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38 Articles

Off To The Races With ESP32 And EInk

September 15, 2025 by 5 Comments

Off to the races? Formula One races, that is. This project by [mazur8888] uses an ESP32 to keep track of the sport, and display a “live” dashboard on a 2.9″ tri-color LCD.

“Live” is in scare quotes because updates are fetched only every 30 minutes; letting the ESP32 sleep the rest of the time gives the tiny desk gadget a smaller energy footprint. Usually that’s to increase battery life, but this version of the project does not appear to be battery-powered. Here the data being fetched is about overall team rankings, upcoming races, and during a race the current occupant of the pole-position.

There’s more than just the eInk display running on the ESP32; as with many projects these days, micro-controller is being pressed into service as a web server to host a full dashboard that gives extra information as well as settings and OTA updates. The screen and dev board sit inside a conventional 3D-printed case.

Normally when talking Formula One, we’re looking into the hacks race teams make. This hack might not do anything revolutionary to track the racers, but it does show a nice use for a small e-ink module that isn’t another weather display. The project is open source under a GPL3.0 license with code and STLs available on GitHub.

Thanks to [mazur8888]. If you’ve got something on the go with an e-ink display (or anything else) send your electrophoretic hacks in to our tips line; we’d love to hear from you.

Front and back view of the 13.7" monitor kit

Modos Is Open Hardware, Easy On The Eyes

September 8, 2025 by 26 Comments

Since e-ink first hit the market a couple decades back, there’s always murmurs of “that’d be great as a second monitor”— but very, very few monitors have ever been made. When the commecial world is delivering very few options, it leaves room for open source hardware projects, like the Modos Glider and Paper Monitor, projects now seeking funding on Crowd Supply.

As far as PC monitors go, the Modos isn’t going to win many awards on specs alone. The screen is only 13.3″ across, and its resolution maxes out at 1600 x 1200. The refresh rate would be totally unremarkable for a budget LCD, at 75 Hz. This Paper Monitor isn’t an LCD, budget or otherwise, and for e-ink, 75 Hz is a blazing fast refresh rate. Continue reading “Modos Is Open Hardware, Easy On The Eyes” →

A black and brown planner opened like a laptop. Inside is a greyscale eink phone inside a brown piece of MDF on top, and a black keyboard fills the bottom half.

Foliodeck Squeezes A Writerdeck Into A Planner

July 29, 2024 by 2 Comments

When it comes to writing, sometimes a computer or smartphone is just too distracting to keep on task. [vagabondvivant] found this to be the case and rolled their own distraction-free writing tool, the Foliodeck.

With the increasing availability of parts for cyberdecks, it’s not too surprising to see we’re seeing the emergence of the writerdeck. Typically designed to be a no frills word processing device, they are designed to help their creators focus on writing and not be subject to the myriad notifications present trying to work with a more general computing device or smartphone.

In this case, [vagabondvivant] took a classy looking planner folio and removed its paper management components to leave a fabric and leather shell. The heart of the assembly is a HiSense A5 eink smartphone magnetically attached to a piece of MDF cut to mate the phone to the planner shell. A 10 Ah powerbank slots into the MDF below the keyboard which is also magnetically attached, and the whole thing zips up nicely. Future improvements are planned like a hinge, so it doesn’t have to be propped against something and a custom-built mechanical keyboard.

This isn’t the first writerdeck we’ve seen, and we’ve seen some other writer-focused decks and typewriter replacements.

Continue reading “Foliodeck Squeezes A Writerdeck Into A Planner” →

Home Assistant Display Uses E-Ink

May 20, 2024 by 2 Comments

[Markus] grabbed an ESP32 and created a good-looking e-ink dashboard that can act as a status display for Home Automation. However, the hardware is generic enough that it could work as a weather station or even a task scheduler.

The project makes good use of modules, so there isn’t much to build. A Waveshare 2.9-inch e-ink panel and an ESP32, along with a power supply, are all you need. The real work is in the software. Of course, you also need a box to put it in, but with 3D printing, that’s hardly a problem.

Well, it isn’t a problem unless — like [Markus] — you don’t have a 3D printer. Instead, he built a wooden case that also holds notepaper.

The software uses ESPHome to interface with Home Assistant. There is a fair amount of configuration, but nothing too difficult. Of course, you can customize the display to your heart’s content. Overall, this is a great example of how a few modular components and some open-source software can combine to make a very simple yet useful project.

There are many ways to use an ESP32 in your home automation setup. Maybe you can salvage the e-ink displays. Just try not to get carried away.

A DIY E-Ink Tank Watch

January 26, 2024 by 9 Comments

[Augusto Marinucci] liked the classic Cartier Tank series of dress watches aesthetic, but wanted something a bit more techy, with a decent runtime on a single battery. E-Ink displays are often used in such applications, but finding one to fit a custom case design, is a tall order. When ordering one off the shelf is not easy, the solution is to make one from scratch.

Building a programming jig is a great idea for small-scale production

The article doesn’t have much information on the E-Ink side of things, which is a bit of a shame. But from what we can glean, the segment shapes — in this case, based on the famous Apollo DSKY — are formed in the top copper of a four-layer PCB, using filled and capped vias to connect invisibly from below.

A donor E-Ink display is cut to size with scissors (we don’t know much more than this!) and glued in place around the edge to make the common electrode connection. The display PCB attaches to the control PCB, at the rear using low-profile board-to-board connectors. This board hosts a PIC16 micro, as well as an RV-3028-C7 RTC which keeps time whilst consuming a paltry 45 nA.

Five volts are provided via a MAX1722 low-power boost converter which is fed power from the CR1616 cell via a couple of logic-controllable load switches. With a low-power design such as this, it’s critical to get this correct. Any mistakes here can easily result in a very low runtime. It is easy to over-stress small button cells and kill them prematurely.

The case looks like it’s printed in a translucent resin, with the PCB stack sealed inside with a UV-cured resin pour. It’s not immediately obvious if the rear panel can be removed to access the battery and programming port. There are what appear to be screw holes, so maybe that’s possible, or maybe they’re the rear side of the PCB mounting posts. Who can tell?

If DIY hardware is but too much effort for you, then there’s the option of hacking new firmware onto an existing watch, or perhaps meeting in the middle and making something out of all those junk E-ink tags you can get from time to time?

Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip!

Hacking An NFC E-Paper Display From Waveshare With Mystery MCU

December 18, 2023 by 15 Comments

These days e-paper (eInk) displays are everywhere, with stores being one of the largest users of smaller, monochrome versions of these persistent displays. This has also made them a solid target of hackers who seek to not only reverse-engineer and reuse discarded ones, but also ones sold to consumers, with [Aaron Christophel] recently reverse-engineering and flashing custom firmware (GitHub source) to a Waveshare 2.13″ NFC-Powered E-Paper display.

What’s perhaps most notable is how locked-down and devoid of documentation these devices are. The board [Aaron] looked at did not have any markings on the main IC, and Waveshare did not provide more information other than the Android and iOS apps. This led to some matching of various NFC-enabled MCUs with the pinout, with the Chivotech TN2115S2 rolling out as the most likely candidate. This is an 8 MHz Cortex-M0 MCU with not only NFC, but also an energy harvesting feature (up to 300 mW), which is why this e-paper tag can update the display without external power or a battery.

With the Chivotech datasheet being rather sparse, more reverse-engineering needed to be done, which included dumping the firmware and exploring it with Ghidra. During this, the secret key was discovered to make the Flash writeable along with how to control the peripherals and display. With this knowledge it’s now possible to make this tag display update without being limited by manufacturer-supplied tools and software, making it infinitely more useful.

Continue reading “Hacking An NFC E-Paper Display From Waveshare With Mystery MCU” →

Building A Weather Display In Rust

September 29, 2023 by 21 Comments

We’ve seen a lot of weather displays over the years, and plenty of the more modern ones have been using some form of electronic paper. So what makes this particular build from [Harry Stern] different? The fact that the firmware running on the ESP32 microcontroller at its heart was developed in Rust.

The weather station itself is capable of operating for several months on its rechargeable NiMH battery bank. The Rust section of the project is in two parts, the first of which runs on a server which downloads the weather data and aggregates it into an image. The second part runs on the ESP32 using esp-idf which configures peripherals, turns on and connects to Wi-Fi, retrieves the image from the server, displays the image and then puts the display to sleep. By doing the heavy lifting on the server, the display should be able to run for longer than it would if everything was happening on the ESP32.

The project code is available from this GitHub page which should allow even Rust beginners to follow along, and the case file is also available for those with a 3D printer. [Harry] has a few upgrades planned for future releases as well, including a snap-fit case, a custom PCB, and improved voltage regulator for better battery life, and enhanced error handling for the weather API. And Rust isn’t the only interesting part of this project, either. As prices for e-paper displays continue to fall, more and more of them are found in projects like weather stations and even complete laptops which use these displays exclusively.