Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product | Hacker News Reader

Feedback Welcome: I am developing an e-paper calendar as a consumer product

invisible-computers.com

139 pointskonschubert167 comments

IMO, the bezel is way way way too big for how much screen space there is. Instead of red oak, I'd suggest looking at walnut or cherry -- something with more color and a little less texture might help the screen to take focus. You could also look at separating the screen from the bezel with some kind of mat board or something (another commenter linked to an instructable that did this).

I'm also not super clear on the the exact use case for this. Have you considered making it more of a portrait orientation, making it a single day view, and maybe adding some additional information (maybe some todos from Todoist or something?)

The wood is actually beech, though this particular batch I got for the prototypes had a surprising amount of texture. I am planning to use lighter colors in future.

Regarding your second point: I'd love to support a multitude of layout options some day.

Huh. Alright then. Either way, I'd recommend leaning toward a less textured, richer/darker color and species of wood. If you go lighter, it's going to look a little washed out IMO.

Also, in your quality control for the wood bits, make sure that those mitered corners all line up evenly across the entire joint (examples of what I'm talking about highlighted here: https://monosnap.com/file/MkTzAjJhx7v7DkL5kOKypQNFKVyrNU). People who have purchased any kind of fine woodworking will see this and see something somewhat poorly made, even if the actual electronic hardware and software parts of the product are rock solid. The presence of those gaps means that one or more of the following things are true: 1) the miters weren't cut at a perfect 45, 2) the wood wasn't dried long enough, 3) the pieces were cut too short, 4) the wood was moved from a high humidity environment to a low humidity one (causing it to dry out and shrink slightly). 1 and 3 can be solved by closer inspection/better processes for the people/machines cutting the wood. 2 and 4 are harder to remedy if it's possible at all. I'd guess it would mean a new supplier + factory doing the wood bits.

Not necessarily saying that layout options would be _necessary_. Just pointing out that something more focused on showing immediately relevant information (i.e. scoped to _today_, rather than this entire week) might help to more clearly define the value of the product to a prospective buyer.

Personally I prefer the subtlety of using lighter woods (maple would be my preference).

A darker wood enhances the contrast with the white e-paper, but is over-the-top (IMHO).

I guess I see a lot of people new to woodworking do the maple+walnut thing to make a bold statement but I don't feel it stands up over time ... if that makes sense.

Thank for the tips on the woodwork. I am not sure if a darker color would make the screen look brighter or darker.

I had noticed those gaps in the frame as well. I agree they look poorly made :)

I think they are mostly from the fact that this was cut with a hand saw, and the cut wasn't even throughout the Z axis. I am hoping that I will be able to fix this as I go from a prototyping process to a more refined production process.

Another commentator brought up CNC milling the wood - what do you think of that idea?

Not the original commenter, but

> CNC milling the wood

It’s a frame. It’s not a complex shape. A simple mitre saw should be enough to do this consistently. Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be.

Guillotine cutters are also useful for making frames: https://www.rockler.com/miter-trimmer

Picture frames are a solved problem. Metal, wood, whatever. Build your item to known demension and let people order exactly what they want

CNC sounds like kind of a bad fit unless you're going to mill the entire frame out of a solid piece of wood -- you'd lose a lot of material to the router bit and still have to do a fair amount of finishing by hand. For mitered joints like this, there are computerized saws that can feed and cut the lumber pretty precisely, but those are very expensive.

I'm not super clear on whether or not you're doing all of this by hand or working through a factory. If it's the latter, I would recommend just setting your expectations for the final product very clearly and then make sure that the end product is meeting those expectations. If you're doing it by hand, practice makes perfect! Go to your local lumber yard store and get some construction grade pine or fir boards and cut several dozen miters by hand (you can also invest in a compound miter saw -- that's generally useful for any woodworking that you'd want to do down the road as well and you can find them used for ~dozens of dollars or brand new for ~100-500 depending on features, size, power, etc -- just make sure you've got a good, sharp blade with lots of teeth for a nice smooth cut). You'll get the hang of it. For soft woods, clamping pressure and even glue distribution matters too -- you can clamp them a little tighter and the wood fibers at the boundaries between the boards will crush down a bit and help to even out the joint. That doesn't work so well with hardwoods though - you'll have to be pretty precise to get those done right.

Depending on the thickness of your wood, you might be able to do something with a laser cutter, but you'll need to figure out how to square up the edges appropriately (since laser cut edges on thicker lumber are rarely perfectly square).

If you're particularly lucky, you might be able to find somewhere that will give you some time on a water jet. Those edges will be perfectly square and everything will be cut perfectly -- just make sure to thoroughly dry your parts before assembly.

Hey, thank you for that comment. Those are really good tips regarding the woodworking. I'll look into one of these miter saws.

Frame making is actually more complicated than it seems, it's not enough to just make one mitered cut on four pieces and call it a day (if you want it to look good / fit well). It's certainly a learnable trade, but more complicated than just butting four square pieces together with glue. If I were you I'd stick with what you have working now, unless your current process is significantly time-consuming or costly.

As for the look, see if you can make the wood grain go the same direction for the entire frame, rather than the grain changing from vertical to horizontal. Should make it look more attractive. To expand the appearance from there, you can sand it down and apply different oils, stains and paints.

Sure thing! Feel free to reach out (email in profile) if you get stuck or want input on something. Woodworking (and especially woodworking with tech inside) is one of my favorite hobbies and I'm glad to share what I know when I can :)

If you want the bezels look less chunky, have them taper inwards towards the screen. It'll give the allusion of thinness and also pull the screen forward visually.

Re CNCing the wood: I'm not a woodworker, but given the simplicity of the cut, I'd dare say that miter sawing the planks using a guide would more than suffice.

I'm both an amateur woodworker and a professional CNC programmer, and this is right. Frames like this are made with routers to carve the profile, and miter saws to cut the corners.

Personally I'd love to buy the guts and make my own frame, to personalize the gift with a nicer frame than I'd want to pay someone else to make.

Give me a good dimensioned drawing or a 3D model (or both!) of the display panel and the electronics that drive it, I'll chop some scrap into a mockup of the screen, craft a custom frame around it, and then swap in the real guts when I'm done.

You can email me at mail@konstantinschubert.com - I think there should be no problem with me sending you the "guts" at-cost once I have converged on a final BOM list.

I also have question that you might be able to help me with:

The frame requires some special shaping on the back-side to accommodate the "guts" as you call them. In fact, if I can freely choose the profile of the frame on the back side, I can probably solve some other constructional open questions I am having. You seem to be an expert on this: If I provide a CAD file, what will be the order of magnitude in cost I am looking at for one or more custom profiles? Both in terms of design and in terms of per-piece production cost?

I'd be happy to give you some more details over email of course.

To me the value is in seeing the entire week. I already have my outlook notifications for things happening on the current day.

You might want to consider making the screen flush with the front of the wood. As-is, the frame is going to case a shadow over the screen.

Or split the difference and stain with a gray stain to create wood grain that matches the grays of the screen.

The wood bezel is kind of ugly & cheap looking. The audience for this is likely to be tech people and users who want to show off their calendar or manage their time with calendar invites. I think this could do well with a more contemporary frame. You could market it to people as a solution to forgetting meetings; the price would have to be low enough (sub $100) to trigger people’s impulse buying. The lower the price the more likely you will be to get a sale.

Do a test on Facebook with different price points and see which one produces better conversions: you don’t need to actually have the product available to buy yet. This product is mostly going to live or die based on the marketing & pricing.

There’s no accounting for taste. I’d prefer a wood frame to some kind of LED emissive plastic or metal

Except it’s not particularly nice word and the proportions are all off.

Fair.

A delicate chrome bezel might work though.

One of the appeals of the e-paper though is the "natural" look of it — as though it is paper. The wood frame is in keeping with that.

I like the wood, but I'm not fond of the choice.

Yea, I'll try to find something with less texture for sure.

Have you been to a shop that does picture framing?

I wonder if you are trying to re-invent (or at least DIY) a picture frame -- you can get a high quality custom-sized picture frame made at a very reasonable price. The mitres will be perfect :)

(I haven't seen the reverse of your product, so there may be a constraint I'm not aware of.)

There are some constraints on the back, so I can't use an off-the-shelf frame. But you're right, I have to be careful not to DIY a wheel :D

Why not just make it in a way that allows people to more easily BYOF?

I actually like the wood as material per se, but I still want to improve a bit on the processing.

I'd love to lower the price, too. I don't know yet if it's possible.

Besides the bezel being wide compared to the actual screen, there is nothing else wrong with it, in my opinion.

I think the price point is about right for those tech bro’s that want to buy this to show off. I don’t think you should try to compete with consumer grade stuff.

Check out Inkplate. It has a 6" screen, it's programmable so can display whatever you want - not just a calendar and has an option for a plastic frame and it's only $100. They also have 10" version coming soon. Maybe you should pivot into building custom wooden frames and/or software for Inkplates.

https://inkplate.io/

I have the same issues as everybody else (larger screen, smaller bezel, flush mount to bezel, google calendar only), but I'll talk about the copy on the site:

Under "Set and forget", "User your [...]" should be "Use your [...]". If you're anywhere near this price point, you can't have any typos in your copy.

"For the home":

> Unlike a paper-based family planner, the Invisible Calendar is up-to-date with what's in everyone's phones. Even the kids can catch a glance at the weekend - and know when to schedule that sleepover.

To me it feels like the age when kids start to really manage their own schedules is also around the age when parents give them (or let them pay for) their own phones. If everybody has a phone, what need does a shared device on a wall fulfill?

The "and for the office" block for some reason made me think that it would be neat to have it show a single day while in portrait and show the week while in landscape. Then in portrait/day mode, it takes the place of the narrow sliver I give to Calendar.app on one of my screens / lets me reclaim that screen space, and I can still see the week at a glance by just turning it on its mount/pedestal/whatever.

This would work a lot better if it were battery powered though, you might not want the cable moving around while you're turning it.

Many of the ideas you mentioned are also floating in my head. I have to prioritize, but maybe one day...

And thanks for pointing out the typo :)

I'm not sure who this product is targeted at. If it's for "home consumers" then it doesn't really make that much sense as the calendar is focussed on the 9-5, while home calendars are usually more focused on the 4pm-10pm. Also bear in mind that home calendars will have multiple simultaneous appointments - Dad will take the dog to the vet appointment while Mum takes her daughter to the ballet, so it needs to be possible to show these side by side and be readable (especially considering these are short activities).

Then if this is for office users who schedule lots of meetings...

If this is a product which is intended to be used in a corporate environment, the fact it is missing Exchange support (or at least that this is not stated) is a huge gap for most people.

Additionally is this thing a touch screen? Like if a new meeting appears can I accept it on this device or do I need to go and get another device just to accept the meeting?

And if I have a meeting at 6am does it shrink the time to show it? How about all-day meetings, do they show up at the top? (Sometimes I have a combination of all-day meetings with other meetings throughout the day).

Can I click on the meeting and see more details? My calendar is full of lots of ones called "Catch up - X and Y" and it looks like the later part of the meeting name might be truncated so I would need to have the option to either see attendees or who it is with. So I conclude that this probably isn't for someone with lots of meetings, unless it's mainly for novelty.

Then if it's for a person who doesn't have that many meetings... the price is a little high.

It looks like a great product, it just feels like it needs to work out the problem it's trying to solve a little bit so then you can walk back to the features you need to implement. It risks being a product which is more about novelty than about being something usable in the long term. I know the page says home and office, but you might be better picking one and working out what building a really great product for that single user category means.

Looks like it would work well in offices to stick on the outside of meeting rooms or any kind of shared space. I don’t like it as a personal calendar.

Agreed, although the UI would need to be changed to do that effectively.

Competitors in this space are expensive, mainly because they insist you use their room booking platform and charge a subscription rather than the system already provided in Office 365 / Exchange.

Joan does this well today

I'd buy it in a heartbeat as long as there's no locking down of the software on it. A lot of these sorts of single-purpose devices go weirdly out of their way to be hostile to people modifying what software runs on them, which makes it all the more difficult to keep them working after, say, the manufacturer discontinues the product (or itself). A piece of hardware without user-serviceable software might as well be disposable - and the last thing the world needs is more disposable electronics :)

It's also worth noting that if you're marketing this for use at work, not all workplaces use Google Calendar; I've worked for quite a few companies that used Microsoft's ecosystem (particularly Outlook) exclusively. For a first go at the software, then perfecting the Google Calendar experience is a reasonable decision, but per above, it'd be nice if those of us with the know-how could mod in whatever data sources we please.

A couple questions:

1. Is this wall-mounted only? Or will it have some kind of stand so I can put it on my desk? Apartment dwellers and open-office-floorplan workers would probably find the latter useful :)

2. Would I be able to sync multiple calendars to it? Or would I need to buy multiple frames (one for work, one for personal) if I want to have both my work and personal schedule on display?

Hi, thanks for the feedback. I am not planning to do anything to lock it down, but if you want something designed from the outset to be hackable, you're maybe happier with an https://inkplate.io/?

Regarding your questions:

1. I am planning to add a stand. The prototype doesn't have one yet.

2. Yes, you can sync multiple calendars. They all have to be shared to the same google account (Need to share your work calendar with your personal account).

Since there's so much depth (thickness) in the bezel, you need more margins around the readable content to account for shadows.

One solution would be to use a mat board to separate the content from the frame (instead of wasting e-ink screen space).

Another is to change the shape of the frame to remove shadows. However, I imagine you're already working against the cost of e-ink displays, and the mat board would have the added benefit of making the screen feel larger than it actually is.

It’s too officy, have a look at this one for inspiration: https://www.instructables.com/E-Ink-Family-Calendar-Using-ES...

I love these kind of projects. But what I'd like is slightly bigger than kindle e-ink display that shows a webpage of my choice. And I'd like it to run off mains power.

Then I can pretty much show what I want - so it's easy to set up a rotating dashboard with the weather, my calendar, TFL alerts, whatever.

Why doesn't this exist?!

If not a webpage I would be happy with it displaying a bitmap. Let me put in a URL and poll it with the dimensions as query param. I will handle the render and serve back whatever I want.

I could draw my calendar on the left, the weather in one corner and todo list in another.

You can buy eInk price tags off eBay (7.4 inch price data brand, $25 each). I am releasing in a week or so, a cursory firmware for them that allows drawing on them in greyscale plus yellow any image you want, uploaded remotely. Quite cheap. Years of battery life.

can you open that webpage in 10 in or 13 inch eink devices ? Plenty of them out there. I even watch youtube videos on mine.

Which device?

13 inch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeC3LIFTaho

25 inch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY

it does - visionect has them.

I like this. I would buy it.

I would also buy a related product that would fetch a particular web page every couple of minutes and display it on the screen. It's possible to hack up various devices to accomplish this, but the setup is a pain. Mega bonus points for no cloud crap, just connect to wifi and do everything locally.

One thing I'd love to see in both of these products is no refresh if the content hasn't changed. One annoying aspect of e-paper displays is that they have to flash white and black when refreshing. If there is no change to the content, this isn't necessary, and then doesn't present a distraction out of the corner of your eye.

> One thing I'd love to see in both of these products is no refresh if the content hasn't changed.

That's already implemented actually :)

I think your product is a great idea, good luck! Only feedback, as others have said, the frame isn't quite my style, maybe a non-wood or a thinner frame would be nice. And personally I'd like to have the option to not have Saturday and Sunday on there (since I'm imagining using this at my work desk) and the font size maybe a little bigger/bolder for legibility.

I can say that I fully agree on the "remove the weekend" option. It's definitely on the list.

Others will comment on the product itself, and because it looks like you're trying to feel out the market, my questions are:

Do you have experience developing, certifying and shipping consumer hardware? In what countries do you want to sell it? Who builds the hardware? How big is your first run?

Hehe, those are really important questions you're asking.

I'm looking at the EU and the US market. I know I need to get CE and RoHS and a bunch of other certificates. I know this won't be easy.

If you know somebody who has experience with that, ideally in a boutique/startup environment, I'd love to hear the advice they have to give.

I run a small business selling a piece of open source hardware I designed a few years back (total sales around 10,000 units do far).

I haven't got a single certificate - FCC, CE, RoHS or otherwise. Your customers don't give a fuck, the governments don't give a fuck, and neither should you.

That goes for all forms of official certification. Unless some bureaucrat actively gets in your face and demands you do paperwork (EU VAT registration for FBA sellers is a good example), focus on good logistics and a solid product.

Just in case anyone is considering taking the above as advice..

Everything is entirely correct. Focus on a great product. However, avoiding certification 'because noone cares' - is incorrect. People don't care until something goes wrong.

Correct, you can skirt standards and certifications, or buy CE ratings from less-than-reputable firms - but if something goes wrong - and you're unable to produce appropriate certifications - you open yourself to a world of risk.

Hi HN!

I am trying to develop an e-paper smart display as a consumer product. The first available layout will be a calendar.

I'd love to have HN's input on this: Do you think it's viable? Does it look okay?

What would be a good selling price?

I looked at buying a company that does this, called Visionect. They have a consumer product called getjoan (at getjoan.com) that is some direct competition for what you want to do.

Here's my quick summary:

* They were using the tech for low power conference room calendars, which was a good use case pre-COVID.

* They said consumers really liked Joan, and that it was a popular product internally for employees.

* It renders pretty much any web view, which I think is the right idea

Overall, my assessment is that generally the market is small, and building a 'good' version, e.g. something that feels as good as a remarkable 2, is going to be really expensive.

Joan as a product is very thick, and also has terrible connectivity - no wifi-based configuration, needs out of date USB drivers downloaded in order to talk to it, etc. etc.

So, in answer to your question, as a hobby, yes. As an actual product for sale, I do not think it is a large market. If you find a large market you will be fighting companies like visionect that have deep supply chain roots to Eink directly.

If it were larger and lighter, I think putting one up on the fridge showing the family calendar, or other use cases like the conference room where it's nice to have updating information without running power are good ideas. But this is a very small market. And you are fighting the fact that people usually prefer bright colorful displays except in niche applications.

In summary, I would urge you to look at a different hardware niche.

Hey, thanks for the feedback.

I agree that the market for this particular product is very small.

200 euros is a lot. I own a remarkable tablet, and it can do a lot more with a bigger screen

I wouldn’t be interested in spending that much since I can’t really do much other than look at my calendar.

I’m either on the move, or in front of a computer, so I don’t see if there’s a good fit for this device in my life

I totally see your point of view regarding the price. What price would you say is right?

> I’m either on the move, or in front of a computer, so I don’t see if there’s a good fit for this device in my life

It's possible that the device isn't for you then, I agree.

Boox Poke3 is a 6" e-ink display that runs Android 10, as a general-purpose computing device, and is available for 160 EUR. Since you're selling a significantly less usable device (it only does one thing), I wouldn't want to pay more than 80 EUR for this. It's cute, but... when the price of the product is dominated by the screen, it's hard to sell a single-use device.

>when the price of the product is dominated by the screen, it's hard to sell a single-use device.

IMO if it doesn't have more than one UI menu, the UI ought to be built into the hardware - because AIUI e-ink screen costs scale geometrically with size. In other words, if you can e.g. break the five/seven days of the week into five/seven separate e-ink screens of the same surface area (not counting bezels), they'll be cheaper than a single e-ink screen of the same surface area.

As a bonus, giving each day its own screen means you can put a nice clean margin between them that's not made of expensive e-ink despite being left empty the entire time.

IMO that's the only way the price would drop to less than half the price of an e-reader of the same size.

Hi there, I have a few recommendation:

- Add an indication of the current time and date.

- Add a hidden button/switch to change between weekly/monthly calendar layout.

- Show a small popup with the pertinent information of the next appointment. (Location &c.)

- Where do you show entries that are scheduled for the entire day? It would be nice to display them in an area that is separate from the regular entries.

- Add a button/switch to flip through the next few weeks.

Good luck with your project, I can surely see a market for the e-paper calendar.

Hi, thanks for your comment. Those are good ideas.

I know someone who needs this.

The price seems high, but it might work as a christmas/birthday present, and probably wouldn't ultimately stop it from being purchased in this case.

It would be replacing a paper calendar that shows 3 months ahead. A nice feature would be to be able to move between views of today, this week, 3 months. Much bigger would be nice too. Again not having these would not stop a purchase.

The wood bezel is pretty big.

Most likely to stop a purchase is the ugly wire hanging from it. If it didn't need charging often, then having it have a powerbank (swappable?) in it would be better from my point of view, although how often it needs to charge would be a factor.

There was a beautiful concept epaper calendar I saw a while back, https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/22/15028600/m... but I don't think it ever made it to sale, and if it had, it would have been frighteningly expensive, but that is what I would really like...

That concept you're linking is what inspired me :)

> It would be replacing a paper calendar that shows 3 months ahead. A nice feature would be to be able to move between views of today, this week, 3 months.

I agree.

> Much bigger would be nice too.

Totally.

What's the planned size of the display?

To me, a physical calendar is useful to get an idea of the schedule at a glance - but this seems like it will be too small to get a clear idea at a glance.

I'm guessing 6"-7" ? TBH 13-15" would be ideal to hang up on the wall (with a better contrast ratio as well) - but I'm guessing that would be way too expensive?

It's a bit above 7 inches. It's enough to get a feel actually for the week and not miss anything important on the next day - that's what I'm using it for personally.

You're right in guessing that anything bigger is very expensive - let's hope the cost comes down!

Something which is really missing is wifi support and the ability to pull a custom image to display from somewhere. You could then easily display status dashboards, calendars, whatever someone likes.

If you have a library for easily building these screens this could be really interesting.

I have seen this idea at the joan board, but they are really expensive (attaching an ipad to the wall is cheaper) and i cant find this feature anymore. I guess it was hidden at some screenshot and small text somewhere.

The price point will be a sticking point for consumers. I understanding the pro’s of this style of device with an e ink screen, and the associated power savings and readability it comes with, but the general public may not. This could be better positioned towards an office environment but it would possibly be too small to be useful to a team.

I love the idea and the design, and I hope it works for you, but I think it’s going to be a hard sell ahead for you at that price point.

What price point would work better in your opinion?

This is a prime product for a Kickstarter or gofundme campaign, both for seed capital and to get early feedback. Seriously, massive lost opportunity otherwise

I've considered it. To me Kickstarter is a double-edged sword and I'd rather only take money from customers once I can actually deliver ... let's me sleep more easy.

But maybe I should re-consider, yea..

It's an awesome idea. The color the epaper might go better with stainless steel, or even glass. But as it stands the gray/black/brown combo looks a bit like an Ugly Tie, it could work in the right room/wall, but may need some thinking on the end of the buyer.

What MCU are you using? Have you run into issues with shortages? I'm asking since I'm also developing an e-paper product, for a different purpose. Are you doing full refreshes each update? Seems like it would be OK in this use, since the content doesn't change often.

You mentioned batteries as a complexity-adder: I agree, but ideally, this makes sense as a battery-powered device. It should be capable of running for a very long time on a few AA or AAAs. (The limitation being internet connectivity for refreshing) The advantage is reduced cable clutter, and flexibility in where it goes. Maybe for a second edition, as not to delay release.

Hey, let's connect maybe? You can send me an email at mail@konstantinschubert.com

EDIT: I sent you an email.

Can you post some specs about the size of the display in inches & pixels? And does it run an open OS?

I recently bought an M5Paper which is a 960X540, 4.7" ESP32 e-ink display for $70. So that provides a baseline for your hardware.

That price was at quantity '1' though, right?

Yes but even at 10K you’ll be looking at $50 per unit at best.

eInk displays are expensive as fuck thanks to patents.

> eInk displays are expensive as fuck thanks to patents.

Citation please.

https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+e+ink+so+expensive

Sigh... I work in the display industry and interact with competitors as well as partners of EInk. The first link is a reddit post. I leave it to others to work out why a lot of these comments blaming patents are completely wrong. I've tried to counteract these mistaken assumptions repeatedly on HN. See my comment history. But after this kind of low quality approach to factual discussion (eg: I ask for a citation and instead am given a reddit link) I'm giving up trying to correct this misconception.

“Citation please” is the mother of “low quality approach to factual discussion” if you have a different opinion or have facts to present please do so.

Asking for a citation to what you say is a misconception is somewhat pointless don’t you think since if this misconception is so prevalent all the citations would be misconceptions as well...

The burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. You made the claim, you have to provide proof. That is what "Citation please" says.

Hi,

For quite a while I've been specifically looking for a reliable source on the "e-ink prices are caused by patents" (or alternative explanation) to bookmark, but haven't been able to find one.

Please educate me. Preferably with sources I can cite. The best I have right now is a freaking reddit comment.

As I have stated, I was looking for evidence or proof for OP's claim about patents and did not find it, nor does OP appear to be able or willing to back up his/her claim. My opinion is that display pricing is driven primarily by volume, and secondarily by a lot of other rapidly fluctuating variables related to ITO/TFT manufacturing costs. I'm sure patents has some effect on the industry, but most likely negligible as I've never heard companies being impacted by it. At least not in my corner of the industry.

To be frank, I believe OP's claim about patents is wrong and is just some kind of worldview that for some reason has caught on recently in HN and is getting repeated without being challenged.

The simplest evidence I can give that volume is the main driver of pricing is to compare EPD 6" matrix display pricing between 2007 where it was 100x more expensive than it is today. Patents haven't changed. Volume has. That was driven by large scale buyers like Sony, Amazon, and others.

Yes.

The display is 7.5 inch.

Why not just make it into a mirror? People buy mirrors all the time. When they renovate, when the old mirror breaks, or when they decorate a new house. Its huge existing market. They are more likely to buy a mirror with an extra feature like a calendar, much easier than buy an e-calendar. Which they never buy, and might not see enough of a use of. Essentially, making a mirror, already a primary useful device, more useful will sell better, than trying to create a new market for an e-device.

Reading the website, it seems this product is tied to Google. Instead of using a proprietary cloud service, you should work with CalDAV instead and make it accessible to everyone.

Strongly support this suggestion!

Integrated CalDAV or at least subscribing to .ics calendars, since device would not allow for inputing new events.

This would be nice for old timers like me whose eyesight was ruined from years of staring at screens. I avoid doing scheduling on my phone due to the form factor, but have my schedule in google cal (others may use exchange), so this would be a better form factor for meetings than the phone, but without taking up valuable monitor real estate.

I would maximize screen real-estate, so I would stick it on my desk and occasionally glance at it, thus it would be nice if the box for the next meeting changed color a few minutes before the meeting so that I'd know immediately that I had a meeting coming up just with a quick glance. It would also be nice if I could tell roughly how many meetings I have in a day and when they are just with a glance. If you want to know something super awesome, have it very slowly scroll through the day. E.g. in the morning you might see

9 am (empty box) 11 am (shaded box for meeting) 1 pm (empty box) 3 pm (shaded box for 3 pm meeting) 5 pm empty box

Then, as you approach 11 am the shaded box turns black, maybe it even says "meeting in 10 min". By that time, the 9 am box has been scrolled off the screen.

At 1pm, the 9 am meeting has scrolled off, and I only need to see the 3 pm box. close to 3, that one turns black. etc.

Another option is to magnify what's coming up:

small box for things in past big box for things right now medium box for hour after that small box for everything after that

Point being, you just want to get all the info you need -- what's coming up -- without squinting at the frame or spending a lot of time looking at it.

Wall calendars don’t have room for enough information. A weekly view would be nice. I would like a thinner frame and larger screen for readability. I might worry about the inconvenience of powering it or of entering/editing information. For the price point, a fancier build quality would help with the “premium” feel you probably would need: it would need to stand as a practical art piece

Good feedback, thank you.

You will have to compete with much cheaper ideas like this kindle-based dashboard https://github.com/pascalw/kindle-dash

discussed a while ago here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25939042

Love the idea, I regularly search for products that will do this for me, but please please include support for non-Google calendars.

Same. I would buy, but I don't use Google Calendar and I'm getting sick of services that only support Google / Apple.

The frame overshadows the display. You might:

- reduce the size of the frame

- mount the display flush to the front of the frame

The contrast in the photo does not look great. Perhaps use hatching or shading instead of the solid black areas? In any case, you'll want to be able to separate out different calendars.

Other display modes? "Today", "Clock/Calendar", "Now and Next"?

How do you control it?

Thank you for the feedback.

You're right, the display is smaller than I'd like... for sure.

I'll also see what can be done on a black-and white display with regards to the stark contrast.

> Other display modes? "Today", "Clock/Calendar", "Now and Next"?

Yes, that's do-able, I "just" have to code it.

> How do you control it?

In the App. I should make that clearer on the website for sure.

> In the App. I should make that clearer on the website for sure.

I would only want this if I can use it without yet another app. Please consider using a simple web interface etc.

I think the idea is the display comes directly from Google calendar and you don't have much control over it.

Nope, it just gets the events from gcal. The layout is whatever I make it.

Here's what I thought when I read "e-paper calendar." You know how most calendars have a gorgeous photo above the dates (that changes with each month?)

- Is there any way you could have a larger screen (or a second screen) just to reproduce the feel of having the grid of dates below an eye-catching photo? (I remember being really impressed by the pictures of famous authors Amazon used as screensavers on early editions of the Kindle -- and thought it'd be fun to see some high-quality nature photos in black-and-white e-ink.)

- If this ever became a commercial product, people could even use their own photos.

- Images could even be put on "shuffle" -- so the e-ink calendar had an entirely different image above the dates every day of the month.

Get the panel separately and work with a local woodshop on the frame so that you can test lots of prototypes. Then send your frame design back to wherever the whole thing is getting assembled (assume, china).

Also, how much does an e-ink panel like that cost these days?

Darker or bolder lines and text would be nice I think.

It would be interesting if you put a little red LED on it like a soft alarm for upcoming events.

I would pay $35 for this, buy I'm sure others would pay more.

Edit: Saw the 200 euro price tag, don't think I'm in the market for this at that price.

Thank you for your feedback, especially regarding the price.

I'd go for a much smaller bezel/frame.

Interesting! I've done something _very roughly_ similar over the past weeks (https://twitter.com/jlengrand/status/1362319916649578499). I would go and say that putting calendar only is probably too static info as displayed on the website (it'll change only once a day).

My setup cost about 80$ total so I guess the pricing is not wild. I do really like the cool effect of epaper personally, much more than the typical 'use a tablet as dashboard' that has a backlight. Good job!

Oh and funnily enough when I showed that on Twitter people asked for exactly what you did so you might be up to something, though I wonder if displayed like you do now the resolution will be high enough

Don't make the important information so hard to read.

I don't think the black background needs to be a thing. If you have to distinguish blocks judt thicken the border a wee bit. You'd be surprised how little you need.

When I read the title of this thread, what I pictured in my mind was an e-ink version of a paper wall calendar or a monthly desk calendar; a grid 7 squares wide and 5 down that can display any month. The user could tap on a day to zoom into it, and hand write some notes/events/etc with a stylus like they would a paper calendar. Perhaps it could have an optional sidebar on the zoomed-in version that shows Google Calendar appointments.

I can imagine someone like my mom using such a device, she still tracks all of her appointments on a paper wall calendar.

Why not simply use an off-the-shelf frame? As others have already said, the bezel is very big compared to the whole product. I'm sure you could find something that would look nice enough, and cost you far less than any custom-made wood frame (and assembly thereof).

This seems like a wonderful idea to me - although only usable in many cases if it has wifi (I don't see any mention of connectivity on the page). FWIW, the price point is also about double what I would personally consider paying for it.

I actually like the heavy frame, although I see why some might find it a bit heavy, given that the apparent goal of most screen designers is to eliminate the bezel entirely.

My biggest sticking point here is price. 200 euros is a no-go; given the limited nature of the device, I wouldn’t even consider 100. 50 is the absolute max I’d pay for something like this.

It’s a very nice product, and your target audience might very well be people who can afford an expensive desk object. I don’t think most of the folks I know could pay that, though.

Thank you for the feedback. Getting the price down is definitely one of my priorities.

I don't need a calendar for work things as I literally stare at a screen all day and my calendar is never more than a few alt+tabs away (and no one else in my home needs to see it). On this one there's only space for things that are happening during the day. One small design change would need to be that this calendar would have to include evenings as that's literally when everything in my social life (such as it is, I'm 43..) happens.

Agree on the design concerns that other people have raised... I'm also a little concerned that you seem to only have one calendar with relatively few events on it as your example. Weekly views with 5+ distinct calendars on them get unusable pretty fast (and often the same event showing up on several of the calendars) so make sure you have a decent solution for that if you're planning to market this as a "family" calendar.

Good luck.

My two cents: I suggest making the software work first, on existing tablet(s).

Then once you have a product people actually want/use you can add the cost and complexity of building, inventorying, and shipping a physical product. Also, far more people would use your software than buy a physical version and you would have an audience of all the people using your software to convert into physical product customers as an upgrade.

Again, good luck!

Typo : "User your smartphone to configure."

Have you considered customizability of some sort?

E.g. allowing people to extend your product, by software or by providing necessary information to easily create 3D printed mounts or alternate frames. Give the users a place to exchange and host their solutions and your calendar could be a presentation platform that others create for without requiring you to do the work yourself.

I believe one reason people are responding negatively to the frame is there is insufficient padding around the content before the frame begins. I know it would be painful to not use all the screen real estate, but I think there needs to be some spacing. Alternatively you could surround the screen with some sort of matting before the frame begins.

Good idea. Also the matting.

But I think people are right: The frame is quite big. I'd love to get the size down.

I think you should machine the frame as much as possible so that you can get the display as close to the front as possible.

I agree with that. Currently the display is very close to the edge so it feels like you would have to peer round the frame. I guess you want to use as much of our pixel-area as possible, but a bit of margin would make it more relaxing to look at.

You're going to be displaying information on a paper like reflective surface. You've probably already thought of this, but check out paper organizers and calendars. Especially take not of what works, for instance light text on dark background. What works for active screens probably won't for passive screens.

Great idea!

Would love to see this for org-agenda (Emacs + org) though as I have transitioned away from Google products years ago.

What size is this? I can't see any indicators or text saying what size it is.

EDIT: Also, if it updates the screen rarely enough, why not put solar panels on it? That bezel is already pretty darn thick, and if the solar panels draw enough power than you could forgo a power supply or external charging entirely.

I don’t use Google calendar. Could I get a version that syncs with Apple iCal?

For work purposes, could I get something that syncs with Outlook?

Also, what about colors for overlaying the calendars of multiple people, like me and my wife?

Can I get monthly view, as well as weekly and daily views?

I really like this idea, but I agree with others that the bezels look a bit too large (do you need them to hide the components?) and the price seems relatively high.

I also thought that the calendar looked a bit grey/dull in the image you show. Is this just about the lighting or is the display not very high-contrast?

> do you need them to hide the components?

Yes for now. Though I might get them down in size as I iterate on the hardware...

> Is this just about the lighting or is the display not very high-contrast?

To be honest I'd say it's both.

You want some feedback? Here is some: it’s too expensive. 200€ for a display-only calendar? Thanks, I’ll pass.

Really cool idea! Style aside, I think you’ve developed an interesting product with lots of appeal, especially for those looking to be “less” connected.

For those complaining about the style, perhaps offering a DIY kit may be a viable alternative that allows anyone to add their own flair.

The frame size to screen feels unbalanced to me. I would reduce the frame width and consider using a solid CNC’ed price of wood instead of using picture frame construction. Unless you can get those seams very tight, it looks a little cheap (which your price point isnt).

Yea, fair point!

Interesting idea with the CNC'd wood - I'll look into that for sure!

Does that chord mean that it's not battery powered? Would be nicer if it is battery powered.

I might buy it if it didn't depend on Google Calendar.

I would probably also replace the frame. I could go to any Michaels store and get them to make a more attractive frame for $20-$40.

Also, not sure how large e-paper screens can get, but I might like a huge one for my wall.

I'd like to see it handle multiple calendars.

My work calendar. My spouse's work calendar. Our shared personal calendar. Kid's school calendar. All with toggles for one at a time or all at once or any combination for daily scheduling discussions.

Good luck! Neat idea!

It can do that already, even in the current stage of development. (They would have to share their calendars with your google account though. )

I might not be your market but I'd want:

- a tiny version

- with little bezel

- at most 35eur

- showing just todays upcoming agenda.

- Maybe some bold and inverted display of soon to begin events.

Than again... I could dock my phone, keep the screen on and show some calendar app, but I don't either.

Maybe I should :), would be possible with tasker, rfid and a dock.

This is quite blatant a copy of my project from a few years back: https://github.com/dabch/epaper-calendar

Considering that you even starred my GitHub repository and that even the frame looks pretty exactly like the one I built (but with nicer quality), this really seems to be heavily inspired by my build from early 2019.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy that people like to build on my stuff. You could even re-use the code (MIT license). Making this thing ready to sell is probably a lot of work. I never had any intention to do that.

But still, don't sell this as your idea. And remember, MIT license allows you to re-use the code, but it requires to re-state the license text, including the name of the original author.

Honest feedback: from the photos, it looks very gray. The appeal of e-paper to me is the contrast. So having a background so gray kind of defeats the purpose for me. Maybe it's just the photo you took or the lighting though.

That's surprising to hear: e-paper is a notoriously low-contrast display medium.

I like the idea! I know an excellent wood worker if you want really fancy frames.

Is it battery-powered? And how thick is it? I currently have a notepas stuck to the fridge with some magnets, if it was slim and could be powered for a while on a single charge I'd probably put it on the fridge.

Battery-powered is kind of my dream as well, but this one is wired. Removes a whole lot of complexity.

The frame fit and finish is not adequate, hire someone who is able to cut and assemble frame miters that do not have gaps. Offer a three wood options, Maple (light) Oak (Medium) and Walnut (dark).

Aside from aesthetics of the wood bezel being much smaller, you will also save on cost as you will use less material. Shipping and weight will be less too.

Too expensive for the utility it provides. A Raspberry Pi with a simple LCD could do the job for half the price. An old obsolete phone would work too.

This actually gave me the idea to use my reMarkable screen as a calendar like this. I need to generate a picture and upload it every morning.

It would be useful to show a list of the day's next events and to-do's. Is iCloud sync even possible?

> Is iCloud sync even possible?

There are ways to make it work but it's not yet the way I'd like it to be.

maybe a vertical version with a support that you can have on the desk like a picture frame, with a less wide wood frame, maybe the display can alternate showing the calendar for a few minutes and your favourite newspaper frontpage or something else for a few minutes

Thin white frame with a white mounting could feel more aesthetically balanced.

How well does it handle double and triple bookings in the same time slot?

It needs to support Office 365 or some sort of connector.

Yea, for sure, that's something I'd like to have as well!

Please make it use standards or at least don't directly use Google's or Office APIs. It'll be way easier to support a lot of calendars (including Google Calendar) if you stay with CalDav in mind than the other way.

However, I like the idea. That said, 199€ is not cheap. It will be really hard to sell at that price.

I'll see what I can do to get the price down before release.

Shooting from the hip, what price would you have expected?

Since you're announcing it at an heavy traffic like HN it is quite likely there are already 200 companies in ShenZhen reading your post and and planning to sell it for one tenth of what you're asking.

While Chinese can copy it easily the eInk display will kinda guarantee that even half the price would be pushing it.

In any case they don’t need to even preemptively copy it once you order it from a Chinese OEM they’ll use the money you paid them to make a few 1000’s units more for themselves and have them on Aliexpress before you even get the first batch shipped.

This site screams, this is an MVP-idea-test side.

Can I build apps for this?

Bigger screens are better.

why not just modify a kindle or nook?

it has a power chord?

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