[Lonyelon] wanted to build an anniversary gift for his girlfriend. He decided to say it with e-Paper, a wise choice given its persistence and longevity.
The project is an anniversary calendar. It displays a counter of the total time the couple has been together, measured in years, months, days, and hours—so it’s remarkably precise. [Lonyelon] also programmed it to display additional counters to create plenty of additional fun anniversaries—the couple can celebrate milestones like their 1000th day together, for example. It also cycles through a range of cute messages and displays photos of the couple together.
The code is on Github for the curious. The build is based around a LilyGO e-Paper display with an onboard ESP32 microcontroller. [Lonyelon] paired this with a 2,500 mAh battery. It lasts for ages because the device is programmed to update only every 20 minutes, spending the rest of its time in deep sleep. Since it’s an e-Paper display, it uses zero power when it’s not being updated, so it’s the perfect technology for this application.
It’s a simple project that comes from the heart—the core of any beautiful gift. In fact, some of the coolest projects we feature were built as gifts for romantic partners, family members, or even our fellow hackers. If you’ve been cooking up your own neat build, please let us know on the tipsline!
“Having” a girlfriend is like “having” a cat. Unlike dog, you don’t really own it. It’s around only because it needs you to provide food and clean the litter box. As soon as someone else feeds it better or has a more luxurious cat tower, it won’t give a single damn about you.
That’s why I prefer pure manly bonding with my mates. No homo but we really love eachother and there’s no 45% divore rate with male friendship.
Maybe the massive economic upliftment and standard of living improvement wasn’t worth the social cohesion loss and degeneration in the end…
Uncle Ted made some good pretty points after all
You did notice that the very picture of the couple is also on e-paper, didn’t you?
One aspect that has been left out is that this gift is also that it is easily recyclable if the relationship breaks down. Obviously I wish this couple a long lasting relationship.