Ask HN: Suggestions for WiFi enabled e-ink labels? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Suggestions for WiFi enabled e-ink labels?

12 pointsd33lio9 comments

I'm working on optimizing some of my wife's ecommerce fulfillment and want to use e-ink labels on racks to help her organize and optimize her process. I've found some systems on Aliexpress or labels that can be hacked, however these require a base station or android app to manually program. Curious if anyone knows of a brand or source that is equivalent to an ESP32 attached to a small e-ink display with high enough resolution to render a pdf417 qr code?

Must haves are:

- long battery life - wifi networking to update display OTA - basic docs to use python / c to communicate with device

Thanks!

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>long battery life - wifi networking to update display OTA

Wifi is massive overkill for this kind of application and will be very difficult to make work for the power profile you want. Check out an alternative 2.4ghz protocol like zigbee, aka: https://hackaday.io/project/165467-papyr-nrf52840-epaper-dis....

You can buy a zigbee router for less than 5 bucks, plug it into a pi zero and you have a zigbee > wifi bridge for less than 10 bucks.

I am currently working on reverse engineering a few off the shelf eink shelf labels to be hacker-friendly and open. Watch for it on my usual project site in a week or two. (link in profile)

Why don’t you statically allocate local IPs for each esp32 you have and have each one of them run their own simple web server. Then just print out a qr code that points your phone to the IP address of that device and have the device serve up information on your phone rather than an eink display. That way there is no need for the qr code to change and therefore no need for an eink display.

I have a ttgo t5: http://www.lilygo.cn/prod_view.aspx?TypeId=50031&Id=1149&FId...

Seems to match what you are looking for, with an esp32, an e-ink display and a battery connection. It is also quite cheap. I use mine as a weather station.

Didn't see how to buy them but this might point you in the right direction if you haven't seen it. https://hackaday.com/2019/02/25/e-ink-price-tags-fall-off-st...

Some of these look like they might work.

https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm

https://www.eink.com/electronic-shelf-label.html?type=applic...

Often programmed with overhead infrared emitters.

Sadly out of stock: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4800

Been scouting for eink labels and these I found in the wild. No clue if this is what you're looking for but it's as far as I'm able to help.

Best* Buy - Pricer

Lowes - Chroma 74

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