Schlagwort: e-paper

  • 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

  • Explore e-paper technology with Nano Matter and the new EPDK-Matter from Pervasive Displays

    Explore e-paper technology with Nano Matter and the new EPDK-Matter from Pervasive Displays

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    We’re excited to share that Pervasive Displays has just launched the E-Paper Development Kit for Matter! This groundbreaking, self-contained kit is designed to revolutionize how smart home devices use e-paper displays, enhancing user experience while driving down energy consumption. Created in collaboration with us and our long-time partner Silicon Labs, this kit marks a significant milestone in the integration of Matter protocol and e-paper technology

    What is e-paper? 

    E-paper technology is a display technology that mimics the appearance of ink on paper, using minimal power and providing excellent visibility in various lighting conditions, making it ideal for energy-efficient and highly readable digital displays.

    Discover the new kit!

    The E-Paper DevelopmentDisplay Kit for Matter (or “EPDK–Matter”) includes everything you need to explore the possibilities of e-paper technology in smart homes, building automation, and industrial IoT applications. 

    It includes an EXT4 Expansion Board, a state-of-the-art 2.90” e-paper screen, and an adapter board for easy connectivity (all designed and manufactured by Pervasive Displays) – and it bundles with an Arduino Nano Matter, which we developed based on the MGM240S SoC from Silicon Labs. The open-source libraries include Matter examples and leverage the Arduino SDK, together with extensive documentation.

    Peripherals include a 3-axis accelerometer and temperature/humidity sensors, a button, an RGB LED, and a passive NFC antenna. The Matter protocol ensures seamless communication between devices, further improving connectivity and interoperability in smart home environments.

    Perfect for both beginners and advanced developers, the kit provides ready-to-use examples for Arduino IDE, alongside a GitHub repository for deeper customization. It’s even compatible with other boards from the Nano family.

    All in all, it’s the full package for prototyping and developing your own ultra-low power, high-performance projects with e-paper displays: the possibilities are endless!

    Ready to dive into action? Explore all the tech specs and purchase options for your E-Paper Development Kit for Matter on Pervasive Display’s dedicated page. Try it out with our dedicated tutorial to get started! And stay tuned for more exciting projects and innovations from our partners!

    The post Explore e-paper technology with Nano Matter and the new EPDK-Matter from Pervasive Displays appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Build an e-paper to-do list with Raspberry Pi

    Build an e-paper to-do list with Raspberry Pi

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    James Bruxton (or @xrobotosuk on Instagram) built an IoT-controlled e-paper message board using Raspberry Pi. Updating it is easy: just edit a Google sheet, and the message board will update with the new data.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGsRJhoF5yY?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    Harnessing Google power

    This smart message board uses e-paper, which has very low power consumption. Combining this with the Google Docs API (which allows you to write code to read and write to Google Docs) and Raspberry Pi makes it possible to build a message board that polls a Google Sheet and updates whenever there’s new data. This guide helped James write the Google Docs API code.

    We’ll do #4 for you, James!

    Why e-paper?

    James’s original plan was to hook up his Raspberry Pi to a standard monitor and use Google Docs so people could update the display via mobile app. However, a standard monitor consumes a lot of power, due to its backlight, and if you set it to go into sleep mode, people would just walk past it and not see updates to the list unless they remember to wake the device up.

    Raspberry Pi wearing its blue e-paper HAT on the left, which connects to the display on the right via a ribbon cable

    Enter e-paper (the same stuff used for Kindle devices), which only consumes power when it’s updating. Once you’ve got the info you want on the e-paper, you can even disconnect it entirely from your power source and the screen will still display whatever the least update told it to. James’s top tip for your project: go for the smallest e-paper display possible, as those things are expensive. He went with this one, which comes with a HAT for Raspberry Pi and a ribbon cable to connect the two.

    The display disconnected from any power and still clearly readable

    The HAT has an adaptor for plugging into the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins, and a breakout header for the SPI pins. James found it’s not as simple as enabling the SPI on his Raspberry Pi and the e-paper display springing to life: you need a bit of code to enable the SPI display to act as the main display for the Raspberry Pi. Luckily, the code for this is on the wiki of Waveshare, the producer of HAT and display James used for this project.

    Making it pretty

    A 3D-printed case, which looks like a classic photo frame but with a hefty in-built stand to hold it up and provide enough space for the Raspberry Pi to sit on, is home to James’s finished smart to-do list. The e-paper is so light and thin it can just be sticky-taped into the frame.

    The roomy frame stand

    James’s creation is powered by Raspberry Pi 4, but you don’t need that much power, and he’s convinced you’ll be fine with any Raspberry Pi model that has 40 GPIO pins.

    Extra points for this maker, as he’s put all the CAD files and code you’ll need to make your own e-paper message board on GitHub.

    If you’re into e-paper stuff but are wedded to your handwritten to-do lists, then why not try building this super slow movie player instead? The blog squad went *nuts* for it when we posted it last month.

    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

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    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