It does seem to me that the rpi pico is maybe the goto cheap MCU board these days. Not much reason to use a blue pill or arduino clone any more, unless I've missed something.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/soldered/inkplate-6
I do know about epaper shelf tags but that is pretty niche imho. Not that many of us are involved in stocking store shelves.
I personally am trying different stuff out. I've used Arduino/Teensy/ESP/Pi (OS) but I have a blue pill and beagle bone as well to mess around with.
The RP2040 does seem to have a lot of IO anyway.
Esp32 based, so wifi, 4.7" eInk. I haven't used one, but it looks neat.
>Switch between images, pronouns or secret identities at the push of a button
Sincere question: is this poking fun at people using pronouns, or do some people change their pronouns throughout the day?
It would be nice if they put something like a TPL5111 on board, which is an ultra low power device that can turn on at a set time interval, and then turn off on demand. So it will pull up the "enable" pin on your regulator, your microcontroller will boot, your program updates the display, and then you tell the TPL5111 to turn off, and you draw basically no power until the next refresh cycle. I actually use a RP2040 with one of these to drive an e-ink display that measures the humidity in my 3D printer filament dry box. It wakes up every couple hours to update the humidity (it doesn't change much), and I've been powering it from a 400mAh Lipo battery for several months that way. To me it was groundbreaking to bite the bullet and add another device to conserve power, the results are excellent. Would love to see a provision for one built into the next version. (And hey, dump a BME280 on there and I can replace my entire hacked-together device with one circuit board and a battery ;)
(Oh, and for people asking why I built my own humidity meter using complicated electronics and a computer program instead of a $2 jobbie powered from a coin cell that you can buy on Amazon, it's because I wanted to be pretty accurate with the measurements. 10% humidity is different than 9% humidity in this case. As for why an e-ink display instead of an ESP32 that writes the value to some database server and I get a text message when I need to recharge the dehumidifier... it's because I didn't feel like writing that particular computer program at the time. Wifi connection errors. Authentication tokens. I'll just look at the display when I walk past ;)
> In honour of Raspberry Pi's 10th birthday
And possibly also because rp2040 is readily available these days. Are esp32 stocks - and therefore prices - currently in the same good shape (honest question)?
Thank you for sharing your work with the World Wide Web.
It would be interesting to see it be more commercially-viable. It probably wouldn't really work with NFC (but I'd love to be wrong).
It would also be great for spy movies.
edit: there's no MicroPython library for it apparently, but the datasheet[2] is pretty detailed. I've written Python libraries from such protocol definitions before, it's not too difficult.
If they did, the chip could be programmed, along with the badge face.
This thing, while worn requires zero power. You only require power to rotate the image.
Omega sell plenty of WiFi connected industrial sensors (with small batteries) that are specced to run for a year or so before a recharge. Usually they report measurements on the order of minutes.
I also have a Bluetooth HRM which I've used for years (probably days of use, cumulatively). I've maybe changed the battery once.
- Badger 2040 Only: GBP £16.00 ($21.46)
- Gadget 2040 + Accessory Kit: GBP £24.25 ($32.53)
Maybe a couple of bucks more if you want the tracked international postage instead of the (cheapest) untracked.
Video about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDhw3BlBtig
So if you use this as a name-badge with no batteries, the buttons and ports on the rear are very exposed; I wonder if there would be long term consequences of that? Might need to use e.g. glue-gun glue to protect them.
Also, the branding is a lot. If it is a toy then it isn't important, if you were serious about a name badge a little bit unprofessional looking. Particularly the bomb/weapon on the rear with a bunch of exposed circuit board, I'm sure going through TSA with this will be a hoot.
Just comes back to: Is this actually meant to be used as a name badge? Fun rainy afternoon toy though.
I've traveled with a lot of ham radio gear over the years, and sometimes the TSA wants to take a look. The worst case is that they swab it for explosive residue. Adds a minute to the transit time through the checkpoint, worst case.
The worst is that you'll have guns pointed at you and get arrested:
https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/21/mit_student_arrested_...
Niche British internet humour there.
So from me, No thanks and no deal.
https://www.hanshow.com/news/194.html https://www.pricer.com/products/ (You can program with visible light too)
