Pseudonymous maker “speedyg0nz” has unveiled the ultimate kind for his or her ePaper “magic dashboard” mission, and it is a huge improve — actually, now being based mostly round a 31.5″ E Ink Spectra 6 coloration show, but nonetheless operating from an on-board battery.
“For individuals who have adopted my work on MagInkCal and MagInkDash over the previous few years, I am excited to share what I have been engaged on not too long ago,” speedyg0nz says. “The MagInkCal has gotten a large improve in dimension and now makes use of a 31.5″ E Ink Spectra 6 Colour show. With the upgraded dimension, it will probably lastly function a correct wall calendar for your complete household. This [will] probably be the ultimate type of MagInkCal for a while to come back.”
The MagInkCal Plus takes the “Magic Calendar” idea to a brand new excessive, with a 31.5″ ePaper show. (📷: speedyg0nz)
The unique MagInkCal mission, unveiled again in October 2021, was impressed by Google’s Android Magic Calendar idea — dropped at life by pairing a 12.48″ three-color ePaper show with a Raspberry Pi Zero and a few customized software program. This preliminary model gave solution to the MagInkDash in April 2023, which expanded past a easy calendar to ship a “glanceable” dashboard with climate, scheduling, and even a every day reality generated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT massive language mannequin (LLM).
The MagInkCal Plus, although, goes huge — actually. The bottom of the construct is a Geniatech 31.5″ six-color ePaper show designed for low-power industrial signage, based mostly on E Ink’s Spectra 6 platform and pushed from a bundled Rockchip-based single-board pc operating Google’s Android. “As a substitute of porting my complete resolution to Android,” speedyg0nz notes, “I selected to maintain it easy for now. At present, a Raspberry Pi acts because the server, periodically operating a Python script to retrieve calendar occasions from a Google Calendar.
“The occasions are then formatted utilizing HTML/CSS and rendered as a picture to be served on the Apache HTTP server that runs on the [Raspberry] Pi too. On the show facet, I wrote a easy Android app to retrieve the picture from the [Raspberry] Pi server upon boot, refresh the show, schedule the subsequent boot-up/refresh timing, earlier than shutting down the Android OS to preserve battery.”
Because the show, like all electrophoretic shows, retains displaying its contents even with out energy, which means a powerful battery life given the scale: “I am lower than 0.5% battery use every time the show boots up, refreshes the display, and shuts down,” speedyg0nz claims. “At present, I am refreshing it each 6 hours, in order that works out to round a few months (hopefully extra) earlier than I have to cost.”
The unique MagInkCal was a significantly extra compact affair, designed for desktop use. (📷: speedyg0nz)
The one catch: large-format ePaper shows aren’t low-cost, significantly in order for you coloration. “The 31.5″ show itself is priced nicely in extra of $1,000,” the maker admits. “Because of this a mission like this can solely be accessible to a choose few, who’re prepared and in a position to afford it. As for buying the show, it is presently not attainable to take action straight from Geniatech’s web site since Geniatech is extra of a B2B firm. You will have to succeed in out to their gross sales channel straight should you want to buy a single unit.”
An in depth write-up is accessible in speedyg0nz Reddit submit.
