Schlagwort: e-ink

  • Build an e-paper weather display and message board using Arduino Cloud

    Build an e-paper weather display and message board using Arduino Cloud

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    If you haven’t yet experimented with the Arduino Cloud, then you may not be aware of how powerful it is for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Using the service and its online tools, you can quickly build and deploy smart IoT devices — often with little or no custom code required. Rei Vilo’s Remote E-Paper Weather and Message Board perfectly demonstrates how you can accomplish that.

    This device shows current weather information and custom messages on a Pervasive Displays E-Paper Development Kit for Matter’s 2.9″ screen. Though that was designed for use with the Arduino Nano Matter, is also works with others, including the Nano ESP32 that Vilo chose for this project. Like all e-paper displays, it only consumes power when refreshing the screen. And the adapter makes it easy to connect to the Arduino board.

    The hardware setup is very straightforward: just connect the Arduino to the display adapter and plug in a USB cable for power. Most of Vilo’s tutorial focuses on configuring an Arduino Cloud service and setting up the Nano ESP32 to work with that. 

    This showcases the real power of Arduino Cloud, which is its ability to automatically generate sketches to make use of hardware and specified variables. For example, Vilo didn’t need to explicitly program functions to gather the weather data. The Arduino Cloud service automatically passes that data over Wi-Fi to the Nano ESP32, which then updates the display with the new information. Arduino Cloud also provides a nice online dashboard where users can interact with their devices, such as to enter a custom message.

    The post Build an e-paper weather display and message board using Arduino Cloud appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Celebrating Earth Day with a solar-powered E Ink weather station

    Celebrating Earth Day with a solar-powered E Ink weather station

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    The world just recognized Earth Day and it was a good reminder that we all have a responsibility to protect the planet. Unfortunately, many of our devices suck up energy in direct opposition to that goal. But the market has proven that we aren’t willing to sacrifice convenience. Luckily, that isn’t always necessary. To demonstrate that, overVolt built this solar-powered weather station that features an E Ink display.

    The first — and usually easiest — step in the right direction is reducing energy consumption. And it is often possible to make efficient devices that don’t require any sacrifices at all. In this case, overVolt achieved that with the use of an E Ink screen and a power-sipping Arduino Nano ESP32 board. 

    E Ink technology is perfect for this application, because a weather station doesn’t need to update often. The display only consumes power during a refresh and the rest of the time it continues showing very readable content without any power. 

    The next step was to eliminate any energy from fossil fuels. Because this weather station consumes so little power, it can run entirely on the power coming from a small solar panel. Sunlight isn’t always available, so overVolt added a lithium battery to store power through dark periods. 

    The Arduino monitors temperature and humidity with a DHT11 sensor, as well as air quality with an MQ-135 sensor. And because this is a Nano ESP32, it can also connect to the internet to pull weather forecasts. 

    While lithium batteries aren’t great from an environmental perspective, overVolt’s weather station proves that we can take positive steps without sacrificing convenience.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkD2fdQSjOU?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post Celebrating Earth Day with a solar-powered E Ink weather station appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • This retro-looking rotary cellphone is free of modern-day distractions

    This retro-looking rotary cellphone is free of modern-day distractions

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    This retro-looking rotary cellphone is free of modern-day distractions

    Arduino Team — February 13th, 2020

    What we carry today in our pockets is nominally called a “phone,” but more often than not we’re using it to do various other computing tasks. Justine Haupt, however, wanted an actual phone that “goes as far from having a touchscreen as [she could] imagine.”

    What she came up with is a rotary cellphone that’s not just a show-and-tell piece, but is intended to be her primary mobile device. It’s reasonably portable, has a removable antenna for excellent reception, a 10-increment signal meter, and, perhaps most importantly, doesn’t make her go through a bunch of menus to actually use it as a phone. Other features include number storage for those she calls most often and a curved ePaper display that naturally doesn’t use any power when revealing a fixed message.

    The project was prototyped using an Arduino Micro. It was then laid out of a PCB with an an Adafruit FONA 3G board and an ATmega2560V, programmed in the Arduino IDE.

    Haupt has published a detailed look at the build process here.

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    Website: LINK

  • Pulling shower thoughts from Reddit for a Raspberry Pi e-paper display

    Pulling shower thoughts from Reddit for a Raspberry Pi e-paper display

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    The Reddit users among you may already be aware of the Shower Thoughts subreddit. For those of you who aren’t, Shower Thoughts is where people go to post the random epiphanies they’ve had about life, the universe, and everything. For example:

    YouTuber ACROBOTIC is a fan of the Shower Thoughts subreddit. So much so that they decided to program their Raspberry Pi to update an e-paper HAT with the subreddit’s top posts from the last hour.

    Raspberry Pi 4 Scrape JSON Data w/ Python And Display It On e-Paper | reddit /r/showerthoughts

    $2 for PCB prototype (any color): https://jlcpcb.com/ ========== * Your support helps me post videos more frequently: https://www.patreon.com/acrobotic https://www.paypal.me/acrobotic https://buymeacoff.ee/acrobotic BTC: 1ZpLvgETofMuzCaKoq5XJZKSwe5UNkwLM ========== * Find me on: https://twitter.com/acrobotic https://facebook.com/acrobotic https://instagram.com/acrobotic ========== * Parts & supplies: https://acrobotic.com/shop https://amazon.com/shops/acrobotic ========== In another video we setup a Raspberry Pi to control an e-Paper/e-Ink HAT and running demo code.

    For their build, they used a three-colour e-paper display, but you can use any e-paper add-on for Raspberry Pi to recreate the project. They also used Raspberry Pi 4, but again, this project will work with other models — even Raspberry Pi Zero W.

    ACROBOTIC created an image to frame the Shower Thoughts posts, which they uploaded to their Raspberry Pi as a .bmp file. They altered prewritten code for using the e-paper display to display this frame image and the various posts.

    Adding .json to the URL of the appropriate Shower Thoughts page allows access to the posts in JSON format. Then a request can be set up to pull the data from this URL.

    ACROBOTIC goes into far more detail in their video, and it’s a great resource if you’re looking to try out working with JSON files or to learn how to pull data from Reddit.

    Find more projects using e-paper displays for you to recreate in our handy guide.

    Website: LINK

  • Using E Ink displays with a Raspberry Pi

    Using E Ink displays with a Raspberry Pi

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Are you interested in using an E Ink display in your next Raspberry Pi project? Let us help you get started!

    Raspberry Pi E Ink Displays

    Weather and new display using a Raspberry Pi Zero and Kindle e-reader by Luke Haas

    E Ink displays

    E Ink displays are accessible, they don’t need a lot of power, and they can display content without any power connection whatsoever — think Amazon Kindle if you’ve only a vague knowledge of the technology.

    E Ink displays work using negative and positive charges. They contain tiny microcapsules suspended in a liquid within a film layer. The microcapsules consist of negatively charged black particles and positively charged white particles. By applying the correct charge, you control whether the black or white particles come to the surface.

    </e_ink_101_with_alex>

    E Ink displays for your Raspberry Pi projects

    So how and why would you use an E Ink display in your project? Simple! Aside from their low power consumption and indefinite display time, E Ink displays are relatively cheap, light, and interesting to look at. Plus, they’re easy to read in sunny conditions, which isn’t always true of LCD screens. And with e-readers now in their teens, there are plenty of forgotten devices collecting dust in drawers, ready to be repurposed.

    Repurposing old e-readers

    If you’ve ever tried to use the ‘experimental browser’ on a Kindle device, you’ll have found yourself transported back to the glory days of dial-up refresh rates and half-downloaded images. The only thing missing is the screeching connection tone. However, by connecting your Kindle to the same network as your Raspberry Pi, you can create a web page accessible to the e-reader to display data to your E Ink screen.

    This bike computer by David Schneider makes use of that trick:

    DIY: Build A Better Bike Computer

    A Raspberry Pi and Kindle make vital information about your bicycle journey readable. Read more: http://spectrum.ieee.org/video/geek-life/hands-on/video-build-a-better-bike-computer

    Secondhand e-readers are fairly easy to pick up from websites such as eBay, from your local carboot/yard sale, or from book-loving friends or family members. If you have one to hand and want to get making, you’ll find an abundance of tutorials for notification displays and low-power minimalist computers using e-readers.

    Brand-new E Ink displays

    If you want to buy a smaller display, or don’t have access to an old e-reader, you’ll find many online hobby retailers selling E Ink screens in several sizes and colours. The Pi Supply PaPiRus comes in many shapes and sizes as an easy-to-use Raspberry Pi HAT (Hardware Attached on Top). Simply push it in place on the GPIO pins, download the library to your Pi, and you’re good to go.

    Raspberry Pi E Ink Displays

    In case you’re looking to add a little more colour to your display, the Pimoroni red, white, and black Inky pHAT is an add-on designed for the Raspberry Pi Zero.

    Raspberry Pi E Ink Displays

    A quick and effective project for a smaller display like this is a Raspberry Pi Zero name badge, and we’ve seen our share of them at tech events and Picademy training sessions.

    Brian Corteil 🤖 on Twitter

    @MKRaspberryJam Yes, just like this one, pHat badge is a case for showing of your pHats, look mum no power!

    Once you’ve programmed your Pi and updated your E Ink screen, you can detach it from the Pi and wow those you meet with your magic power-free digital name badge!

    And if you buy yourself an E Ink HAT, you can even have a go at this Monzo-powered money tracker.

    Raspberry Pi E Ink Monzo Display

    Past predictions of Liz Upton

    Back in 2013, our Director of Communication, Liz Upton, wrote a post about Max Ogden’s Kindleberry Pi build, commenting the following:

    Here at the Foundation, we’re watching the development of e-ink products with great interest. At the moment it’s nigh-on impossible to buy an e-ink display as a consumer unless it comes bundled as part of an e-reader like a Kindle or a Nook; and that makes them very expensive. The technology has all kinds of potential for applications we want to see the Pi being used for: the low energy requirement makes an e-ink screen a perfect choice for places where you’re off the grid or reliant on solar power. We’re looking forward to seeing prices come down and displays becoming more easily available to consumers.

    How lovely to be sat here in 2018, writing a post about the growing use of E Ink displays and the wide availability of the technology to hobbyists and digital makers! It shows how far the electronics industry for home builders has come, and we’re excited to see where it’s heading next.

    Website: LINK