this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2026
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122
"How I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard" - by Joel Hawksley (hawksley.org)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 42 points 2 months ago (3 children)

That 32" display is priced as "ask for a quote", lol.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's something like $2k. Pretty insane for a project like this. You can just get the actual e-ink panels pretty cheap, but then you need to build a driver for it. Not simple.

[–] state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I know how crazy expensive e-ink is, so I was curious what this dude paid. Dropping 2k on this means you have a lot of cash lying around.

[–] vinnymac@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The pain I felt when I cracked my 12” display still echoes in my mind.

[–] state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 months ago

Oof. That hurts just hearing about it.

[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I like the project, but it seems like as soon as buddy got access to real-time e-ink he just never looked back.

As well, I get the UI appeal of negative space, but my god it costs a fortune in e-ink.

As everyone is noting here, this project shows a pattern of "money is no object" in every decision made.

That doesn't mean it has to be, though. My gut tells me you could slash the cost in (at least) half while retaining like 90% of the utility.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Yeah, I just think this is an insane spend for most people.

I much more affordable option, though smaller, are these TRMNL displays: https://trmnl.com/

[–] lefixxx@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This is what I dislike about yhese types of dashboard projects. The eink is too costly

[–] swicano@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The way eink display prices scale is insane. You can get a 13 inch one for like 200, but any bigger than that it skyrockets. Must be that they still struggle to get good display yields across that large of an area, defect rates or something.

[–] sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org 4 points 2 months ago

but its nice ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

It's so grey.