32“ E Ink screen that displays daily newspapers on your wall (2021)(projecteink.com) |
32“ E Ink screen that displays daily newspapers on your wall (2021)(projecteink.com) |
Call me old fashioned, but I'd say that good old fashioned canvas or paper is the perfect technology for wall art. Do we really need to mine the Earth of god knows what just so the wall doesn't look bare? If everyone who bought this thing spent the money on some art from a local artist not only would the artist be over the moon, they'd help sustain their local creative scene and most likely make their communities a better place.
But I wouldn't mind big reasonably priced piece of e-ink on the wall that I can put stuff relevant to me on.
You can use an LCD panel to get a similar effect, but you'd need a reflective or transreflective display. Those aren't cheap either.
Sarcasm aside, thanks for sharing! The largest display I’ve seen has been 11” until now.
I worry though, because IMO newspapers aren't dead because of the medium; they are dead because journalism itself is dying.
When I compare it to their digital front page there's really no comparison.
For the scan, the size of each item on the grid naturally draws your eyes to what are the most important things of the day. The text preview of the articles are a lot bigger. Just in general the actual newspaper uses the available space a lot better. It's huge! With that space they can do so much more. I love how the "snippets" aren't blurbs, it's simply just the actual article, along with an index to keep reading. That lets me read a little bit of all the important stuff before theoretically continuing.
The digital front page has huge empty margins on my monitor. There's much less indication to what is important from an editorial standpoint, because everything is the same size. I guess stuff at the top is supposed to be the most important, but it really seems to be what is just happening "live", so most recent.
Seeing them side by side really makes me think that maybe the problem with news isn't that people don't want to pay for it, but that the product just isn't there yet. It's honestly garbage in comparison to the analog newspaper. I would love for something digital in the same format as their actual news paper if there were hyperlinks, and it was no more than $5/mo.
Thank you for confirming my first impression which is that this is just a massively overpriced novelty item (which I concluded when seeing how much work was put into the video after skipping over the content-free article, and especially noticing the high level of moire meaning it must be very low DPI but for some reason the word resolution is not mentioned anywhere on the page lol).
A bit of a side tangent, but I have been trying to locate newspaper archives, and I just can't find them anywhere for download outside of newspapers.com, and even then they rate limit the hell out you. There is not effective way to bulk download these artifacts so I can peruse offline, which is typical :(
Does anyone know where to find bulk old newspaper downloads?
If so I will order right away
Open source, wake-up timer on set interval, connect to Wifi, fetch URL, display image, go back to sleep.
Or have it permanently connected to Wifi and POST a URL to the controller any time to fetch a new image.
That way you could control the full stack and do not need any subscriptions or rely on external companies.
I'm curious what URL serves the current front page of a given newspaper though that you can point these at.
I have this idea for some time: a simple SaaS where you create widgets (News headlines, Weather, Stocks, FX rates, Clocks, etc) in your account, then load a special page optimized for viewing on tablets from a few meters away, which is updated periodically.
Then you can find another cool use for old iPads by pointing them to this page, and mounting them on the wall.
The closest I think you could go for is to have a monitor with precise brightness control and measure the wall brightness and adjust the monitor brightness to fit. Something like this was posted once and I'm sure it was done by more people, but here is an example: https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-pixels
What you are describing is closer to Panic’s old Status Board.
But for that I guess I would have to give that thing access to my wifi? I wouldn't want that.
Any ideas if such a product exists and how one could use it shielded from the internet?
On an unrelated note, we been seeing the promise of high fidelity color E-Ink displays for years. Anyone know what the hold up is on that? I'd love to see something like this that can actually display color
Have it display a random XKCD every day....
Also, I would need strong guarantee in Long Term Support and reading that it uses a proprietary backend doesn't seem to go in that direction.
You are unable to use this screen if:
- subscription is not paid
- company decides to terminate your subscription under any condition of your contract
- company decides to sunset software or a product
- company doesn't exist anymore
- CMS isn't compatible with your device anymore
So what we've done: we're indeed running our own Visionect servers these devices connect to. We've build a friendly and news-centered frontend so the display shows news, updates on new editions (or a user-set timeframe), or forgets about newspapers altogether and displays HTML on any URL you provide.
If we were to sunset or go MIA or anything else unforeseen and unlikely you will still have an awesome display that you can configure to connect to any other Visionect server in the world. And indeed: these servers are Docker-images you can deploy yourself https://hub.docker.com/r/visionect/visionect-server-v3/
So the deal is: a screen and our software. If you don't like our software you'll still have an awesome screen that'll work as long as there's Docker and TCP/IP ;)
In this case, during breakfast I could put the screen on a stand on my table, and read the news without having to resort to a backlit screen / news app on my phone. Though, maybe 32" would be a bit big for my breakfast table, not sure. :)
Okay but what if, like a sane person, I don't want to give it direct internet access and have my own data I want to put on the wall? Can I pay less to get less (e.g. just the screen with an HDMI or DP connector so I can connect it to literally any raspi, picture frame, nuc, etc. etc. in my house)?
As far as I understand though, they have stopped offering support for non-subscribers, and they also seem to have stopped producing builds for ARM devices a couple of years ago (but the server software works even with new firmware versions). I am still betting on them supporting local installs for a while (based on my understanding that at least some of their corporate clients would want an on-prem solution), but am a little bit worried it might not be as openly available forever. I am therefore slowly researching my best migration path from a Raspberry Pi to some affordable and reasonably low powered x86 thing. Suggestions welcome.
P.S.: The biggest selling point for me compared with some other (more open) E-ink screens is the battery. I keep mine on the fridge with a magnet and can't really use one that needs to be plugged in all the time in the same place. If anyone knows of anything similar and controllable locally, I'd be very interested to read about it.
I'm still confused about the way it presented, but documentation and suite itself look quite decent.
It’s a bummer because I don’t think there are as good quality displays to replace visionect with, but the subscription was far too much.
https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-the-timeframe/
It fetches images from HTTP every half hour and shows them.
But it looks like there's no way to know that going in? I have checked the product page and found no information that the CMS is paid.
Based on the current description ("Comes with personal online portal to set up and change the content of your screen." [1]) I wouldn't expect an additional subscription.
[1]: https://projecteink.com/products/e-ink-newspaper-art-display...
“ (U+201C : LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK {double turned comma quotation mark})
″ (U+2033 : DOUBLE PRIME {seconds, inches})
Silly idea dump: How about: A 4k TV in form of a window, which displays a live stream of a 4k camera of various places in nature. Lets say, in the middle of the forest, or a beach in italy. To have a window into another place, for some calm and mindfulness.
The only advantage here is the reflective display and the ultra-low power consumption. I'm not saying that there aren't use cases where those could be critical/decisive, but given the cost differential it seems like the decision between the two is effectively automatic: the products don't compete, in the same way an SUV doesn't compete with a Cessna: if you need to fly, you buy the plane; otherwise the car is a no-brainer.
I ask because I would love to have a second monitor like this display: easy on the eyes, distraction-free, etc. But at this cost it's a ridiculous non-starter for that purpose.
The eink display looks gorgeous, by the way. But it's not a computer monitor and doesn't claim to be.
Example: https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Portals/14/EasyGalleryImage...
Reminds me of the eink calendar concept that has been bouncing around the web for some years [1].
There's also this project [2] based on the same concept. It seems to me though that these kinds of projects are always held back by the exorbitant costs of decently sized eink displays.
That’s also why, admittedly, my calendar has a much smaller display than this newspaper.
(It’s this: https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale...)
Still a lot, but not "even pricier than a colour-accurate monitor for creators" a lot.
I actually replicated this myself, with one extra feature; I got the screen framed . The 'trick' is that there's no glass section of the frame, the wood just boxes the screen and hides the fact that the bezel is not all the same width. This only cost another £100 at a framer, and I really recommend it.
The display is still expensive. $1500 for the panel, $500 for the driver board.[1]
As a status symbol, it probably has a limited lifespan. When Bill Gates built his first big house, he had big CRT monitors embedded in the walls to display art. Had to have working corridors behind the wall for that. Now, anybody on here could have that, but the result would look like a sports bar.
[1] https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/31.2''Monochrome...
Does that mean this device can completely stop working on the whims of a third party?
[1]: https://buy-lcd.com/products/largest-312-inch-e-ink-big-scre...
I could pay for this and notice very little difference in my financial life.
But I balk heavily at the $3k price tag and ask myself “what do I _really_ get out of this?”
The answer is “nothing of value except a reminder of how much I spent on something of very little life value.
You'll only see it at the offices of companies that want to pretend they're indie and hackery.
My best scenario would be: - plug it the first time, a new wifi network is made available - connect to the wifi and visit the locally hosted config page, which includes the wifi network to connect to and the URL to fetch - the screen restarts and connects to the wifi and, if internet works, fetches the URL - at any time, the screen can be configured if connected to the same wifi network (might require an app) - a physical button resets the screen to the factory config
I was about to say something similar about the price; for that money I can just stick the newspaper itself up on the wall.
OTOH if the display is already 2300EUR, I can't see how the OP can possibly make any money on this, especially with free global shipping, returns, etc, etc.
Other commenter [1] mentioned that there's a subscription required. I found no pricing link, but saw a subscription on the parent page [2] listed at 60 per year. So if we're talking 10 years, then it's closer to 3000.
It’s very cool what you have done, let’s maybe collaborate or join forces?
My product is an e-paper calendar:
https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale...
Also, you should look through your privacy policy. Its straight up copy/pasted from Shopifys template now with all the "ADD CASES THAT APPLY FOR YOUR STORE", "REMOVE THIS TEXT IF THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO YOUR STORE" text remaining. And apparently you sell your customers information to display targeted ads?
Something like this for (e.g. Kanban card-based) project management would be cool, though the contrast at a distance.
The PineNote is a 9" eInk development device; 3287cm/3 for $400. https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineNote
But it's not going to look as nice as a 32" e-ink display on the wall.
Is there a yellow backlight, or a blueish backlight?
Is there a low-cost way to make a solar roof that varies in solar reflectivity? FWIU e-ink only requires voltage to cause the e-ink particles to flip over? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink
Last I knew the bulk of cost for e-ink displays was just due to the patent holders decision to charge a lot, which is disappointing, but can't go on that much longer...
Guess I'm still going to have to wait, ha ha.
I did play around with an affordable (smaller) display and liked the result though (but since it was small I did not ry to emulate a newspaper but rather a vintage Mac).
All that inverse-pyramid, "Five Ws and an H," Journalism 101 stuff developed in part because of how newspapers were designed, typeset and printed. Now it's kind of like a Thomas Kincaid print?
I feel really old now.
Eink feels close to paper, regular LCD's or OLED's do not.
Not to mention that OP wants a big poster-size screen, so your suggestion comes a few inches short.
- the display size is 6x
- no need to DIY
Travelling through a remote area, they find a place that sells panes of slow glass. This is glass that light takes a long time to pass through, even years, so that a pane of this glass shows a scene from the past. People buy slow glass that has been placed in picturesque scenery so that later they can enjoy the view in their homes or workplaces.
1) Place a camera + display somewhere in an urban area of the world so that random pedestrians can come and watch the display, will be on camera.
2) Place any number of these identical setups in other areas of the world.
3) Arbitrarily feed the camera from one to the display of another (shuffle every 24 hours?).
You get people seeing/reacting to others seeing/reacting ... possibly to them, possibly to others who are seeing/reacting to....
And if containers are the problem then unpack the image into it's contents, take the binary, relink it and run it on bare metal.
[0]: https://podman.io/ [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73961256/how-to-convert-... [2]: https://github.com/cri-o/cri-o/tree/main
(Nothing against the FSF, but "dealbreaker" is a very relative concept.)
This is of course assuming it doesn't actually stop working or some aspect of the process isn't broken.
All this so you can run a docker container with postgres instead of pushing an image to an endpoint on the local network. It's both bad and unimpressive engineering.
Furthermore if it did need central management for business purpose THAT would be something that consumes the same simple process for showing something on the screen.
<COMPLEX SOFTWARE> => posts image => shows image
This would trivially allow you to build on the simple process if that is all you need. It's not so much bad engineering as gross engineering its engineered to be complicated to they can insert themselves into the process to stick their hand in your wallet.
I don't think they are making money out of this. The display is 2300€ without VAT and the OP is selling them with 2783€ with 21% VAT, so it's exactly the same price.
any other examples? I've been wanting to find a source for front pages.
I will fix the privacy policy.
Selling in the EU comes with very expensive compliance needs. CE alone costs 10000 Euro.
I would love to do it but since I’m bootstrapping I need to earn some money first.
Please let us know if/when you can sell it locally. I'm very interested in getting one for my kitchen wall.
The only place that page mentions a subscription is in reference to news paper subscriptions.
This is a product page I looked at. Hard to interpret "Place & Play devices work on a subscription basis. Select a plan here." near "Add to cart" button.
E-ink displays are more expensive because they are utterly niche compared to LCD screens (there are over 6 billion smartphone users in the world right now, and plenty of people own a smartphone, laptop, desktop, TV, tablet, smartwatch, then use a computer at work, interact with a self-checkout kiosk at the supermarket, etc).
There are basically two common use-cases for e-ink right now: e-readers (and nowadays 'e-notes', which have stylus input), and smart-pricetags in supermarkets. Neither of these require large e-ink screens, so there's no existing production line to feed these 32" monitors off. The 32" screens are created by hand-fusing 4 16" screens together, IIRC. This isn't automated because there's not enough demand to automate it.
The reason there's no demand for e-ink screens is that the technology just isn't very useful - I love e-ink, but it's not particularly flexible and can't be used in general-purpose devices that need to display video. It has its niches, but they're niche.
It's lower battery usage is due to low refresh rate, which is inherently incompatible with displaying video -if an e-reader refreshes once per minute and an LCD screen would have to refresh 60 times a second, then the LCD needs to refresh 3600x more often which means e-ink saves power even if the e-ink screen takes 10x or 100x the power per refresh. But if the e-ink screen plays video at 60FPS, then by definition it's refreshing 60 times a second and thus will use 10x or 100x the power of the equivalent LCD screen playing the same video.
If we want prices to drop substantially, we need more use-cases for e-ink. There's hope here, as the recent fast-ACEP tech (the Gallery 3) is color-tech that doesn't sacrifice half of your contrast and resolution (like Color Filter Arrays do), but is fast enough for an interactive device and is almost as fast to refresh as a monochrome screen (previous ACEP screens took min 7 seconds to refresh the screen, the new tech is amazing). With some refinement, it might be enough to bring e-notes somewhat into the mainstream.
So, all that said: e-ink screens that are 6" or less aren't really any more expensive than an LCD. It's only when you get outside of normal e-reader sizes that the price goes up like crazy.
...not to mention, e-ink isn't the only "e-paper" company - ReInkstone are making their DES screens, which dodge at least some of the patents on microencapsulated electrophoretic displays as their cofferdam tech doesn't use microcapsules at all and instead integrate the seals into the display.
FWIU non-e-eink flexible display tech has advanced considerably.
Maybe there still is a market for huge broadsheet e-ink newspaper devices? How many flexible broadsheets of display would approximate the ux of a real newspaper?
It will poll that URL a few times per minute and display the image.
Second question, any thoughts on if this could run off of battery? Eink tends to be so low power, i'd love this type of product with a wallhang and periodic charge. Thoughts?
The price point is great!
But on iOS you can log in with apple. And there is no need to pair with google calendar if you use the image url feature:
https://www.invisible-computers.com/invisible-calendar/image...
——-
Batteries drive up the cost for certification and shipping. I think a battery works better together with a bigger, more expensive display, where these costs are less of a concern and which you cannot place on a stand.
(Even though you can definitely hang my display up on the wall and if you don’t have a socket nearby, you can plug it into a battery pack)
Sorry if that’s a lot of text but I think about this stuff every day :D
Hard decisions!
If one is going to use plywood for the frame, maybe a nice "multi-ply" plywood (Europly, Apple Ply, etc.). The Japanese kids make speakers from plywood and love to show off the "plys" because they use the good multi-ply stuff.
Frame could be cut with more CNC precision? (Looking at the inner cut in particular).
Maybe the stand should be cut from extruded aluminum of some interesting cross section rather than the Scrabble-tile-holder-like block of wood.
Given those changes I would raise the price as well to $199 and think nothing of that.
(Also, would like to dial down the refreshes — or at the very least, not refresh if the pixels are unchanged. Unless somehow they are able to do invisible refreshes on the e-ink display — 'cause e-ink refreshes sure can be distracting and ugly.)
The refreshes definitely only happen if pixels change - did I write something somewhere that suggested otherwise? If you let me know I can fix it :)
It’s a matter of taste I guess
Right, but that could be fully in my network if i understand correctly.
> But on iOS you can log in with apple. And there is no need to pair with google calendar if you use the image url feature:
This works, but i'd really like a way to do this without any cloud-y features. As dumb as possible. Especially for low cost devices like this where i'm paranoid of it being "cheap because they sell my data" sort of thing.
> (Even though you can definitely hang my display up on the wall and if you don’t have a socket nearby, you can plug it into a battery pack)
This is exactly what i was hoping for! I don't mind buying the battery pack separately. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't hard wired to a wall plug, etc.
In the future if you could try to allocate space or hooks or anything to support this use case that would be amazing. Ie some little hooks on the back where a user could ziptie a battery back to it would be great!
I think i'm going to give one of these a try. If it works well for my headless use case i'd probably love a handful of these things, they're very close to what i've wanted for years. A lot of little low power displays around the house that work like picture frames. A hybrid to "modern life" and "old life" if you will. I love Eink
I guess that's why the price for the 32 inch display is so high, the subscription is priced in.
What are the requirements to make a system work with these? Do you at the end stream bitmaps to the device? Something else? Is there a documented interface?
I can't speak for this creator, but often these niche products serve a community of like-minded, or in fact are the mechanism or way to find and connect with a community of like minded people.
I think of folks doing projects around old technology paradigms as similar people to those who grew up building hot rods and find building cars to be greatly satisfying. Hacking a newspaper on your wall is similar, but in more of a dick tracy watch ethos.
It's part function, part art piece imo. I can imagine somebody who's fairly well off drinking their morning coffee whilst reading this on their wall. A statement piece for the guests at their fashionable dinner parties too.
Or you could just have it cycle through the most outlandish front pages from the Weekly World News about the latest exploits of Bat Boy[2]. Or switch to whatever your tastes are for the day! :)
1: https://www.google.com/search?q=famous+newspaper+front+pages&tbm=isch
2: https://www.google.com/search?q=bat+boyThere are definitely people who would like this in their homes. Probably multiple.
If they can manage it in 3min rather than 5, it's up to $13.70/hr.
Where I am (UK) I think most newspaper delivery people are aged 13-18, and while there's far less of them about than when I was a kid, I wouldn't be surprised if >50% would be willing to do it to earn an extra $4.80/week.
Of course, you also need to trust the person to come into your house every day, either giving them a key or being available to let them in each time; and while I skipped over inflation it's likely that $250 in ten years has devalued a lot - but maybe you could get a yea for just $150-200/yr at the start to have room for annual increases...
So I don't think your curt dismissal adds much to the conversation.
And that's feasibility thinking about US/UK people, as konart points out in their comment there are countries where $250/yr stretches much further than in wealthy, high-CoL countries.
So all in all, USD 2500 seems unrealistic.
And as mentioned, the person who suggested it being possible was talking about using an existing physical subscription not paying for that within the $2.5k
No one's actually going to pay some random mail delivery person to come into their house every day and hang up a newspaper for ten years.
Sure, most people wouldn't want that, and most people wouldn't want to spend $2500 getting a newspaper they'd already paying for to be hung on the wall. But that's not the same as "no you couldn't [do that at all]".
365 days per year at £0.25 per day is £91.25 per year.
The most popular printed newspaper is the Daily Mail, I have no idea what the wholesale cost is, but the retail price is £30.33 per month So, worst case is £363.96 per year - but my expectation is that it is half that.
$2500 USD is currently £1946.66
£91.25 + £363.96 = £455.21
So, you totally can get the paper delivered by a 13 year old boy for ~4.25 years, by which time he'll retire off to college. However, if my premise is that wholesale cost of the paper is half what I thought it is, then 10 years sounds about right.
EDIT: I checked with him, and if you live close enough he'd be willing to come in and stick it on your wall every day, as long as he can get home in time for school.
Happy to be proven wrong, but USD 2500 seems unrealistic.
If I pay the remaining amount of $2166.42 to the delivery person over 10 years, that's about ₹1493 per month, which is over 6 times the cost of newspaper subscription. For that amount, yeah, they'll be happy to hang the paper on a wall.
edit: oops I noticed the other comment I replied to wasn't you, but anyway - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36629620
With millions of people living in conditions where even safe drinkable water is not something you are guaranteed to get - 250$/year equivalent seems wild.
I would argue it's just one more convenient assumption that leads us away from a realistic estimation.
It seems to me USD 2500 is an idealistic best case scenario.
You on the other hand haven't added to the discussion but instead broke one of HN's guidelines:
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
Maybe worth checking the whole page out, then you can help keep HN comments as high quality as possible to avoid other people feeling the need to compare to Reddit! <3