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Comment by ojagodzinski | Hacker News Reader

~3000€ to show information in some random places in the house even though the household members have a device with a screen called a smartphone next to them 24/7 ?

Well, it's cool, but the usability of it all is below average.

Declutter your life and don't install any more screens in your home ;)

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Next time you decide to post something so snarky, maybe remember where you are. This is hackernews, people experiment and build things. Not always for the right reasons, and that's fine. If you don't like it, just move along. There's plenty of people, myself included, that are thankful for posts like this.

It's a hobby but not for everyone. I mean if I could just throw away 3,000€ on random projects that might work or not I'd do it in a heartbeat. No different than buying a run down Porsche for 5,000€ and spending 40,000€ on restoration to original. Every hobby is like that but with different entry price points. There is a reason knitting is more popular than something like this (and even that has price tiers from 3€ for an acrylic yarn to upwards 100€ for luxury merino wool yarn)

As someone whose spouse knits, it gave me a chuckle to see knitting mentioned as a low-cost hobby :)

This is just unnecessarily mean-spirited and unconstructive

Pick up phone (may be in another room), unlock phone, open app, navigate to information in app (often fairly annoying due to modern low information density app design and multiple apps), return to original location.

Versus.

Just look at screen.

That's only when you are standing in front of the screen.

The equivalent of having the app open on your phone.

What if you are on a bus?

... do you think people who would install a device like this are leaving their phones at home when they go out?

I have my phone as well. However the screen is where I'm most likely to need that information anyway. And the screen information density is much better than the phone.

I have the apps on my phone. I use them, and at times they are great - but they are not a perfect solution. (though I agree that $3000 for a system is too much)

- pick up phone (unlock done automatically via face/finger/location)

- swipe finger to the right to show weather OR swipe finger to the left to show callendar

Android widgets show me much more information about weather and calendar view than these monitors (and are free: weawow https://weawow.com/i/app-download + google callendar).

Alternative: just keep your phone on your charger in your room and declutter your life by using just the one screen in the kitchen.

Keep it in airplane mode until you need it, the friction is enough to keep it out of hand, and it never asks for your attention by itself. Or at least disable every notifications

Airplane mode has wifi enabled by default nowadays

Just go to settings and disable. I do that every night. I don’t want or need to be available.

If someone is contacting you in the middle of the night when it isn't a genuine emergency you need to apply social pressure. If something were to happen to my mom in the middle of the night I hope people don't wait until I'm awake to call. If a coworker sitting in an airport at 3am waiting on a transfer it is basic social norms that they will not call me.

You should leave your phone on when you are asleep with full trust and confidence that you won't be disturbed except in a real emergency. The do-not-disturb mode is for Friday nights where they is no way for someone to know if you are the theater or just chilling at home - the latter is an acceptable time to call.

This is exactly the type of nasty, mean-spirited, closed minded, completely lacking the hacker spirit comment I see so often on HN now.

We waste billions of dollars so that AI creates recipes in the style of an Eminem rap and pelicans riding on a bike.

This is much more useful compared to that

For those who lack the technical aptitude to use a smartphone (e.g. children, the elderly), a device that shows information in random places in the home is much more useful.

Plenty of elderly people have the aptitude to use a smart phone. It's shockingly ageist to assume that old == inept.

"For those who lack the technical aptitude" > Well but many people do have the aptitude!

No, it's ableist to ignore the fact that many people _do_ have such issues, and many people don't but start having problems as they age.

It’s also offensive to only think older people have these problems. Have any of you considered race or sex or gender when talking about these issues? It’s really offensive not to include all these other categories. Maybe certain genders have this problem or maybe I enjoy getting offended by everything.

As far as I can tell any gender issues is just culture lets some people become helpless when they could. Meanwhile many people lose cognitive functionias they get old. Thus elderly is a safe fact while any other gender reference is citation needed.

Citing citations is offensive and insensitive. When someone claims their emotions are extremely hurt do you go to them and say "I need citations for that"? Of course not!

I’m quite sure they are not offended by these HN comments. They probably think we are all nerds.

tbh, I'm more offended by people pretending to be offended by everything.

Also nerd is an offensive term. It’s similar to mis-using a pronoun. Please don’t use derogatory or discriminatory terms here.

Just a joke. Was self deprecating.

50,000 die per year from suicide due to depression. Self deprecation and other self esteem issues should not be joked about. It is highly offensive and inconsiderate.

It’s more than that. Anything like this that takes me away from constantly checking my phone, and can be glanced at by the whole family is better.

I assume you do not own a wall clock?

I make these https://www.stationdisplay.com/ . They are also just as "useless" as a wall clock yet people find it a lot more pleasing to take a glance at something to give the information instantly, than having to make multiple decisions in order to take their phone out, open the app and find the place with the information they need.

Yeah, I doing something like this for me. An ePaper display to show local departures of public transport and QR code for my local network.

Having the departure times of my local tram right next to my door helps to not miss it by half a minute. =)

I think you could make it work for a fraction of the price if you buy a bunch of low-cost e-ink screens and combine them to create a larger display. The main challenge would be on the software side, as you'd need to control the content so it appears as a single, cohesive screen. However, I think this approach would be more appealing in terms of cost for most people.

You just don’t get it but that’s fine. I get it. If the price was more affordable I’d have one on my hall asap.

You should disclaim this comment by acknowledging that you have zero firsthand experience with having a device like this in your home.

You're entirely talking out of your ass. You have no clue what's more usable, cluttered-feeling, or useful.

As someone who built a similar device to this: it is absolutely awesome to have one of these, even though I have a smartphone!

Not really. That’s akin to a nice camera, or any number of other hobbies that people spend money on. But it might be better compared to a home appliance or renovation project.

I’m not going to build one, but this is exactly the sort of creative and highly opinionated tinkering I stick around HN to see.

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