[HN Gopher] I made an eInk newspaper
___________________________________________________________________
I made an eInk newspaper
Author : graiz
Score : 297 points
Date : 2021-03-28 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gregraiz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gregraiz.com)
| jetgirl wrote:
| You could start a (tiny) newspaper for the cost of this.
| siraben wrote:
| For those who own a reMarkable tablet, you can get a similar
| effect on your suspend screen by running remarkable-news[0]. When
| suspended, power consumption is very low (idle) and the screen is
| not powered, making it ideal for static content.
|
| [0] https://github.com/Evidlo/remarkable_news
| secfirstmd wrote:
| This is awesome. Thanks for the headsup
| varispeed wrote:
| I have reMarkable tablet, but I have not installed anything.
| What is a chance of bricking the device by doing so? I also
| found that I can't really write any notes with it as it is not
| encrypted, so now it is just a - oh irony - a paperweight for
| me. I should have done more research before buying. Is it
| possible to encrypt the notes?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| As much as I like to Encrypt All The Things(tm), unless
| you're concerned about somebody stealing the physical device,
| you don't need to encrypt it.
|
| It should be possible to set up an encrypted directory with
| something _like_ FUSE (though afaik FUSE doesn 't run on the
| reMarkable), though.
| https://github.com/evidlo/remarkable_entware lets you install
| fstools.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's very cool that this is catching on. $2500 is expensive but
| if demand can be spread outside of the existing commercial market
| then a virtuous circle may result - falling product prices
| combined with lowered energy use and increased utility. This
| could pair very well with a simple voice-controlled interface;
| besides newspapers it seems like it could be great for maps and
| dashboards/instrumentation displays. I really hope this follows
| the same track as 'digital photo frames' that preceded LEDs
| becoming cheap, ubiquitous, and of excellent quality. Great as
| they are, I also like E-ink for its lower power use and lack of
| luminance.
|
| Re the blog page, I would have liked larger photos including
| close-ups; it looks great in the video but with a cut every few
| seconds it's hard to really study the quality.
| varispeed wrote:
| It's about the cost of a two year subscription of a reputable
| newspaper. It would be nice if one of them cut a deal e.g.
| subscription and a tablet and make PR about being eco-friendly
| as it will not use paper etc.
| kortilla wrote:
| What reputable newspaper costs $1250 a year?
| rmason wrote:
| I've always thought the future of newspapers was an iPad sized
| e-ink reader. One cheap enough for papers to give away to their
| subscribers. Yet it hasn't happened and I'm left wondering why?
|
| I think it's because the newspaper industry has tunnel vision.
| You might ask what about newspaper apps on phones? First it isn't
| an ideal screen size for a newspaper. Second they only show a
| fraction of the articles. They also keep articles on their scroll
| for days and days. I don't know about you but I don't chose a
| digital delivery to get days old stories.
|
| I think the industry needs a well funded disruptor. Living in
| Michigan I can tell you that without Elon Musk we'd never be
| moving toward battery powered automobiles. I've dealt with
| Gannett's customer service and I have come away convinced that
| they hate their customers.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I suspect that the digital news industry is dealing with a
| similar thing to the streaming industry: Everyone wants to run
| directly to customers, so customers need to subscribe to every
| newspaper and magazine they want to see, individually.
|
| I subscribe to two digital newspapers. I'd subscribe to a lot
| more, if they were bundled into aggregators (that didn't push
| worthless sports pages on customers, like cable systems do).
|
| When Apple came out with their AppleNews+, I thought that was
| it, but then I saw that they don't actually have much that I
| want.
|
| Both streamers and news organizations need to get their shit
| together, and bundle. I don't see that happening, any time
| soon, so the options are still dealing with a Balkanized media
| scene.
| ghaff wrote:
| The problem is likely related to the one with video. Sure, I
| can give you an aggregated subscription but it will cost you
| $1,000+ per year. How many people will pay that?
|
| (And that's around what the basic cable TV bundle cost so
| it's hardly out of line.)
| BossingAround wrote:
| > Yet it hasn't happened and I'm left wondering why?
|
| I thought it had to do more with the patents on a lot of the
| e-ink technology? I've been waiting for a proper e-ink monitor
| that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg for years.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Putting cost aside, I think it's, first, because people don't
| want a separate device _just_ for newspapers. That 's just
| clutter. I want to read my news on the same device I read
| magazine articles and novels and blogs.
|
| And second, while e-ink devices are really great at
| _sequential_ reading -- page after page of a novel -- they 're
| not that great at browsing lots of articles, picking the ones
| you're interested in, just because the refresh rate and
| scrolling is awfully slow.
|
| Most people aren't bothered about reading news on their phone
| at all. It really _is_ an ideal screen size for accessing bite-
| sized pieces of news throughout the day when we have short
| breaks, which honestly is how most people do it these days.
|
| If you want leisurely long-form journalism over breakfast,
| you're really only looking at the Sunday paper, or certain
| weekly magazines. And so you can splurge to get those on actual
| paper, or else curl up with your iPad or Kindle.
| falcor84 wrote:
| I for one would be quite interested in a separate device just
| for newspapers, something that has absolutely no other
| functions (other than perhaps a built-in glossary) and allows
| me to just catch up on news as a deliberate action, without
| getting drawn into various rabbit holes.
| ghaff wrote:
| And organizations like the NYT have adapted the format of
| certain stories to be tablet/computer friendly.
|
| Honestly the lets have a digital newspaper that imitates the
| form of a paper newspaper is going back to how people were
| thinking in the late 90s (fishwrap I think? out of MIT). I
| honestly don't even reach for my tablet all that much because
| I'm already on my phone or a laptop.
|
| I do like e-ink for flowing text reading and I have a Kindle
| but I don't have any interest in a _different_ tablet that 's
| just for newspapers absent the newer more dynamic features.
| nafizh wrote:
| It's the e-ink patent problem. Nothing innovative is happening
| because of the e-ink parent company.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Please don't start with this BS again. Every time e-ink is
| mentioned in this forum, the same. There is absolutely no
| proof that e-Ink is boycotting their own business, much less
| using patents. There are eInk devices and manufacturers to
| spare.
|
| eInk is just expensive to manufacture.
|
| Personally I think there is just no demand.
|
| You could build a large reflective LCD for a fraction of the
| price; you would have none of the problems of eInk -- such as
| the bad refresh rate -- and users have a hard time
| distinguishing an eInk panel from a reflective-LCD panel
| anyway (see the Pebble). Even accounting for the energy
| consumption it would probably be a close call in cost, unless
| you plan on updating the panel only a couple times per week.
| The fact that no one of the LCD panel manufacturers are doing
| this even with leftovers from other production lines just
| shows how little demand there is, outside of HN-welcome
| hobbyist projects and other low-power areas such as
| smartwatches.
| varispeed wrote:
| What exactly is patented? Really, nobody else can make e-ink?
| It doesn't seem like this idea is in any way original.
| fortran77 wrote:
| You can easily search US Patents here:
| http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html
|
| > Really, nobody else can make e-ink? It doesn't seem like
| this idea is in any way original.
|
| I must be stupid, because the implementation of e-ink
| certainly seems novel, original, and useful to me! I would
| never have thought of it, nor did I see it before I saw the
| first e-ink display:
|
| Here's a description: Small capsules
| filled with a clear fluid containing tiny particles, each
| about as wide as a human hair. Each electronic
| paper display is made up of millions of such capsules in a
| thin film, with the particles inside the capsules of
| different colors and different electric charges. Electrodes
| are placed above and below the capsule film. When a
| positive or negative electric field is applied to an
| individual electrode, the color particles with the
| corresponding charge will move either to the top or bottom
| of a capsule, making the surface of the e-paper display
| appear a certain color
| [deleted]
| fortran77 wrote:
| Cell phones have tens of thousands of patents. Yet the
| innovations keep coming.
| arkh wrote:
| Because it is easier to adapt software to hardware than the
| opposite.
|
| You'd think there would be e-ink devices aimed at mangas
| nowadays. But the software was adapted to phone usage, that's
| how you get webtoons and artists playing with the possibilities
| given by scrolling.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Couldn't the HTML rendering be done on a smartphone, and then
| sent wirelessly to the display? So, essentially making the
| display a "dumb" one?
| denysvitali wrote:
| Oh cool!
|
| > EUR2,300.00
|
| Uhm
| keenreed wrote:
| Laser printer also works quite well. It can even display multiple
| pages at the same time :)
| azinman2 wrote:
| Or how about the actual newspaper?
| fortran77 wrote:
| > The display is 99% more power efficient than a traditional LCD,
| so the display can run for months without being charged.
|
| Wow! It's not even twice as power efficient as an LCD! I would
| have thought it would be much more power efficient than that.
|
| The manufacture's web page makes the same claim:
| https://www.visionect.com/product/place-and-play-32/
|
| How does it run for months on a battery if it's only 99% more
| efficient than an LCD panel?
| Tarsul wrote:
| now that you're saying it, it does read like you say. I and
| probably 99% of people read it the way it's meant: it uses just
| 1% of the energy needed for an equally big LCD, which means it
| can stay on 100 times as long. They should've used a better
| wording, yes.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| It's just way too expensive. PLACE & PLAY 32'' - $2,576.00 eInk
| tech is great, it's been around for a long time and the adoption
| is very slow. For this pri e you can get very thing lg oled hdr
| tv 60-70".
| efrank02 wrote:
| You should cite the original
| jnovek wrote:
| Slight topic hijack:
|
| I desperately want an eInk display attached to my computer.
|
| I have amblyopia, and my vision can only be corrected to ~20/50.
| I develop significant eye strain using normal computer monitors
| and eInk is much easier on my eyes.
|
| The only monitor-sized eInk display I'm aware of for normal
| consumers is the 13.3" Onyx Boox Max at nearly $1000.
|
| Does anyone know of a cheaper product out there that would meet
| my needs?
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Nope. Large eInk is unfortunately super niche and expensive.
| Dasung also has eInk products designed to be monitors but they
| are just as expensive as Boox's stuff while doing less (but
| they are better as monitors). Since Boox's products are all
| just Android tablets you could try apps like SpaceDesk to use a
| cheaper 10" eInk tablet as a monitor which are a fair bit
| cheaper at ~$500.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Does 10" do it for you? At $139 you could use several.
|
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-10
| jnovek wrote:
| I've considered something similar to this -- essentially make
| a matrix like they did in the old days with CRTs.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Dasung is the only manufacturer that's known for producing
| e-ink monitors but they are not any cheaper:
|
| - Review of Dasung's current generation 13.3" e-ink monitor:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeC3LIFTaho
|
| - Preview video of their upcoming 25.3" e-ink monitor:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY
|
| If low cost is a priority, previous generations of Dasung's
| e-ink displays occasionally show up on eBay.
| singularity2001 wrote:
| any idea what the 25.3" e-ink monitor will cost?
|
| its EUR1500 for the 13.3" version, so ...
|
| https://www.ebay.de/itm/Dasung-e-ink-Monitor-HD-
| FT/133442474...
| IshKebab wrote:
| Probably around EUR3 or 4k then.
| zamadatix wrote:
| There aren't any cheaper options (e-ink displays are patent
| encumbered) but Dasung has a similarly priced 13.3" display
| built with the intention of being used as a monitor if you end
| up going that route. Even crazier is a 23.5" version they just
| came out with for just over $3,000.
| hanemile wrote:
| Well there is the remarkable[1]. I'm not really sure if it
| would fit your needs, but It's worth a look imho.
|
| Pro: As you get a root shell by default, it's nicely hackable
| and costs a lot less than the Onyx Boox Max.
|
| Con: it's only 10.3".
|
| [1]: https://remarkable.com/
| sdfhbdf wrote:
| Its not much cheaper if you compare to Onyx equivalent - Onyx
| Boox Note Air or Boox Note 3 which are also 10.3 and run on
| Android.
|
| https://onyxboox.com/boox_noteair
| jnovek wrote:
| I have the 6" Onyx Boox and it definitely runs a weird
| distribution of Android. I wouldn't be surprised if you can
| get root or even bootloader, but I haven't needed it.
|
| That said, if I buy one in the 10" range, it seems that
| Onyx hasn't released modifications to GPL code so
| Remarkable might be a more ethical choice.
| ingend88 wrote:
| I am looking to use one of these but then setup as a family
| calendar. Any suggestions.
| napsy wrote:
| There is a product, called Joan Home that is meant for home use
| and can display a single Google calendar
| https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home/. If you share the calendar,
| it can be perfect to show family events.
|
| Disclaimer: I work for the company that develops the Joan
| product and the e-ink display, mentioned in the article.
| SilverRed wrote:
| This is probably the easiest one to get started with
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6
|
| Its old kindle screens reverse engineered and stuck on a dev
| board containing an esp wifi chip.
| eli wrote:
| Visionect place & play is great if you can swing the price.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Slight tangent, but Calibre has a feature that lets you download
| articles from various sites (including news sites) and producing
| ebooks out of each (daily). When I first bought an ebook reader,
| this became my primary way of consuming news. I'd connect my
| ereader to the PC, and download the news. One ebook per
| newspaper.
|
| It was _so_ much better than reading on the PC. And it looked a
| _lot_ like a traditional newspaper. No banner ads and pointless
| links. Just the story with relevant photos in B /W.
|
| Then I stopped reading news. Still have fond memories of reading
| the news on eInk, though.
| xiii1408 wrote:
| Very cool! This reminds me a bit of the installation outside UC
| Berkeley's Free Speech Cafe, where they display the day's issue
| of about a dozen world newspapers, including one from exactly 100
| years ago to the day [1]. (They stopped updating during the
| pandemic.)
|
| Your project sounds like the perfect piece of technology to add
| to an installation like this (or to essentially create a new
| version of it).
|
| [1] https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/08/07/stop-the-presses-
| the...
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| This is basically a rip off the previously discussed (and much
| more well-written) original here: https://onezero.medium.com/the-
| morning-paper-revisited-35b40...
|
| It was previously discussed at length - I actually assumed
| someone had rediscovered it and posted it here again. Interesting
| that TFM doesn't cite the very relevant prior art.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Did you read the post?
|
| > Why did I build this? I saw something similar online a few
| years ago and I couldn't find it for sale so I decided to built
| it myself.
|
| It is lazy that he should have done some searching make a more
| concrete cite than just mention that he remembers seeing it.
| But at least he mentions he was influenced by prior art.
| graiz wrote:
| Not lazy... I googled for quite a bit and couldn't find the
| link. I wasn't claiming it as original. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Sorry, I didn't mean any offense by the comment. If
| anything, I think even if the link was findable not finding
| it but saying you saw it somewhere is fine. In this case,
| ya, not being able to find the link is a good enough excuse
| to just mentioning that you saw it elsewhere.
| fotta wrote:
| Here's another one from 4 months ago with lots of discussion.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25063726
| yoz-y wrote:
| Shame on the people that make interesting hobby projects
| without citing everybody that ever influenced them.
| eli wrote:
| That's funny -- I just did the same thing! We both must have read
| that same earlier post about using Visionect to display the NYT
| and ran out and ordered one.
|
| I didn't get a chance to write it up yet but here's my software
| https://github.com/elidickinson/newsvision
|
| I skipped the HTML renderer and used the python library to push
| image data right to the display's frame buffer. Seems simpler if
| you're doing the hard work of turning it into an image yourself
| anyway. I also grabbed the full list of newspapers and used
| imagemagick to annotate each image with the paper name and
| location. It's a little hacky, but seems to work.
|
| It's admittedly an expensive display, but it really is very well
| made piece of hardware.
| graiz wrote:
| Thanks for posting. I didn't see a way to post directly to the
| display. I'll have to dig into.
| elondaits wrote:
| I didn't understand going through HTML to render it with a
| headless browser instead of rendering the PDF directly with
| Ghostscript or something like that.
| eli wrote:
| I used poppler-utils but the OP apparently used imagemagick
| on PDFs directly which I didn't know was possible.
|
| (To be fair the device does HTML rendering by default and the
| API for pushing images isn't super obvious)
| fotta wrote:
| The earlier post, if I'm not mistaken:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25063726
| eli wrote:
| Yes exactly. There was also this one prior where the author
| built the panel/frame themselves:
| https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-
| revisited-35b40...
| Redoubts wrote:
| > the python library to push image data right to the display's
| frame buffer
|
| How are you doing this? It looks like you're pushing it to
| their cloud service (or your local docker copy, if configured
| as such)
| eli wrote:
| I'm using their cloud hosting now (I think it's free for the
| first month) but it would work the same once I'm self hosting
| the Visionect server. Just change the url to push to
| localhost and run both containers on the same box. Should be
| low overhead with the HTML rendering disabled. Could run it
| on a cheap cloud server or I'll probably use an old laptop on
| the local network.
| eli wrote:
| Some other ideas: overlay additional data or insert other
| screens in the rotation like a local weather map and bus times.
| Add another mode to display portraits or fine art. I also want
| to try different dithering and scaling techniques to see if I
| can get the text crisper.
|
| I also think it'd be neat to make an alexa skill for it so you
| could issue voice commands. Maybe have it show the song and
| artist data for what's playing on Spotify.
| graiz wrote:
| I thought about this. It would be a throwback to Pointcast
| (Circa 1990) for anyone who remembers that. They did the same
| thing... news, weather, stocks on a rotating schedule.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| http://johnnylee.net/projects/thesis/
|
| from which foldable displays
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhSR_6-Y5Kg
| ruph123 wrote:
| Man I love e-ink devices so much. My Onyx Boox Note Air is one of
| the nicest and useful devices I have ever owned. I absolutely
| love it and their open platform. (I even ditched my Kindle oasis
| for the Poke3)
|
| I always regarded e-ink as a soon-to-be (or already) obsolete
| technology and while that might still be true, I absolutely love
| it for reading and writing. There is currently nothing better.
| nzmsv wrote:
| Open? In what universe? They are blatant GPL violators:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/hl09g7/onyx_boox_chi...
| ruph123 wrote:
| Open because it runs Android and I can install any apps I
| want and even root the thing if I wanted to. (And by default
| it runs without google play services)
|
| Compare this to the Remarkable who probably does not violate
| the GPL but whose software platform does not allow me to
| simply add more functionality.
|
| Good example of "practically open" to "technically in the GNU
| sense ... bla bla bla".
| neolog wrote:
| > whose software platform does not allow me to simply add
| more functionality
|
| https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Personally I would choose the reMarkable rather than any
| Android one _precisely_ because I find the reMarkable to be
| the one that is "more open in practice" one (it even lets
| you know the root password by default), even though Android
| is technically much more open source. By experience, I know
| the former category of devices tends to age much better.
| proto-n wrote:
| Isn't remarkable a simple linux system with qt applications
| that you can modify as you like?
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| It's not as simple, though. The stock Qt application
| which contains the entire GUI is completely closed-source
| meaning that if you want to do even something as simple
| as adding a simple menu to launch your custom application
| you have to binary-monkey-patch the main GUI exec. This
| is as terrible as it sounds.
| jnovek wrote:
| I JUST learned this googling around because of this post.
|
| This is such a bummer to me -- I'm not going to toss my 6"
| Onyx but I probably won't buy one of their other products
| now.
| jnovek wrote:
| How is the stylus input on the Note Air? Does it seem good
| enough for drawing?
| ruph123 wrote:
| I'd say it is very good. According to mydeepguide it is
| between remarkable 1 and 2. So not the best but pretty good.
| I used an iPad and Pencil before and it feels better compared
| to that. But the iPad is more dependent on the iPad.
|
| I am shot at drawing, so not sure. I only draw up diagrams
| and things like that.
| dmje wrote:
| Looks great until you see the price of the display. EUR2,300 buys
| you a daily newspaper every day for 5 years...
| nullify88 wrote:
| After seeing the one with the new york times, I thought about
| having a colour eink display that would display related album or
| artist art as I played music from my chromecast audio plugged in
| my hifi. Just finding a high quality source of images is hard but
| Apple iTunes has a decent selection.
|
| Other opportunities could be displaying the days RSS feeds or HN
| posts.
| SilverRed wrote:
| As far as I have seen, color eink is just an lcd with an extra
| matte plastic layer over the top.
|
| You can get 3 color real e paper displays but thats really
| pushing the tech and it takes ages to refresh.
| zo1 wrote:
| Unfortunately, the price for the e-ink display is "EUR2,300".
| slater wrote:
| That's _aaaalmost_ down to vaguely-affordable, though. Used to
| be that eInk Corp. wouldn 't even pick up the phone for less
| than at least $10k+
| derefr wrote:
| These direct-sales eInk products are essentially SDKs for
| their tech, so it makes sense that they've always been low-
| volume B2B products with high per-unit prices.
|
| Nevertheless, there has been a recent decrease in price of
| this SDK hardware. I believe it's been driven by eInk having
| created a modular substrate (all the stuff in a display,
| minus the panel) allowing cheaper iteration on their panel
| technology. So people can buy the SDK substrate component
| once; and then buy a new SDK panel component each time eInk
| reformulates it. Lower manufacturing costs + cheaper
| logistics for eInk Corp. = cheaper costs for everyone else,
| even when buying the whole kit together.
|
| (Sort of the same reason that essentially the same cube-shelf
| design is cheaper from IKEA -- IKEA just packs wood tightly
| into a flat box, and then piles those flat boxes up in a
| shipping container; and when you buy it and get it delivered,
| it's still flat right up until it's in your house. Other
| manufacturers, meanwhile, assemble the thing at some point --
| whether at the factory or at the story -- and then ship it at
| least once in assembled form, where it's taking up a huge
| amount of space in the container / on the truck.)
| jameshart wrote:
| I actually realized when I was in the ikea warehouse
| recently pondering why ikea still don't offer home delivery
| for most things: they actually just never pay anyone to
| move or handle less than a pallet-load of flat pack boxes
| at a time. You do that labor yourself for them - taking the
| cart, finding the box (or multiple separate boxes for a lot
| of their more customizable combination items) in the
| warehouse, picking it, taking it to the scanning station,
| loading it for transport. All that labor that you do as a
| customer is a core part of Ikea's competitive advantage.
| Even if other companies ship you items flatpacked, they're
| still doing all that work ikea doesn't.
| derefr wrote:
| It's funny. I live in a city where public transit is very
| good and I don't need to own a car (so I don't.) One of
| the inconveniences in my life is getting large furniture
| from stores. I can _get to_ an IKEA just fine -- but I
| have no way to get the products back home on my own.
|
| If they would let me, I would actually be perfectly happy
| to _go_ to the IKEA, pick the boxes myself, and even
| _load_ them into _their_ truck myself, if that would
| result in the items then being driven to my house. I have
| to imagine that IKEA would be pretty okay with that
| arrangement as well. I wonder why they don't offer that
| "service"...
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| It may look easy for you but it would complicate things
| for them. After packing your stuff you would probably
| want to get back home in the same vehicle, right?
| Otherwise the driver could get there before you. But in
| order to optimize, they will try to serve several
| customers at once - it would be impossible to let them
| all into the same large truck.
|
| SO basically you have two options: either use their
| online story (the most convenient option) or use public
| transport to go there and a taxi (of adequate size) to
| get back home. I usually use the former option after
| having visited the store first to actually try the
| products I intend to buy. I don't treat their stores as
| stores but as showrooms.
| detaro wrote:
| Is there no third-party filling that niche? Here in
| Berlin there's companies that pretty much offer "guy with
| van that picks you up at IKEA" (or other furniture
| stores, but at IKEA there's usually one lingering about
| waiting for customers)
|
| Although I thought they'd deliver almost everything by
| now too if you want. but haven't checked in a long time.
| nitrogen wrote:
| The IKEAs I've been to all offer delivery for a fee, and
| at least one offered order picking for an additional fee.
| zaxomi wrote:
| In Sweden, IKEA have trailers and vans that you can rent,
| or they can deliver it to you.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Funnily enough officially they still don't. For some reason
| you're in theory _not allowed_ to buy the evaluation kits as
| a consumer.
| crumpled wrote:
| $2,576 US
| 0x53 wrote:
| Yikes. I immediately went to see how much it was, because I
| have always wanted to buy a large eink screen. Guess I'll be
| waiting a bit more.
| techbubble wrote:
| I really like the concept of eInk, but for that price a
| regular wall-mounted display plus DAKboard[1] plus
| electricity will have to suffice.
|
| [1] https://dakboard.com/site
| Redoubts wrote:
| I like the display, but the need for a CMS running in a docker
| container on the other end to push images is asinine. Why is the
| eink market this weird?
| eli wrote:
| The visionect server? I actually like that it's a relatively
| dumb hardware with "server" software you can choose to run
| yourself. It's pretty good software especially from a hardware
| company.
| napsy wrote:
| Yes, because the device is "dumb", it can achieve long
| battery autonomy. For example, our Joan products can work up
| to 6 months on battery without recharging.
| Redoubts wrote:
| It's fine it's a dumb display, I'm just surprised i can't
| just make a socket connection and push some packets into the
| display over lan. It's not just "server" software, there's a
| full legit web app sitting in the middle.
| eli wrote:
| You might be interested in a more DIY approach:
| https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-
| revisited-35b40...
| napsy wrote:
| The current solution offers a management interface for a
| fleet of such devices with different content and
| "renderers" and power and activity statistics and charts
| and an HTTP API interface.
| teddyh wrote:
| As I've mentioned before1, hardware people can't write
| software.
|
| 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21656747
| adamrmcd wrote:
| The base eink display doesn't take common image formats
| natively. Instead images need to be dithered and encoded in a
| specific format to convey the greyscale or color map. The
| backend architecture is likely used to convert an html rending
| into the EPD binary format.
| napsy wrote:
| The Visionect Server is able to automatically pre-optimize
| the images before they're rendered on the device display
| (e.g. grayscaling, contrast correction).
| Redoubts wrote:
| Sure but none of that is a reason to require a cloud app
| intermediary.
| dheera wrote:
| I put a 10" eInk in a picture frame and it looks fantastic.
| Really waiting for the day when 32" becomes affordable.
|
| WaveShare, come on, I'm looking at you.
| offtop5 wrote:
| I tried this with a Raspberry Pi zero, and I basically couldn't
| get it to work. I noticed it also got very hot very fast.
|
| Are there any challenges that you ran into while building your
| project
| dheera wrote:
| I used this https://www.waveshare.com/10.3inch-e-Paper-
| HAT.htm
|
| with a Pi Zero W with no issues other than occasional hangups
| of the signalling but that was solved with a software
| watchdog.
|
| Here are some pics of my setup. I had to de-solder the
| Waveshare header and solder on a 90 degree header to get this
| to fit in the frame in a low profile. (Ugh I wish things were
| sold without headers soldered)
|
| https://imgur.com/FQlan27
|
| https://imgur.com/rot8knd
|
| As far as getting hot really fast, the first thing I can
| think of is if you accidentally plugged in the GPIO rotated
| 180 degrees -- even briefly -- you might have fried one or
| both boards.
|
| Second thing I can think of, although it's more likely to
| just damage the e-Ink rather than make things become hot --
| is e-Ink displays don't like to be hot-plugged/unplugged --
| you should have all the connections plugged in before
| switching the system on.
| ingend88 wrote:
| Can you set this up as a calendar?
| ZeKK14 wrote:
| Yeah, but it involves a lot of development. I made this a
| few months back :
| https://github.com/ugomeda/esp32-epaper-display
|
| I'm working on a more "user-friendly" version :)
| jacobmischka wrote:
| I'm probably missing something, but it seems wasteful to convert
| PDFs to HTML just to convert them to images in a separate stage
| immediately afterward?
| napsy wrote:
| It is possible to use the HTTP backend where you manually
| convert PDF to images and then push images directly to the
| server and the device.
| graiz wrote:
| Someone else mentioned a way to push images directly to the
| display but I didn't find an API to make this work. Also using
| HTML allows my to inject other dynamic content, not just PDF's
| such as a dashboard, weather, widgets, etc. It also makes it
| easier to display error messages if the newspaper server is
| down without needing to render images for errors.
| anonu wrote:
| To spend $2500 on this is a bit outrageous. You can't carry it
| with you or fold it up. Who reads a newspaper standing in front
| of a wall... Unless you're at a urinal?
|
| The price needs to come down to make this useful.
|
| It's $250 a year for a daily paper subscription to the NYT. I
| could get it for ten years for the cost of this tech.
| eli wrote:
| It's art! It looks great. It happens to also be useful but
| that's not the main reason to buy it.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I would love to have something of this kind as a calendar and
| agenda on my wall, but as you mentioned the price is currently
| ridiculously oppressive. Can't wait for the patents to expire
| so competition in this space becomes viable.
| eli wrote:
| My understanding is the patents aren't the major obstacle
| today. There just isn't enough volume yet to drive down
| production cost. LEDs used to be real expensive too.
| neolog wrote:
| Which companies other than EInk are making these displays?
| Displaydata might but I can't tell.
| eli wrote:
| This is the comment I was thinking of from the founder of
| visionect https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25067824
| neolog wrote:
| That's really interesting.
| napsy wrote:
| Hello, I work for Visionect, the company that makes the
| hardware. We have a wireless e-ink based product that does
| exactly what you want. Check out Joan at https://getjoan.com
| fotta wrote:
| Joan doesn't have the 32" display though, right? I'm in the
| same boat as GP, but I want the giant display. Pinboard
| style.
|
| Edit: since they're the same company, can the Joan software
| be run on the Visionect hardware?
| napsy wrote:
| Hi. Yes, we have a 32" Place&Play product but currently
| can't be used as a replacement for the Joan product line.
| On the other hand, we have smaller 13" Joan devices
| available.
| michaelmior wrote:
| At $899 for a 13" display, the price doesn't seem to
| scale down well to the smaller area. The 32" display is
| more than 5 times the area, but less than 3 times the
| price.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I would love to experiment with some of the hardware, but
| it is just too crazy expensive. If the company would be
| willing to part with some blemished, damaged, or returned
| product or components for a more modest price, I would be
| happy to buy those. My Gmail username is the same as my HN
| username.
| nuccy wrote:
| Well, as an actual newspaper indeed this approach is not handy.
| But if the author of the blog-post is a journalist, editor or a
| writer (in a newspaper) I totally can see this as a show of his
| "works" on a wall of fame in his office.
| graiz wrote:
| Agree. It's too expensive. I rationalized it as art and less
| expensive than most NFT's. As an art piece I do expect it to be
| good discussion piece and the construction makes me think that
| it'll last for 10 years without issues.
|
| My initial thought was to turn this into a product but the cost
| of eInk at this size would need to drop to the $500-800 range
| to make it reasonably viable.
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