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Comment by notfried | Hacker News Reader

Or you can buy Soldered's: https://soldered.com/product/inkplate-6color-with-enclosure-...

Another great option is Pimoroni's combo eink display + pico w https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/inky-frame-7-3?variant=40...

How is the battery life on the Pimoroni? I've used RPi Picos before, and I love working with them, but IIRC they are comparatively power-hungry, even in deep sleep.

Power consumption of the Inky Frames in deep sleep is minimal as power to the Pico is cut completely. An RTC is kept powered to wake up the Pico on a schedule, or pressing any button will wake up the board too.

Haven’t tested this particular one but using the badger eink display has been a blast. Super low power — you can run that one off of a lithium coin cell battery. You can control when it wakes. I presume this one will draw more with a larger color screen and wireless, but again you can control when and how it wakes to balance power draw vs. more frequent updates.

Why aren't there any CMYK screens?

Because its not print. Only print nerds love CMYK.

It’s a valid question because colors from an emitting light source use RGB whereas reflective would make sense to use CMYK. As a practical example a 4 color CMYK eink display may look better than or at least equal to the 7 color display above.

The frustrating twist is that - under the hood - this screen is CMYK. There’s a magenta “ink”, which would fill out a huge gap in the colour gamut, that we can’t even use. The same applies to cyan. Both colours are fundamental to the display tech and yet poorly represented in the very boring 7-colour palette.

How does this look in real life?

5.85-inch, 600x488 pixel electronic paper with the ability to display 7 different colors

Does the dithering work well enough for a photo?

I have built one by myself with a waveshare display. The dithering is visible and the contrast is bad. But from distance it is not noticeble.

I've done the same and I'd say that it didn't produce a great result. I did it for my father as a gift and while I liked the project because of the novelty of 7 color eInk tech, the image was low res, dithered, and tinted yellow. My father was grateful but he probably would've liked a normal LCD display lol

Or this one, which has less of a hacker aesthetic.

https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale...

It also comes with software out of the box

Looks like it's black and white?

Yes, it is!

That frame makes it look like ancient technology rather than 'picture frame'.

I know, right? What a hideous frame.

It somehow makes the screen look worse!

I smile fondly and lightly jab at hackers complete lack of concern for aesthetics.

Puh, that's harsh. But you are right, the frame is too wide. I am trying to make it narrower.

I’m genuinely sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.

I think it's nice. It's about the same form factor as the existing paper-holders it replaces and in this context the wood border is aesthetic and clutter-reducing.

My work went with LCDs which don't match the calm wood and earth colors decor of our meeting and privacy rooms.

Not that you asked, but what I'd tweak would be a way to run the cable back into the wall.

Look at the competition though. Most don't come with a frame at all, or maybe a 3D printed frame at best. This is at least wood.

It's wood, not exactly something I associate with ancient technology!?

You could at least disclaim that you are the CEO, at least on your HN profile.

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

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