Tidbyt hardware display device: a review | Hacker News Reader

Tidbyt hardware display device: a review

macwright.com

115 pointsingve49 comments

I'be build pretty much the same thing using an esp32 an 3d printed enclosure and a small custom pcb. You can connect via websocket from a browser and upload images, text, ect.

I've also managed to implement OTA firmware updates and a similar Wifi based setup as this product has.

If anyone is interested I'm happy to put it on Github.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ajAbJ3fqqYQV5sd98 https://photos.app.goo.gl/PHzq1P7uWkJgAtPb7 https://photos.app.goo.gl/gX3ydYRVdm5nqbGm6

edit: I'll cleanup the code and update this comment with a link to the repo tomorrow

Looks great, would love to build one too

Love it! I did a similar thing, 64x64 pixels with a LED diffuser. Everything is packed up in the IKEA picture frame: https://imgur.com/a/cLXGWWd

I'm lazy, but I plan to do the full write up and to open source everything. I use it to display pixel art, and during the night it automatically switches to the clock mode.

I love yours as well and it would be great if you can put the code on GitHub. Mine is using ESP32 as well (Adafruit's MatrixPortal M4). It is running Circuit Python though. I love it dearly and I played with an idea of making it as a product.

Using a pictureframe is a cool idea! I actually have an 64x64 matrix in my drawer that I havent used yet. Should you decide to open source your code I'd be very interested too.

I'll update my comment tomorrow with a GitHub link, just need to tidy up the repo first. This was my very first time writing c++, so the code is probably not the cleanest ;)

Same story with me and python, so don't worry :) I'll make the repo public during the next week.

Diffuser also makes a difference as the controller I'm using doesn't allow me to control the brightness. I should really write a blog post :D

As promised, here is the repo: https://github.com/hanneslinder/esp-pixel-matrix

Please do!

There you go: https://github.com/hanneslinder/esp-pixel-matrix

Which RGB library are you using for esp32? I was doing some initial LED stuff with a Pi with hzellers rpi-rgb-led-matrix library, but I am having to switch over to esp. Also that PCB looks really nice for avoiding the pain with wires. Do you plan on releasing the files for that?

I'm using this library: https://github.com/mrfaptastic/ESP32-HUB75-MatrixPanel-I2S-D...

And I'll add the pcb files to the repo, good idea!

As promised here is the source code, PCB Gerber file and the STEP files for the case: https://github.com/hanneslinder/esp-pixel-matrix

Hope you find it useful and don't be too harsh with the code quality as this was my first time writing C++ :)

I won't judge, especially as I don't know cpp either :)

It seems great and way more user friendly than what I have. I might steal your code for the next iteration.

I'll write a proper readme and make my repo public today.

EDIT: Here it is: https://github.com/Stanko/retro-frame

Awesome, there are some really cool ideas here. Are you planning on adding any sort of license? Would love to use some of the feature ideas in another github repo.

> I'be build pretty much the same thing using an esp32 an 3d printed enclosure and a small custom pcb. You can connect via websocket from a browser and upload images, text, ect.

This is why HN is so special. Not only is the submission very interesting and inspiring, there's also someone who already done something similar sharing their work.

Thank you for sharing.

There seem to be so many people on HN and elsewhere who are interested in ambient data displays, but they never catch on with the masses.

My favorite one was called Statusboard. It was an iOS app from Panic (yes, THAT Panic) which turned a spare iPad into an ambient data display.

Configuration was easy, and on mine I showed RSS feeds, mail information, weather and more.

I used it on an old outdated iPad I had laying around. Other people I knew did the same, but hooked it up with the lightning → HDMI wire to 40-inch flat screens they had left over when everyone upgraded to 4K.

Sadly, Panic EOLed it years ago. Which is a shame because that happened right about the time that surplus iPads and cheap flat-screen TVs became a thing.

Now, with so much legacy display tech headed to landfills, I wish some iOS developer would make a similar app and make a dent in the flow of e-waste.

Our restaurant used to use Satus Board on a 1st gen iPad HDMI’d on a 55” TV to display employees who were clocked in/out that day, along with their hours worked and a bulletin for general announcements. It was useful for monitoring labor, breaks, and avoiding meal period violations, but ultimately buggy due to a custom internal HotSchedules integration.

We’ve since gotten rid of it and use a new scheduling software with a decent enough web interface & mobile app.

I would have bought so many devices like this, Vestaboard, etc. if they had a hardware local control option with completely open docs. I refuse to spend time engineering a data pipeline that’s dependent on someone else’s cloud service.

In case you weren't aware of it, this watch[1] might interest you. Open-source hardware and software. I'll probably end up getting one for Christmas this year.

[1] https://watchy.sqfmi.com/

If anyone has one of these watches I’d be interested to hear your thoughts!

While I don't have one, I went down the pathway to replace almost a decade of using Pebbles , looking at PineTime, Bangle.js, Amazfit, Watchy, etc...and I just settled on buying a replacement housing for my Pebble, pushing the problem off to be dealt with in another 5 years.

The battery life on Watchy leaves a lot to be desired, as does the lack of a water-resistant sealed case, but the full featured hardware is a real contender.

The Bangle.js 2 is my second choice in the line up of open source smartwatches.

There are plenty of ESP32 watches around now; eg: https://au.banggood.com/LILYGO-TTGO-T-Watch-2020-ESP32-Main-...

or (round face!):

https://au.banggood.com/Open-Smartwatch-Light-V3_3plus-ESP32...

I feel similarly, that's why I use a smart home hub with local control (Hubitat).

With Tidbyt our default pipeline uses our cloud, but the hardware is fully unlocked for you to flash your own firmware.

Is there a replacement firmware already available that allows local control?

I feel like for all these connected hardware products, they should ship with an open source server and the phone apps that control them should have an "Server IP address" field in their iOS settings. Your company goes under? I just run your software locally and point my app to my local IP.

We're working on an example open source firmware. In reality though, it's not something the majority of our customers are asking for so with a 3-person team it hasn't been at the top of the list.

Yeah, I know I'm not really in the target market. Like, I would absolutely spring for a locally controlled Vestaboard, but I know that most of these are probably sold to businesses.

I bought the KRUSH Flip Clock after seeing it at CES2016 and pulled out its silly cloud-controlled innards so I can write whatever I want to the display over rs485.

https://github.com/dmd/clack

That clock looks really cool sitting on your desk :)

I've been playing a little with the pyflipdot library recently to interface with a 20x14 flipdot display, which also uses RS485

Your flipdot display looks like it has a higher dpi, I guess there must be different diameter flipdots made.

Adafruit offers a starter kit with a microcontroller, 64x32 led matrix, and some other doodads for ~$70 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/4812). It's really easy to tinker with. I made a clock that does some crappy visualizations and open sourced it here: https://github.com/kruffin/matrix_portal_gol It actually looks a lot like this Tidbyt (a box with a dot matrix).

The only thing it doesn't have is a RTC, so I just polled a time server every so often.

Also bought a Matrix Portal and have had a lot of fun with it! Dabbled in writing a raytracer for it, but I don’t know enough about ARM nor C++ to optimize it for decent frame rates. Now the thing runs a newton’s cradle simulator using Box2D, and that’s been a fun desk toy.

Neat. I'd love to see what that looks like (raytracer or cradle). Found an old Hack a Day from 2014 (https://hackaday.com/2014/11/25/ray-tracing-on-an-arduino/) where someone is raytracing on a 16Mhz micro. Should be faster on the 120Mhz portal, but it took almost 3 days :P

Adafruit is particularly egregious with their cloud service integration and marketing. It just seems to be the way they're heading.

It does seem that way, however, in none of the AdaBoxes I've gotten from them have I had to sign up for their cloud services. That's where you think they would push it hard, but it just hasn't happened and I'm glad for that. There are usually a few samples that make use, but you always have the option to roll your own code on it and use their base libraries for interfacing with the hardware. It will be a sad (and probably disastrous) day when they bind their code to require cloud services especially considering some micros don't have wifi.

I don’t have a problem with the low resolution but the contrast on that is absolutely horrendous. It’s almost impossible to see which pixels are lit and which aren’t in bright lighting, and that’s even visible in the OP’s post.

Additionally - and I don’t know if it’s part of the charm - the space between adjacent pixels being as wide as a pixel itself also limits the ergonomics of the display in a way that a similar resolution but more tightly spaced display would be more usable.

The pictures in the article really aren't doing the display any favors. I own a Tidbyt and the contrast is way better than it appears here, and the brightness is adjustable (with an API call if you want!) with a pretty high max setting.

Yup. Actually, I think we might limit the max brightness since at true 100% brightness it would be blindingly bright.

If you prefer eink:

I am making an e-paper display that works in a similar way - you can configure it with a mobile app to pull an image from any url you want.

https://www.invisible-computers.com/programmable-e-paper-scr...

This means you’re completely free in designing your layout.

There is also a pre-configured calendar layout available that syncs with google calendar.

These displays make for very approachable projects. Check out this repo if you're interested in controlling them from a raspberry pi. Adafruit and others sell a variety of sizes.

https://github.com/hzeller/rpi-rgb-led-matrix

They can run video too (obviously quite pixelated but good for certain styles, eg manga/comic imagery) and there are examples online of projects such as an album cover display that syncs with your music.

Once tip: ensure you've got a good power supply if using one of the bigger 64x64 versions especially if you have it on bright with most/all pixels lit at the same time.

For a great example, here's a recent YouTube video for a digital dashboard project with a Pi:

https://youtu.be/A5A6ET64Oz8

Am I reading this correctly? It sounds like the product is an LED matrix which requires third-party cloud servers to update the display? That doesn't sound right.

Also, the author uses 2x 32x32 panels @$97 each as a price peg, but you can get a raw 64x32 panel from Adafruit (a quite expensive supplier) for $50.

I agree, and I would hardly call this 'a steal' as the article says.

But, for many people an Arduino is black magic even if they're quite skilled at programming. I know some of them. I can imagine this would appeal to those people.

I'm personally more into electronics too, kind of goes with growing up in the 80s when computers and electronics were just inextricably connected.

It's an LED matrix which requires third party cloud servers to update the display. I own one. It's great.

> It's great

...until the server goes down

Adafruit is leading the hobby industry towards their 99$ cloud platform for IoT devices.

It'll expand the audience immensely and probably be hugely profitable but I hate it.

Waveshare sells one for $25

I've seen these. They are family partner / family friendly. They are not too bright (you can turn them down) so they don't annoy everyone. You can set apps (ie, stock) to only show on weekdays (fantastic). Weather is great. When's the next bus is good.

I’m working on a similar thing for eink.

So far it can only show a google calendar or a user-defined custom layout.

But I want to support many more ready-to-use layouts in future

https://www.invisible-computers.com/

Fantastic. Is there a community repository for image generating tools?

Probably, but I don’t know about it. :D

There is cale.es, which might work well for some use cases. For example claims to support AWS chart integration.

Cale.es is supported by my screen, but I am not affiliated with it.

https://www.invisible-computers.com/e-paper-screen-for-cale-...

So from a hardware perspective I've known the Tidbyt was a stretch (ie: I know I could build it myself for cheaper).. from the software side they've done a great job.

I've sold at least 5 of them with people just going "WHAT IS THAT BEHIND YOU" in meetings.

Its a great little device and I highly recommend it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com