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Comment by ProjectBarks | Hacker News Reader

I own one and here are my thoughts:

So far it has been an extremely reliable product that was fun to get some scripts running on. I use a raspberry pie with a cron job to update the board with the weather and my daily schedule. Board actually looks extremely repairable for each individual character, and have has no issues with reliability in ~6mo.

API currently is through a rest interface which they have promised to keep free despite charging for plugins shared through their a subscription model. They had promised a native/local API but I have not heard anything from that.

Overall would recommend but it falls in the tech art category for sure.

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At this price, I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot barge pole until local API is a reality.

If their servers shutdown and it becomes abandonware you want to be sure it's still functional when you're spending a little more than "toy money".

Agreed it is a solid risk. I want to spend some time with wireshark to see if I can get something of my own going until an official local api is released.

I take it the device has WiFi? It would be interesting to see what kind of controller hardware is inside.

Jesus, no kidding. Only a two year warranty, too? For $3,000 USD you might think you'd get a little more for your money...

I was scrolling and thought I want one... now I don't :D

Sounds like a sweet corporate office buy at that price unfortunately. Cool tech art though!

> $2,850

Whoa. And they advertise putting this in your house for your family? You could buy multiple really nice TVs for that kind of money.

Not bad for an "art piece". We have plenty of art in the house and office that costs more than this, and they don't _do_ anything.

Hey, to each their own. I'd argue a decent painting does more than this product on an emotional level, though.

Plus it will keep it's value much much longer (not just $ value)

How often can/should you update it? Can you use it as a clock?

I use it as an hourly clock but anymore than every half hour would be a miserable experience since it is far from silent.

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