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Train and Weather Tracker with Raspberry Pi and E-Ink

(sambroner.com)
133 points tosh | 2 comments | 29 Mar 25 18:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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mtlynch ◴[02 Apr 25 12:19 UTC] No.43555848[source]▶
The Waveshare e-ink display he's using is $172.99.[0] The one that jgrahamc used in a sibling comment is about $200.[1]

It's a shame that it's not easier to pull the e-ink displays out of used e-readers because you can buy old Kindles on eBay for about $20-40. I know you can jailbreak them and achieve something similar to OP, but it'd be neat if you could just drop the vendor's e-reader firmware entirely and run your own software.

[0] https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/9.7inch-e...

[1] https://soldered.com/product/inkplate-10-9-7-e-paper-board-c...

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thijson ◴[02 Apr 25 15:54 UTC] No.43558097[source]▶
I recently saw that my local supermarket had replaced most of the paper price tags with eink displays. I guess they can be updated dynamically from head office. Seems like you can buy them now on ebay for not much per unit.

https://tinyurl.com/28v4f583

I wonder what their battery life is, and which wireless protocol they use.

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1. nyrikki ◴[02 Apr 25 17:37 UTC] No.43559180[source]▶
3-5 years typical, when I was looking at the newer ones at an auction site to play with most were IR with some bluetooth etc..

The link you provided appear to probably be IR based, but it was one of the brands that was a dead end for official docs when I was looking at them.

The newest ones seem to be using Periodic Advertising with Responses (PAwR) that was introduced in Bluetooth 5.4, but I couldn't find those type for a price I was willing to pay.

Nordic Semiconductors has an Apache licensed SDK and RToS, I didn't find the device and time to play with it but bookmarked it.

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-software/nRF...

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2. thijson ◴[04 Apr 25 17:23 UTC] No.43585369[source]▶
Thanks for the info