Hi.
I stumbled over this Indiegogo project, aiming to do an e-ink smart frame, which supposedly could show info from everything that has an API. A bit expensive, but if it will do everything they say it could actually be worth it. What do you make of it?
Pretty cool indeed. That makes me wonder why something like this didn’t exist yet. Imagine if you can push view to an e-ink, widgets as what they said in the vids. I know people have been using old table mounted on the wall. But an aways-on e-ink screen is definitely superior.
I would never recommend backing any crowdfunding campain that says this:
“a working demo” should never be enough for a product to be pitched as a crowdfunding campaign. That basically means, “we have no idea if this will actually be manufacturable, but we’ll take your money anyway.” Speaking of which:
This is why I’ll never back anything on Indiegogo. They only care about taking money from backers, and nothing else. Of course this campaign reached its goal in 45 minutes, because Indiegogo allows creators to set unrealistically low goals. After all, it’s much more impressive when campaigns are 542% successful…and they don’t care if anyone ever receives the product. Kickstarter also allows this.
I also wouldn’t recommend backing any crowdfunded project that involves software updates. Even if the creator has the best intentions (which these ones appear to), it’s far more likely that they’ll abandon the project than release firmware for another five years after getting it out the door.
Note that they don’t even have a physical version of the device they show in renders, just their working demo that looks like a screen in a big-bezel picture frame. The concept looks nice, but it’s not yet real. So, all of the hardware features they’ve promised are just that: promises.
Putting the hardware promises aside, I think their widget system could be interesting. If they released their software to run on Android, I’d absolutely try it out on my wall-mounted Fire HD 10. Honestly, that’s probably the route they should have taken: build great software that works on anything, then supplement it with a hardware product.
I think for the same reason that openHAB and Home Assistant aren’t more prevalent. We’re a niche audience: people who want to invest time and energy into a complex home-automation system, and who have the technical skill to do it. openHAB and the Blotch aren’t of much interest to someone who’s content to rely on Alexa/Google/HomeKit for automation.
I love the concept. In fact, I bought an ESP32-based eInk display for this exact purpose a while back, but haven’t gotten to playing with it yet. I’m hoping to setup an always-on dashboard for my shop – music controls, weather, air filter status, etc., as well as a button for when I leave the shop to trigger a delayed shutoff of chargers for my respirator and tools.
As far as I can tell the screen size is the biggest differentiator for this project.
If you are willing to go with a smaller screen, and want eInk and don’t want to mess with diy, one of the Boox tablets/eReaders might be worth a look. They are eInk but unlike most eReaders they run Android (albeit an older version). You can run a native sitemap or MainUI (might want to reduce some of the animations) on it. The Boox Go 7 supports color and the Boox Go 10.1 is black and white only.
I used to have a Boox Poke 2 which recently died (dropped it one too many times) and was very happy with it.