OpenEPaperLink: Alternative Firmware for ZBS243-Based eInk Shelf Labels | Hacker News Reader

OpenEPaperLink: Alternative Firmware for ZBS243-Based eInk Shelf Labels

github.com

91 pointszdw14 comments

On the flip side, does anybody have experience with the commercially available options out there? Relatively small footprint. Maybe 4 locations with around 500 skus per location.

It's a neat hack that the AP is just a repurposed tag, but since they use 802.15.4 could the AP run on other arbitrary hardware? Like the common nRF52840 based boards.

Yes and I published firmware to do that a few years back. It was featured on this site even. Everyone doing anything for ZBS243 is building on my work since I was the only one to ever reverse engineer that chip.

What's the best source to buy these tags on the cheap?

commercial liquidation sales/auctions, eBay

Thanks for the tip.

Do you have any ideas on what search terms to use please, to look for these?

And they have to be the ones from Solum, or Samsung, right? Is there a specific product range, that we could use as search keywords?

> Aims

> Low power (currently around 9µA with a minimum of 40 second latency)

> Even lower power when there's no AP around

> Low latency (tags can check for new data every 40 seconds)

I wonder how hard it would be to tune it for lower power consumption by intentionally making it sleep longer between updates - if I know I only want it to update every hour, can I set a schedule or at least have it only check every, say, 30m? Seems like an easy win.

I'd say you can play with intervals around here...

https://github.com/jjwbruijn/OpenEPaperLink/blob/a2aea16de83...

Do commercial e-ink shelf labels typically have batteries that need to be replaced every N years? I guess it's not that big a deal until you have thousands of them in your store running low.

It would be awesome if smart shelf labels could be used to help customers to search for and locate specific items in a store.

Something ultra wideband based, like air tags, would be great.

Retailers are already implementing something alike where the shelf labels will light up with an onboard LED when searching for products

Oh ffs. This is just going to be an excuse to roll out consumer-specific prices when a customer is alone in an aisle. No one wins here.

Amusingly, I had already been assuming that the tags were doing this, so I turn off my cell phone before going into the store.

I can just imagine the tags going "Rich man walking!" as a customer comes down the aisle.

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