For a long time it seemed like e-ink displays were outside the reach of us lowly hackers, as beyond the handful of repurposed Kindles that graced these pages, we saw precious few projects utilizing this relatively exotic display. But that’s changed over the last couple of years, and we’re thrilled to start seeing hackers bend this incredible technology to their will.
A perfect example is PaperLedger, an entry into the 2019 Hackaday Prize by [AIFanatic]. This wireless device is designed to display the current price of various cryptocurrencies on its 2.9-inch e-ink screen and provide audible price alerts with its built-in speaker. It even has a web portal where users can configure the hardware or view more in-depth price information.
The PaperLedger is based on the TTGO T5 V2.2 ESP32, but it looks like [AIFanatic] is in the process of spinning up a new board for the MIT licensed project to address some nagging issues for this particular application. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there are any pictures of the new board yet, but a description of the changes on the Hackaday.IO page shows that most of the work seems to be going into improving support for running on batteries.
Even if you’re not interested in cryptocurrency, the PaperLedger looks like a fantastic little e-ink monitor for pretty much anything else you’d like to keep a close eye on. The GPLv3 licensed firmware is available on the project’s GitHub page, so expanding or completely changing the device’s functionality shouldn’t be too tricky for anyone with a desire to do so and a working knowledge of C++.
We’ve seen several projects using the various TTGO boards that mate an ESP32 with a display at this point, and it looks like a great platform to check out if you want to push some data to a little WiFi screen with the minimum amount of hassle.
Here is my take on it based on the Pi Zero: https://github.com/DurandA/inky-cryptochart
The above software pulls chart data from a web service and draws a black/red candlestick chart on a E-Ink display.
I don’t think Eink can refresh fast enough to track the crypto price swings. Maybe a 144Hz OLED?
#sadbuttrue
“Does a tree falling in the woods make a sound, when no one can hear?”
What your trading bot can’t catch – didn’t happen ;-)
How do I buy one?? An open source, self-contained, battery-powered ESP32 with e-ink display? I neeeeeed it!
You can get the TTGO T5 V2.2 on Tindie, there is a link to it in the article. The link to the GitHub repo with all the docs and info are on that page.
Just when I thought cryptocurrencies couldn’t get any more wasteful, this shows up.