E-paper screens have opened up a wide variety of novel use cases that just wouldn’t work with the higher power draw of an LCD. [gokux] thought it would be perfect for a digital sticky note.
Using a Waveshare 2.9″ e-paper display hooked up to a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3, a battery, and a switch all inside the 3D printed enclosure, the part count on this is about as simple as it gets. Once everything is soldered together and programmed, you get a nifty little display that can hold some of your thoughts without having to reopen an app to get to them.
Access is currently provided via a web page, and there are a few minor hiccups like text alignment and image upload support. This project is open source, so [gokux] has expressed interest in anyone wanting to help refine the concept. We think it might be nice to add a magnet on the back for an easier way to actually stick to things.
If you prefer a different way to use electricity for a sticky note, why not do it at 2,000 V? If that’s not your jam, how about a plotter that writes your label or message on masking tape?
My first thought: how do you edit the notes? EEEEK! Through a webpage. Really? So the “sticky note” device becomes a read-mostly thing? No. Thing to do, since you’re using a device that includes both WiFi and BLE, is use a Bluetooth keyboard. It’s easy enough using Espressif’s example code, to set up a target for a Bluetooth keyboard, then have it periodically check for that device. This would even work with multiple “sticky note” devices, since you would only turn on a device when you wanted to updated it, which means you just turn on the keyboard, turn on the device, and start typing.
At that point why not have the screen and electronics divorced? If the keyboard needs a battery and processor already just make the keyboard the with the driving electronics built in and have the bare display be the device, makes it even smaller.
Wait. You need to do a firmware update on a zoom lens? No. Just no.
Shame plug my “estickynote” invention. Audio style with auto reminders : https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD_Programmers/s/y4LYrySDNe
This might be useful as an small electronic sign-board or as a nametag/badge, but as a sticky note it’s not that great. For a sticky-note, messages need to be easily editable on the device, which pretty much means a touchscreen, an eye-tracker (like those used by some parapalegics), or at least a couple of buttons.
Still not https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-BH8j06pM
always struggle to see the use of these. but it’s highly personal, i suppose. i like having a big eink screen on the wall with the weather and my day calendar (which is synced across a bunch of devices and platforms) and a little http-editable text field for my family to jot on it with. it stays in one place and always shows the same sort of information…handy to glance at in the morning while getting the kids ready for school. not sure what i would use eink for if it moved about.
one thing i keep struggling with is how gosh darn useful paper is. for my daily grocery list, it’s that magic in between of i have to update it constantly but i don’t ever want to lose anything off of it until it’s been bought, so that same multi-platform notes system is really indispensable and i just look at my phone every time i go to the grocery. but for going to the hardware store or the bike shop, i usually have a specific purpose in mind just for that trip, and on top of that i usually have to talk to the clerk to get the things (like from the back store room or whatever), and it really is easier for me to just make a list with a pen and a scrap of paper.
but the one that really bugs me lately is sheet music. i’m about 50/50 on whether they come to me on paper or digital, and i’m also about 50/50 whether i want to look at a screen or a sheet of paper when i’m playing. so i scanned a lot of my paper music, and i’ve printed a lot of my digital music! and for accessing the digital…it’s nice to have it on the web but really, web browsers are awful for viewing music. so i have some formatted for web, some as .png, and some as .pdf. and a lot of times it’s handy to mark stuff up…like i just spent an hour writing guitar tab all over a ‘lead sheet’ that i printed out…so i could almost see myself downloading it, printing it, marking it up, and then scanning it. (on top of that, of course i don’t own a printer)
i have a 10″ tablet (LCD) i can use at the piano, but it’s never where i need it to be…sometimes i have a music stand but sometimes i’ve got sheet music laying flat on a table, or reading music off the screen of a laptop perched precariously. i just haven’t been able to find a ‘one solution’ for the life of me.
so in that context, the mad variety of these really not-very-creative hacks is pretty much central to my real needs. really hard to find the one way to interact with text / 2D / printable content.
I second that. The “ordinary” paper (in my case US A4) still holds its ground.
Case in point – at my work I have long given up on keeping meeting notes on anything else. I literally have old school binder with A4 sheets in, where I write down everything, diagrams, task list, reminders, names/phone numbers, etc etc. I take photo with my cell phone camera and instantly have a copy on my computer desktop. I’ve long developed a habit of date/time stamping my notes, I have the way of figuring out what came before and what followed after.
Shopping lists, too, went through all kinds of iterations until returning right back where they were 30 years ago – small notepad attached to a fridge with neodymium magnets. Latest add-on was rewritable LCD, but that turned out to be too small, though, at some point it was holding its ground with cell phone photos taken, however, one phone crash put an end to that, and we just reverted to the $1 notepad solution.
Wall calendars are the thing that never retires, and local Staples helps us with the unsold variety that goes for half the price early January. As far as family-level list of tasks goes, it proved mostly useful, though, there was attempt at replacing it with the large dry erase monthly calendar, which lasted for some long while, but eventually, too, got scrapped.