url with an image in the right resolution on the internet, and it will render that.

                                                                                        But for pointing it to an HTML page, you need a headless browser and that comes with a bunch of practical issues.

                                                                                        • davely 1 year ago
                                                                                          Neat device!

                                                                                          I don’t see any obvious answer for this, but how often does it query / refresh the image URL?

                                                                                          I’m thinking of writing some script to just push an updated image to something like https://example.com/dashboard.png every 15 minutes or so.

                                                                                          • konschubert 1 year ago
                                                                                            It will refresh within a minute or two of you pushing the updated version.
                                                                                        • hmottestad 1 year ago
                                                                                          How about an android ebook?
                                                                                        • causality0 1 year ago
                                                                                          "Invisible"? The sickly blue-gray background of the display makes it look like a giant reflective LCD like a cheap clock.
                                                                                          • rismay 1 year ago
                                                                                            A lot of little projects like this that end up going bust because of the cost of running the business.

                                                                                            Still cool that projects like this are launched.

                                                                                            • konschubert 1 year ago
                                                                                              Not OP here, but I saw a bunch of traffic coming to my website, so I checked and found this post ;)

                                                                                              I try to keep things lean. Reduce fixed costs, especially server costs, since I want to keep this running 10 years AFTER I sell the last display.

                                                                                              I outsource some stuff but I make sure everything can be scaled down when I the business is slow.

                                                                                            • mushufasa 1 year ago
                                                                                              "Screen Size: 7.5 Screen Resolution: 800 x 480"

                                                                                              Fine for displaying a day but not a week

                                                                                              • n8cpdx 1 year ago
                                                                                                I don’t really understand how it is still trendy to pretend that everyone uses Google for email and calendar.

                                                                                                I get that the SF crowd was all about it, but if the last few years have taught us anything it is that there’s more to the techie world than VC free money startups.

                                                                                                I reckon there are far more people who need this and who might buy this who are using Outlook/Office 365 either alone or in some combination than who use Gmail exclusively.

                                                                                                And yes, Office 365 has an API. Even Alexa works with it.

                                                                                                • GavinMcG 1 year ago
                                                                                                  I’d imagine the creator uses Google calendar, made it for themself, and then decided others might like to have a pre-built version. “Trendy” probably doesn’t have anything to do with it.
                                                                                                  • konschubert 1 year ago
                                                                                                    Creator here. That's exactly what happened.
                                                                                                    • MPSimmons 1 year ago
                                                                                                      Hi Creator! Nice looking product!

                                                                                                      Is it necessary to have the content proxied through your API server? If the company doesn't work out, it would be a shame to have this device stop working, even though it's fully capable of reaching the internal URL I would be hosting my content on.

                                                                                                      Could that be changed?

                                                                                                      • blagie 1 year ago
                                                                                                        Creator: If you decide to move this to a full-fledged startup, it should:

                                                                                                        1) Have a touch screen

                                                                                                        2) Integrate with Outlook calendar and multiple Google calendars

                                                                                                        3) Integrate with smart home features (e.g. lights, temperature, etc)

                                                                                                        4) Integrate with other data sources (e.g. news)

                                                                                                        At $150, be open-source and open-hardware (at a lower price point, I'd do without).

                                                                                                        I'm looking for something like that.

                                                                                                        Until then, neat product!

                                                                                                    • samdunham 1 year ago
                                                                                                      I'd wager that far more individuals use GMail and Google calendar and a majority of business users use O365/Outlook. This looks more like a home device than a business device.
                                                                                                      • konschubert 1 year ago
                                                                                                        Hi, if you're using outlook, maybe you can use the .ics integration? (It can be configured through iOS for now, Android is coming soon.)

                                                                                                        Outlook is on the roadmap. But I felt like supporting .ics was more pressing.

                                                                                                        • Aerbil313 1 year ago
                                                                                                          iOS Calendar supports generating .ics too.
                                                                                                      • xtagon 1 year ago
                                                                                                        I'm pretty sure both Office 365 and Google Calendar have a way to generate an iCal URL. So you could just implement that, I would think.
                                                                                                        • avtolik 1 year ago
                                                                                                          Office 365 has an API, but good luck convincing your organization to approve your app that works with this API.

                                                                                                          I tried with 2-2 different companies that I worked with, but to no avail. I just wanted a simple app that syncs some events from the work calendar to my personal one...

                                                                                                          • hansoolo 1 year ago
                                                                                                            That's true. I had a touch display for a pi laying around and started a personal dashboard project. Thought about Google calendar to synchronize the calendar between different devices... It was too much of a hassle. I ended up serving my own caldav server on the pi and everyone's device could easily synch the calendar, no matter if PC, iPhone or Android phone. No need for Google
                                                                                                            • deadbabe 1 year ago
                                                                                                              I use Google for email and calendar still. Never really found a way to transition off of it. :(
                                                                                                              • justusthane 1 year ago
                                                                                                                There are plenty of ways! I can personally whole-heartedly recommend Fastmail if you don't mind paying a bit for your email (and I believe that something as important as email is worth paying for).

                                                                                                                There are two aspects that make this easier than most people realize:

                                                                                                                - You will theoretically retain your existing Gmail address forever, even if you close your Gmail account. This means you can reactivate it at any time.

                                                                                                                - You can use your new email address as the sign-in ID for your existing Google account. This means you can continue to use Google Docs, YouTube, etc and stuff without being reliant on Gmail.

                                                                                                                I wrote a short guide a while back here: https://www.justus.ws/tech/how-to-ditch-gmail/

                                                                                                              • ajb 1 year ago
                                                                                                                For email, it's straightforward but a bit tedious. There are a number of ways to break it into smaller steps. Any approach should include getting your own domain name.
                                                                                                            • noman-land 1 year ago
                                                                                                              [flagged]
                                                                                                              • alejoar 1 year ago
                                                                                                                You, on the other hand, sound like a very not-sad person.
                                                                                                              • stetrain 1 year ago
                                                                                                                Smoking, lottery tickets, and drugs cause negative effects in people's lives.

                                                                                                                Using gmail has caused me no negative effects. It may not be ideal, but it works and has a reasonable set of tradeoffs.

                                                                                                                I think it's more like renting vs buying or building from source vs compiled binaries than it is a crippling substance addiction which will ruin your health and relationships.

                                                                                                                • SentientOctopus 1 year ago
                                                                                                                  I wouldn't put it that strongly, but I tend to agree. With the amount of almost daily news/leaks/... it should be a no brainer to not use these advertising platforms made by advertising companies IF you are tech savvy. It is hard for others as they have to give up some convenience. And to the person calling you 'sad', I find it hard not to be when people react that way.
                                                                                                                  • rpmisms 1 year ago
                                                                                                                    I don't use calendar or email that much. When I do, Google does fine.
                                                                                                                    • wkat4242 1 year ago
                                                                                                                      Well, what else would you use?

                                                                                                                      I'm using Office 365 myself, because I hate google's datamining but Microsoft isn't much better. The added benefit for me is that I work with M365 at work and having an unrestricted tenant for myself helps me understand it better (to see the options available that I don't have access to in the admin console at work).

                                                                                                                      But I don't know what else I'd use. I don't like proton very much as a company either (purely personal opinion), and I don't know anyone else that has good mobile syncing.

                                                                                                                      • 1 year ago