This is super cool, and I wish something like this existed at my place, as it enables information sharing without the need for phones/actual screens that shine in your face when the lights are low or tempt you to doomscroll.
That said, the large primary display this uses is $2000. That's very hard to justify for any "normal" household, and that's without any mounts, backend, services etc.
Approach the expense like a business. Save up for expense, but more than that, look at lost revenue due to time lost to doom scrolling. If you're able to be more productive or having it results in more productivity, can you said to not get it?
That said, $2,000 is for one at that size. You could get a e-reader and root it for way less. It would be smaller but would be correspondingly cheaper.
~3000€ to show information in some random places in the house even though the household members have a device with a screen called a smartphone next to them 24/7 ?
Well, it's cool, but the usability of it all is below average.
Declutter your life and don't install any more screens in your home ;)
This is awesome but I still find it funny that he said he wants a healthy relationship with technology then goes and fits his entire house out with technology. It doesnt seem like any of this would really be useful as you'd have to enter all the useful data manually(calendar).
For example the washing machine. You dont need real time information because you know how long it takes since you've done it 1000s of times and it beeps. All these things are just managed in our heads subconsciously.
It's a pattern among tech folks to try to solve things with technology.
It is hard to stop yourself from treating every minor inconvenience as nail for which you have a handy hammer, and I find myself overcomplicating things in my life as a result.
The goals are noble but the methods bring a lot of the complexity simply repackaged (and potentially amplified).
Using technology doesn't necessarily mean an unhealthy relationship with technology. I think it differs for everyone.
For me, I think a healthy relationship with technology is technology that is there when I need it, not there when I don't. Added benefit if the technology knows when it's needed (ie alarms and such).
Crucially, a healthy relationship with technology for me is consuming less (reading less "news" and blogs and social media) and creating more (writing, projects, etc). So the concept of using technology to build something that is there when the family needs it and is in the background when not is a healthy relationship imo.
> For example the washing machine. You dont need real time information because you know how long it takes since you've done it 1000s of times and it beeps. All these things are just managed in our heads subconsciously.
Actually, this is one example of home automation that works very well. My washer will remind me that wash is ready to move to the dryer, and stops reminding me once the washer door opens.
It means that a) I don't have to put it on my mental reminders, b) it works very well with anybody else in the family that does a wash and _they_ forget to move it to the dryer.
This is really awesome! Dream home project for me as well, but can't justify the cost of large e-ink displays so far (was shocked at the nearly ~$2k sticker price of that Boox Mira Pro!)
This is really cool, thanks for sharing the journey so far.
One potential idea - it might be worth looking at overseas manufacturers to see if they can offer a similar display at a better price point. I did a bit of digging on Alibaba, for example, and found a 25" E-ink display with the same resolution as the Boox for around $1000 (and the price goes down to $500 if you order 100 units or more): https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/25-3-inch-e-paper-dis...
Seems like they offer a color E-ink display option as well, which could be worth exploring.
Note: I don't have any affiliation with the above company, it was literally just the first one I found when searching. I'm sure there are many other options available as well.
Information radiators are basically 80% of the reason I try to keep tabs on wireless power delivery. Then a Kia and Hyundai vendor thought they were going to get their wireless charging added to the EV6 and Ioniq vehicles and that’s the other 20%. Essentially they removed the transformer from the PSU and moved it to the air gap between the charging coil and the vehicle to halve the parasitic losses. You’d have a car you didn’t even need to plug in.
I’ve been following Information Radiators since practically the beginning, and wiring has always been one of its problems. First networking and now power. In homes, but also in office spaces. The best locations for radiators are often the worst for wiring.
And eInk displays move the needle because you have a device that can go completely to sleep between updates, which means it can trickle charge.
Wall-mounted dashboards are a huge life-hack, especially if you have a family. We got a 37-inch touchscreen one, running DAKBoard.
We have several kids and have been organizing our daily todos and calendars on it for several years. We used to drop the ball quite a bit due to a hectic schedule and the dashboard has helped us tremendously. Since it is mounted in the kitchen, being able to pull up recipes is a plus.
This is cool. I bought an Inkplate for this and got as far as writing a custom image format suitable for e-ink sort of things (4-bit RLE; trivial to decode, but good compression for diagram/text type images).
Where I got stuck is calendars... Unfortunately Google Calendar doesn't seem to provide a nice API where you can just say "give me the events for these days", instead you can only download all of your events in iCal format. It's then extremely non-trivial to convert that information into "what is happening today".
A project, ZerryBit, are working to do something similar - albeit on a far smaller scale physically than what you’ve done here. Might be of interest to OP or others though - further info at https://zerrybit.com/en-us (I have no link to them bar placing an advance order)
I had some fun with using an Inkplate e-ink display - bough a bare 5" for €74 (a 10" with batteries is there €219). Smaller, but also way more affordable.
We do this with a raspberry pi and a decent lcd screen in a picture frame in our kitchen. I like the idea of e-ink but there isn’t a reason to go that route if you want to see everyone’s calendar color-coded while also saving a few bucks.
Love the artistry and dedication in this effort - getting something just right for your own tastes and honing it over time can be really fulfilling.
A 12.48 Waveshare eink display costs $175.
Sadly haven't gotten it to work with the Raspi Zero and therefore can't use it battery-powered. Got an ugly cord right now. Running power to the right place through the walls is definitely dedication!
Interesting but it assumes the teens will bother to look at it.
We use a WhatsApp channel for our family to manage breakfast meetups and who needs what from the shops or the pharmacy (they are on our healthcare plan) and general conversation about events or troubles and parental advice in their lives.
One kid live on her own with her bf a few minutes from us but she can't drive so we sometimes have to pick her up from work.
It gets muddled but works for us as the rule is no pet photos unless it is very cute (cat with a dustbin cover on his head) or inspirational daily quotes.
You can run rust on kindles, so you don't need a separate webserver. You can fetch stuff and render the image directly on the kindle. Second hand kindles can be very cheap.
This is for sure an inspirational project, but I wish the barrier to entry was lower.
I've noticed e-ink/paper displays having somewhat of a moment right now (especially very small "phone-like" form factors as portable ereaders), and I hope this trend continues.
I'm very far from a meaningful reduction in "screen time," but looking at e-ink displays instead of OLEDs feels like a nice step in that direction.
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[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 73.8 ms ] threadThat said, the large primary display this uses is $2000. That's very hard to justify for any "normal" household, and that's without any mounts, backend, services etc.
That said, $2,000 is for one at that size. You could get a e-reader and root it for way less. It would be smaller but would be correspondingly cheaper.
Here is my ~75euros ESP32 eink panel experiment: https://github.com/riston/eink-assist-screen/tree/main
Well, it's cool, but the usability of it all is below average.
Declutter your life and don't install any more screens in your home ;)
For example the washing machine. You dont need real time information because you know how long it takes since you've done it 1000s of times and it beeps. All these things are just managed in our heads subconsciously.
It is hard to stop yourself from treating every minor inconvenience as nail for which you have a handy hammer, and I find myself overcomplicating things in my life as a result.
The goals are noble but the methods bring a lot of the complexity simply repackaged (and potentially amplified).
For me, I think a healthy relationship with technology is technology that is there when I need it, not there when I don't. Added benefit if the technology knows when it's needed (ie alarms and such).
Crucially, a healthy relationship with technology for me is consuming less (reading less "news" and blogs and social media) and creating more (writing, projects, etc). So the concept of using technology to build something that is there when the family needs it and is in the background when not is a healthy relationship imo.
Actually, this is one example of home automation that works very well. My washer will remind me that wash is ready to move to the dryer, and stops reminding me once the washer door opens.
It means that a) I don't have to put it on my mental reminders, b) it works very well with anybody else in the family that does a wash and _they_ forget to move it to the dryer.
One potential idea - it might be worth looking at overseas manufacturers to see if they can offer a similar display at a better price point. I did a bit of digging on Alibaba, for example, and found a 25" E-ink display with the same resolution as the Boox for around $1000 (and the price goes down to $500 if you order 100 units or more): https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/25-3-inch-e-paper-dis...
Seems like they offer a color E-ink display option as well, which could be worth exploring.
Note: I don't have any affiliation with the above company, it was literally just the first one I found when searching. I'm sure there are many other options available as well.
I’ve been following Information Radiators since practically the beginning, and wiring has always been one of its problems. First networking and now power. In homes, but also in office spaces. The best locations for radiators are often the worst for wiring.
And eInk displays move the needle because you have a device that can go completely to sleep between updates, which means it can trickle charge.
We have several kids and have been organizing our daily todos and calendars on it for several years. We used to drop the ball quite a bit due to a hectic schedule and the dashboard has helped us tremendously. Since it is mounted in the kitchen, being able to pull up recipes is a plus.
Where I got stuck is calendars... Unfortunately Google Calendar doesn't seem to provide a nice API where you can just say "give me the events for these days", instead you can only download all of your events in iCal format. It's then extremely non-trivial to convert that information into "what is happening today".
Though, $2000 is a step price.
I had some fun with using an Inkplate e-ink display - bough a bare 5" for €74 (a 10" with batteries is there €219). Smaller, but also way more affordable.
It connects via WiFi, and make it display random, vide https://github.com/SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-libr....
Love the artistry and dedication in this effort - getting something just right for your own tastes and honing it over time can be really fulfilling.
https://github.com/speedyg0nz/MagInkCal
A 12.48 Waveshare eink display costs $175. Sadly haven't gotten it to work with the Raspi Zero and therefore can't use it battery-powered. Got an ugly cord right now. Running power to the right place through the walls is definitely dedication!
We use a WhatsApp channel for our family to manage breakfast meetups and who needs what from the shops or the pharmacy (they are on our healthcare plan) and general conversation about events or troubles and parental advice in their lives.
One kid live on her own with her bf a few minutes from us but she can't drive so we sometimes have to pick her up from work.
It gets muddled but works for us as the rule is no pet photos unless it is very cute (cat with a dustbin cover on his head) or inspirational daily quotes.
https://github.com/benjajaja/kindle-bueno
However, I would now go for some ~100€ e-ink that is built for hacking.
I've noticed e-ink/paper displays having somewhat of a moment right now (especially very small "phone-like" form factors as portable ereaders), and I hope this trend continues.
I'm very far from a meaningful reduction in "screen time," but looking at e-ink displays instead of OLEDs feels like a nice step in that direction.