kibitzor 5 days ago

I've been sitting on the idea of putting several of these tags around the house and have them display quote, jokes, and facts.

The best guide I've found so far is this one [0], as it uses easy to procure tags + guides on GitHub + offers an application to auto-upate tags via screenshot area of a website and seems like it could be done in an afternoon.

However, I'm hoping to find an even more streamlined approach that I could turn into a gift to others (assuming they want a 3rd party device on their network), where the tags sync to a raspberry pi (or similar cheap USB powered device), and it uses very cheap tags, if anyone has done this or has plans.

[0] https://youtu.be/BCkMu57S_YA?si=BsSXEladdZHvcC57

  • stavros 5 days ago

    Does he mention a price or part number at some point? I'm quite a good way in, and he hasn't mentioned anything, and the description is empty.

    EDIT: I see the description now, they're called Hanshow Stellar and sell for $20-$25 a piece. Not the price point I thought of when I heard "cheap", but eh.

atVelocet 6 days ago

Good read but I have one question: What’s the address of the chinese documents site he is talking about?

  • dmitrygr 5 days ago

    pudn

    • dmitrygr 4 days ago

      How did this get downvoted? I am the author of the original article and that IS the site I meant!!!

      • ryukoposting 4 days ago

        Oooh! Just left a top-level comment but I thought I'd reiterate somewhere you might see it - this is a stellar writeup. It's a rare pleasure to find such a technically comprehensive breakdown of embedded firmware on HN.

        8051 is the cockroach of embedded systems. Bizarrely resilient, and absolutely disgusting. My very first firmware job (erm, internship) was taking a Cortex-M0+ and making it serve as a pin-for-pin replacement for an 8051. Many crimes against software humanity were committed.

rbtying 4 days ago

I found this a couple months ago and it was an amazing resource (thanks dmitrygr)!

I ended up using atc1441's base station firmware[0] because it's a bit of a pain to actually pop open the case and get the programming pins on the Chroma 74

[0]https://github.com/atc1441/E-Paper_Pricetags

ryukoposting 4 days ago

This is one of the best firmware-related technical writeups I've ever read on HN. The author doesn't overstate the nightmare that is 8051. I can personally vouch for its horribleness, and its cockroach-like persistence.

As a hobby photographer who mostly shoots black-and-white film, readily available info about generating grayscale images on eInk displays is intriguing from an artistic perspective.

bloopernova 5 days ago

I wish there was a self-contained e-ink 10 inch screen that would just sit on my network and accept URLs to display in sequence. Possibly with an equivalent to a Raspberry Pi 3 to SSH into.

Bluestein 4 days ago

TL;DR: It does run DOOM :)

  • sam_bristow 4 days ago

    A "Carmack Complete" system as I've started calling them.

    • Bluestein 4 days ago

      "Carmack Complete", that's a good one :)

    • Bluestein 4 days ago

      PS. For the record, this thread is now in the top SEO results for "Carmack Complete" ...

      ... so, theres's that :)