[HN Gopher] Tidbyt hardware display device: a review
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Tidbyt hardware display device: a review
Author : ingve
Score : 75 points
Date : 2022-05-08 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (macwright.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (macwright.com)
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I don't have a problem with the low resolution but the contrast
| on that is absolutely horrendous. It's almost impossible to see
| which pixels are lit and which aren't in bright lighting, and
| that's even visible in the OP's post.
|
| Additionally - and I don't know if it's part of the charm - the
| space between adjacent pixels being as wide as a pixel itself
| also limits the ergonomics of the display in a way that a similar
| resolution but more tightly spaced display would be more usable.
| monoprotic wrote:
| The pictures in the article really aren't doing the display any
| favors. I own a Tidbyt and the contrast is way better than it
| appears here, and the brightness is adjustable (with an API
| call if you want!) with a pretty high max setting.
| rohansingh wrote:
| Yup. Actually, I think we might limit the max brightness
| since at true 100% brightness it would be blindingly bright.
| reaperducer wrote:
| There seem to be so many people on HN and elsewhere who are
| interested in ambient data displays, but they never catch on with
| the masses.
|
| My favorite one was called Statusboard. It was an iOS app from
| Panic (yes, THAT Panic) which turned a spare iPad into an ambient
| data display.
|
| Configuration was easy, and on mine I showed RSS feeds, mail
| information, weather and more.
|
| I used it on an old outdated iPad I had laying around. Other
| people I knew did the same, but hooked it up with the lightning -
| HDMI wire to 40-inch flat screens they had left over when
| everyone upgraded to 4K.
|
| Sadly, Panic EOLed it years ago. Which is a shame because that
| happened right about the time that surplus iPads and cheap flat-
| screen TVs became a thing.
|
| Now, with so much legacy display tech headed to landfills, I wish
| some iOS developer would make a similar app and make a dent in
| the flow of e-waste.
| cutoff wrote:
| Our restaurant used to use Satus Board on a 1st gen iPad HDMI'd
| on a 55" TV to display employees who were clocked in/out that
| day, along with their hours worked and a bulletin for general
| announcements. It was useful for monitoring labor, breaks, and
| avoiding meal period violations, but ultimately buggy due to a
| custom internal HotSchedules integration.
|
| We've since gotten rid of it and use a new scheduling software
| with a decent enough web interface & mobile app.
| firephonestival wrote:
| Am I reading this correctly? It sounds like the product is an LED
| matrix which requires third-party cloud servers to update the
| display? That doesn't sound right.
|
| Also, the author uses 2x 32x32 panels @$97 each as a price peg,
| but you can get a raw 64x32 panel from Adafruit (a quite
| expensive supplier) for $50.
| [deleted]
| willidiots wrote:
| It's an LED matrix which requires third party cloud servers to
| update the display. I own one. It's great.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Adafruit is leading the hobby industry towards their 99$ cloud
| platform for IoT devices.
|
| It'll expand the audience immensely and probably be hugely
| profitable but I hate it.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I agree, and I would hardly call this 'a steal' as the article
| says.
|
| But, for many people an Arduino is black magic even if they're
| quite skilled at programming. I know some of them. I can
| imagine this would appeal to those people.
|
| I'm personally more into electronics too, kind of goes with
| growing up in the 80s when computers and electronics were just
| inextricably connected.
| spoonjim wrote:
| I would have bought so many devices like this, Vestaboard, etc.
| if they had a hardware local control option with completely open
| docs. I refuse to spend time engineering a data pipeline that's
| dependent on someone else's cloud service.
| staindk wrote:
| In case you weren't aware of it, this watch[1] might interest
| you. Open-source hardware and software. I'll probably end up
| getting one for Christmas this year.
|
| [1] https://watchy.sqfmi.com/
| vosper wrote:
| If anyone has one of these watches I'd be interested to hear
| your thoughts!
| h4waii wrote:
| While I don't have one, I went down the pathway to replace
| almost a decade of using Pebbles , looking at PineTime,
| Bangle.js, Amazfit, Watchy, etc...and I just settled on
| buying a replacement housing for my Pebble, pushing the
| problem off to be dealt with in another 5 years.
|
| The battery life on Watchy leaves a lot to be desired, as
| does the lack of a water-resistant sealed case, but the
| full featured hardware is a real contender.
|
| The Bangle.js 2 is my second choice in the line up of open
| source smartwatches.
| dmd wrote:
| I bought the KRUSH Flip Clock after seeing it at CES2016 and
| pulled out its silly cloud-controlled innards so I can write
| whatever I want to the display over rs485.
|
| https://github.com/dmd/clack
| anfractuosity wrote:
| That clock looks really cool sitting on your desk :)
|
| I've been playing a little with the pyflipdot library
| recently to interface with a 20x14 flipdot display, which
| also uses RS485
|
| Your flipdot display looks like it has a higher dpi, I guess
| there must be different diameter flipdots made.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Adafruit is particularly egregious with their cloud service
| integration and marketing. It just seems to be the way they're
| heading.
| kruffin wrote:
| It does seem that way, however, in none of the AdaBoxes I've
| gotten from them have I had to sign up for their cloud
| services. That's where you think they would push it hard, but
| it just hasn't happened and I'm glad for that. There are
| usually a few samples that make use, but you always have the
| option to roll your own code on it and use their base
| libraries for interfacing with the hardware. It will be a sad
| (and probably disastrous) day when they bind their code to
| require cloud services especially considering some micros
| don't have wifi.
| kruffin wrote:
| Adafruit offers a starter kit with a microcontroller, 64x32 led
| matrix, and some other doodads for ~$70
| (https://www.adafruit.com/product/4812). It's really easy to
| tinker with. I made a clock that does some crappy
| visualizations and open sourced it here:
| https://github.com/kruffin/matrix_portal_gol It actually looks
| a lot like this Tidbyt (a box with a dot matrix).
|
| The only thing it doesn't have is a RTC, so I just polled a
| time server every so often.
| awhitty wrote:
| Also bought a Matrix Portal and have had a lot of fun with
| it! Dabbled in writing a raytracer for it, but I don't know
| enough about ARM nor C++ to optimize it for decent frame
| rates. Now the thing runs a newton's cradle simulator using
| Box2D, and that's been a fun desk toy.
| kruffin wrote:
| Neat. I'd love to see what that looks like (raytracer or
| cradle). Found an old Hack a Day from 2014
| (https://hackaday.com/2014/11/25/ray-tracing-on-an-
| arduino/) where someone is raytracing on a 16Mhz micro.
| Should be faster on the 120Mhz portal, but it took almost 3
| days :P
| rohansingh wrote:
| I feel similarly, that's why I use a smart home hub with local
| control (Hubitat).
|
| With Tidbyt our default pipeline uses our cloud, but the
| hardware is fully unlocked for you to flash your own firmware.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Is there a replacement firmware already available that allows
| local control?
|
| I feel like for all these connected hardware products, they
| should _ship_ with an open source server and the phone apps
| that control them should have an "Server IP address" field
| in their iOS settings. Your company goes under? I just run
| your software locally and point my app to my local IP.
| rohansingh wrote:
| We're working on an example open source firmware. In
| reality though, it's not something the majority of our
| customers are asking for so with a 3-person team it hasn't
| been at the top of the list.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Yeah, I know I'm not really in the target market. Like, I
| would absolutely spring for a locally controlled
| Vestaboard, but I know that most of these are probably
| sold to businesses.
| edelhans wrote:
| I'be build pretty much the same thing using an esp32 an 3d
| printed enclosure and a small custom pcb. You can connect via
| websocket from a browser and upload images, text, ect.
|
| I've also managed to implement OTA firmware updates and a similar
| Wifi based setup as this product has.
|
| If anyone is interested I'm happy to put it on Github.
|
| https://photos.app.goo.gl/ajAbJ3fqqYQV5sd98
| https://photos.app.goo.gl/PHzq1P7uWkJgAtPb7
| https://photos.app.goo.gl/gX3ydYRVdm5nqbGm6
|
| edit: I'll cleanup the code and update this comment with a link
| to the repo tomorrow
| mendelmaleh wrote:
| Please do!
| stankot wrote:
| Love it! I did a similar thing, 64x64 pixels with a LED
| diffuser. Everything is packed up in the IKEA picture frame:
| https://imgur.com/a/cLXGWWd
|
| I'm lazy, but I plan to do the full write up and to open source
| everything. I use it to display pixel art, and during the night
| it automatically switches to the clock mode.
|
| I love yours as well and it would be great if you can put the
| code on GitHub. Mine is using ESP32 as well (Adafruit's
| MatrixPortal M4). It is running Circuit Python though. I love
| it dearly and I played with an idea of making it as a product.
| edelhans wrote:
| Using a pictureframe is a cool idea! I actually have an 64x64
| matrix in my drawer that I havent used yet. Should you decide
| to open source your code I'd be very interested too.
|
| I'll update my comment tomorrow with a GitHub link, just need
| to tidy up the repo first. This was my very first time
| writing c++, so the code is probably not the cleanest ;)
| stankot wrote:
| Same story with me and python, so don't worry :) I'll make
| the repo public during the next week.
|
| Diffuser also makes a difference as the controller I'm
| using doesn't allow me to control the brightness. I should
| really write a blog post :D
| slowraise wrote:
| Which RGB library are you using for esp32? I was doing some
| initial LED stuff with a Pi with hzellers rpi-rgb-led-matrix
| library, but I am having to switch over to esp. Also that PCB
| looks really nice for avoiding the pain with wires. Do you plan
| on releasing the files for that?
| iSloth wrote:
| Looks great, would love to build one too
| NoahKAndrews wrote:
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