E-ink is not the most suitable thing for it in its current form.
First, large size EPD cost an arm, and a leg, and custom one costs even more.
Second, there are no 8 bit EPD controllers as of now a mortal can buy, which means grays look very bad.
Third, there are inherent physical limitations which make increasing gray resolution of EPDs quite hard. The precision you want, the slower would the refresh rate be.
If somebody is old enough to remember, (saying this as a 30 years old is indeed amusing to myself) the last active matrix monochrome LCDs had 8 bit, and more of gray resolution, but they are all discontinued now, or cost an arm, and a leg as "medical imaging" specialty.
On the device you only notice if you get extremely close.
Third, there are inherent physical limitations which make increasing gray resolution of EPDs quite hard. The precision you want, the slower would the refresh rate be.
For a digital picture frame, refresh rate isn't that important. In fact, a "gradual shading" on refresh might even make for a neat transition effect[1].
IMHO it's just the "cartel" (they like to keep the details of driving their displays confidential) of EPD controller companies who haven't produced controllers with more than 16 levels of grayscale, but the material is fundamentally analog and here is proof that if you drive the display directly, you can get at least 32 levels of grayscale if not more:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140284
With a bit of careful calibration, I believe far finer grayscale is possible.
[1] Although EPDs have been around for a long time now, I have yet to see the demoscene do anything with them --- a directly driven display naturally allows for a lot of effects due to it effectively being an "analog write-only memory".
It for a good reason full info behind making LUTs for driving EPD screens is kept as high secret.
Large size LCDs got ridiculously cheap with time.
It may be cheaper to by a 40 inch LCD panel, than a 10 inch high-end Eink
The cheapest one I see on Amazon right now is a 40" 4K HDR from Vizio, with quite a small bezel - $240. Hang it on a wall and paint the bezel white, or make a nice wood frame for it.
(It also automatically dims or blacks out the display when it's dark)
What would you say is?
Digital artwork for your living room. New every day.
The biggest problem I have is fitting a battery into the frame -- I was trying to find a low profile USB battery pack that could output 5V for RPi Zero. Maybe I should wire up some battery cells directly to evenly distribute the weight?
Also, get behind a CDN ASAP!!
For me, I found that the display I'm using works reasonably well for photos, but you need to slightly boost the contrast of the image before updating the display, to compensate for the darkness of the display. If you're using PIL in python, this is just something like "image = PIL.ImageEnhance.Contrast(image).enhance(1.3)"
I do that immediately before dithering into 16-greys, and get entirely acceptable photo displays that way.
People might be in for a rude awakening if someone figures out how to hack it remotely though, lol
If you run the device in local mode though, WiFi is never enabled.
(potential customer here, but wanna use it not for pictures but for "daily status")
• Cropping
• Scaling
• Contrast + brightness adjustment
• Compression
That is what the online converter provides.
But I get your point. I will add example code on how to convert an image on your local machine.
Pictures are dithered and contrast/brightness can be adjusted during upload, which can be done via the device's WiFi hotspot. Or you can configure it to connect to your local WiFi for easier access.
https://polso.info/raspberry-pi-e-ink-photo-frame-video-and-...
Maybe the creator can share more about the design of this device (ex/ what embedded device you're using (ESP32?), is an ASIC driving the display, epaper supplier, etc.)?
Have you considered using E INKs Kaleido coloured epaper?
not everybody cares about the selling part more than the building part...
Looks like a commercial product though. This should probably be a "Show HN".
Misleading title, add "Show HN" and if you mention building something please show how.
No, true minimalism would be doing without this needless frame.
I actually think it's cool though I'd want one much much MUCH larger. My comment is mostly about the smug comment at the end. It's not minimalism to clutter your life with a superfluous gadget
I had a few set up for it. But the dream would have been to have them networked and remotely accessible to update the content. I believe they were running on Linux so it would probably be doable.
https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-revisited-35b40...
I only wish it were USB-C. If the battery really lasts years, I won't have any micro-USB laying around when I next need to charge it.
I only had two of those cables left, and had to throw one out this week since it stopped working.