This screen comes with a subscription based cloud CMS. The only way to pass image to this display semms to be through a proprietary application which is this so called CMS. There are no other connectivity options mentioned.
You are unable to use this screen if:
- subscription is not paid
- company decides to terminate your subscription under any condition of your contract
Hey! It's Jay, I'm a journalist and developer and I've done most of the work on the front and backend of Project E Ink. Happy to answer your questions!
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 ;)
That’s OK though right? As long as you know that going in you can decide if it’s worth it for you. Personally, I’d rather have something that works out of the box in exchange for a bit of money and risk that the company will go out of business one day than something that I have to spend time tinkering with to get and keep working.
I'm a news junkie, and the power and allure of a newspaper's front page have always fascinated me. When I stumbled upon an article written by a Google engineer who had built an e ink device with the front page of his favorite daily newspaper prominently displayed on his wall, I was a bit jealous. So, I worked with a e-ink company called Visionect in Slovenia to build a version that comes shipped ready to put on your wall. The screen isn't cheap ($2500) because it's a huge 32" e-ink display. The beautiful glass screen is connected to wifi and we made it easy to choose your favorite newspaper frontpages to put on display. It's a bit like an ever changing artwork.
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
The e-ink newspaper project comes up from time to time and I keep waiting for the prices to come down to Earth.
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).
It's kind of sad that the newspaper format--which gradually developed over many many years due to how a human interfaces with the medium--is now so... quaint?... that it has entered the realm of "art."
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 came across this a while back wanting to make my own - thanks for this! I wound up deciding to just get an InkPlate because I also wanted something to take off the wall and review
Looks nice, but it's still just more news for the news addicted.
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.
I have the same thing, gitlab job scheduled every 12 hours refreshes it using the visionect docker image, I have google calendar at the bottom, and currency exchange over the top left, localized weather on the right, countdowns to holidays, F1 schedules ect... I decreased the heartbeat timer and battery lasts about 2 months. I can't find an asian or european news paper that gives a good high res front page like the NYT. Waking up to read the US centric world view of the NYT gets old and the headlines are not so entertaining anymore without trump.
Let me know if you find a more global news source that has a good high res reliable front page dump without advertisements. There has only been one time where NYT had on the front page over ~2 years and that was some fake diamond company took out the entire front page.
Are (large) e-ink displays expensive because of lack of scale in manufacturing? Or is there something inherently expensive about them? This display is literally almost ten times the cost of a generic 4K monitor, which has color, a higher resolution, and a 60 hertz refresh rate.
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.
I chatted with the guy from Visionect about this once and he said that it was basically all about scale. There is massive demand for the panels that go in those generic LED monitors and many huge factories dedicated to making them.
The eink display looks gorgeous, by the way. But it's not a computer monitor and doesn't claim to be.
To be fair it will have a good viewing angle even better than IPS as well as not shining a flashlight in your face with a terrible spectral power distribution but I don't expect a real analysis by someone who compares 2 watt power savings as if this is the bottleneck of display tech or anything close to it.
Would be interesting to me to have something like this, but in landscape mode, and with slowly changing blueprints of aircraft, rockets, ships, cars...
That would be cool. And simple to do in Python with a small display. There are a number of projects on GitHub that can be easily modified to pull this off.
How long do we need to wait until whatever patent encumberance that's keeping e-ink displays at these ridiculous prices expires and we can start to see affordable e-ink displays?
The price isn't caused by patent encumbrance, but by lack of demand for 32" e-ink monitors. They're hand-fused from 4 16" panes because there's not enough throughput to make it worth automating the process.
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.
This looks neat at a first glance but who actually wants to read the newspaper standing up facing a wall? I personally prefer to do it sitting down in a comfortable sofa or outside on a park bench.
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.
Interesting, another project by Alexander Klöpping (coincidentally also OP). I guess this guy is the definition of serial entrepreneur. He's founded (and sold) Blendle, which is kinda related to this product, but before that he'd already started tons of companies. He's somewhat famous in the Netherlands as he's often invited to explain the newest tech stuff on TV.
This display with regularly-rotating high-quality pencil art could be a neat business. The comparison to wall art makes the hardware price look more reasonable, and you could offer a subscription to curated pieces or a network of artists' output.
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.
I've been following the last 3 or 4 posts of people that have created these over the last few years, and I'm insanely jealous...so cool. I do agree with others that I already have too much news in my life and I don't think I'd really get real utility from this (which is important at a $2K+ price point). One thing that could be a really cool alternative is a version that displays a random Wikipedia article, or whatever Wikipedia article is "Today's Featured Article". Put that in front of your toilet, and it could be an evergreen source of entertainment.
€2,783 ($3,025) for this might seem like a lot, until you realize that the price of the 31.2" screen[1] alone is at least $1,200 + $200 shipping within the US. Wow.
[+] [-] hau|2 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] jayvoordemensen|2 years ago|reply
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 ;)
[+] [-] p10jkle|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stavros|2 years ago|reply
https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-the-timeframe/
It fetches images from HTTP every half hour and shows them.
[+] [-] paulcole|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thih9|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ar_lan|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexandernl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gasp0de|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] konschubert|2 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] westurner|2 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] JKCalhoun|2 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] deltarholamda|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] shultays|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tepix|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexandernl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikkelam|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JadeNB|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sho_hn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 93po|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emptyspaces|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ionwake|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intpx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 93po|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dobin|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] brentcetinich|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdamN|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aembleton|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcanyon|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] eli|2 years ago|reply
The eink display looks gorgeous, by the way. But it's not a computer monitor and doesn't claim to be.
[+] [-] dbttdft|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ptman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mechhacker|2 years ago|reply
Example: https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Portals/14/EasyGalleryImage...
[+] [-] LittleNemoInS|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JKCalhoun|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] janitor61|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Qwertious|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yunusabd|2 years ago|reply
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.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KDkFgOHZ5I
[2] https://github.com/speedyg0nz/MagInkCal
[+] [-] shrx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p10jkle|2 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pxmpxm|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donkeyd|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] XFrequentist|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|2 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] pringularity|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamflimflam1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Someone|2 years ago|reply
Does that mean this device can completely stop working on the whims of a third party?
[+] [-] hnarn|2 years ago|reply
[1]: https://buy-lcd.com/products/largest-312-inch-e-ink-big-scre...
[+] [-] MissTake|2 years ago|reply
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.