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MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia

(jan.miksovsky.com)
2102 points pabs3 | 15 comments | 14 Nov 24 12:20 UTC | HN request time: 1.12s | source | bottom
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angrygoat ◴[14 Nov 24 12:36 UTC] No.42135621[source]▶
What a beautiful use of technology to uphold someone's personhood, and let them know they are loved, despite (and with regard to) a profound injury.

This reminds me of a desire I've had for a long time: a simple, wall-mountable eInk device that could be configured with a URL (+wifi creds) and render a markdown file, refreshing once every hour or so. It would be so useful for so many applications – I'm a parish priest and so I could use it to let people know what events are on, if a service is cancelled, the current prayer list, ... the applications would be endless. I'd definitely pay a couple of hundred dollars per device for a solid version of such a thing, if it could be mounted and then recharged every month or two.

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steezeburger ◴[14 Nov 24 15:21 UTC] No.42137028[source]▶
I'm a backer, but this would probably fit your bill https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/usetrmnl/trmnl-the-e-in...

I wanted the same kind of general eink device, but this is also supposedly super hackable!

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1. ryanckulp ◴[14 Nov 24 15:54 UTC] No.42137445[source]▶
hackable indeed :) https://docs.usetrmnl.com

no longer a Kickstarter btw, shipping same-day now (see homepage)

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2. gknoy ◴[14 Nov 24 18:47 UTC] No.42139664[source]▶
For anyone else that followed the "buy a device" link on the docs page, and found yourself on the (ended) Kickstarter page, editing the URL to https://usetrmnl.com/ works :)

(This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing about it!)

3. philips ◴[14 Nov 24 18:48 UTC] No.42139688[source]▶
> Most IoT products support SSH-ing directly into peripheral devices. We've heard too many horror stories about how this can go wrong, and decided to invert the paradigm.

> Your TRMNL device pings our server, never the other way around.

> Each request made to our /api/display endpoint includes only the minimum details needed to support customers -- an API key, device mac address, firmware version, battery voltage, and wifi signal strength.

Super hackable but it pings their hosted server and nothing else?! Is there a way to run your own server?

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4. philips ◴[14 Nov 24 18:53 UTC] No.42139750[source]▶
The docs aren't super encouraging either. https://docs.usetrmnl.com/go/diy/byod-s

> Purchase a TRMNL from our home page: https://usetrmnl.com

> Then follow the instructions on BYOD/S > Server.

> More TBD.

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5. krinchan ◴[14 Nov 24 20:09 UTC] No.42140631{3}[source]▶
They seem to have the api base url hardcoded in their firmware[1]. The repo seems to have pretty clear instructions for compiling and flashing modified firmware. From there, it's just a matter of writing a decent server to implement the calls documented in BYOD/S[2] and Private API.[3]

[1]: https://github.com/usetrmnl/firmware/blob/e3db8c37990c2333ec...

[2]: https://docs.usetrmnl.com/go/diy/byod-s

[3]: https://docs.usetrmnl.com/go/private-api/introduction

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6. ryanckulp ◴[14 Nov 24 20:14 UTC] No.42140684[source]▶
we're adding more docs on running your own server soon, which will include 1-click deploy starter projects that Just Work.

if you think about it, we are incentivized to do this. no subscription fees means the more you ping our server, the lower our margin. but for now we're wrapping up fulfilling all pre-orders, scaling, etc typical new product issues.

even without BYOS (bring your own server) docs however, it's already possible to point TRMNL to your own stack if you 1) fork our OSS firmware + b) have some experience with e-ink.

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7. philips ◴[14 Nov 24 20:16 UTC] No.42140708{3}[source]▶
OK, thank you for the reply. The product looks great. I will roll the dice seeing the OSS firmware. Thanks!
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8. philips ◴[14 Nov 24 20:17 UTC] No.42140711{4}[source]▶
Nice, thank you for investigating.
9. ryanckulp ◴[14 Nov 24 20:21 UTC] No.42140752{4}[source]▶
appreciate your support!
10. steezeburger ◴[14 Nov 24 20:28 UTC] No.42140826[source]▶
Anyway you could check on mine? I've yet to receive it, and I'm ready to start hacking!
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11. ryanckulp ◴[14 Nov 24 20:43 UTC] No.42141001[source]▶
i imagine we aren't at your cohort yet but email team@usetrmnl.com and we'll get yours out today, regardless. tiny thank you for the shout here!
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12. tqi ◴[14 Nov 24 21:44 UTC] No.42141556{3}[source]▶
Can you clarify what the difference between the Developer Edition and normal edition are? It's not clear from the checkout flow if this is required in order to create plugins, and is not mentioned anywhere in the docs.
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13. ryanckulp ◴[15 Nov 24 02:42 UTC] No.42143511{4}[source]▶
hardware is the same, Developer edition vs Regular is a permission-only change that lets you build custom plugins and a few other things.

brief post here outlining more of the benefits: https://usetrmnl.com/blog/developer-edition

need to update docs too, thanks for the call out. we were writing docs before this piece was ironed out.

14. ryanisnan ◴[15 Nov 24 19:42 UTC] No.42150164[source]▶
I will be buying one of these, looks super rad! Nice work!
15. steezeburger ◴[19 Nov 24 00:44 UTC] No.42178984{3}[source]▶
Life happened, and I realized I would not be in town over holiday! Thanks for the offer though. I can't wait to get it and write some code for it!