TRMNL recently open sourced a CSS framework made specifically for ePaper display [1], you can use the opensource firmware[2] and quickly hack together a good solution using off the self components.

Disclosure: I work at TRMNL.

[1] https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-framework

[2] https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-firmware

I responded to one of your surveys: dive in to supporting "xbox + index.html + trmnl.js" as a BYOD / demo target! s/xbox/raspbpi/...etc... I've got extra monitors and RPI's dangling around, and it's not out of the question to splash $50 for a BYOD license and get a "free" TRMNL display that I could have running during daylight hours, or wired to a smart outlet or something?

Also: wouldn't it be great to have an "advanced" timeline customizer, eg: lambda-ish functions? (this I didn't bother sending to y'all...)

I've generally got mine wired to `Calender(15m) => Weather(5m) => Calendar(15m) => MotivationalQuote(5m) => Calendar(15m) => ...etc...`, but that's extremely gross (as you can imagine) with a bunch of `Calendar (copy) (copy) ...` because I can't be bothered to spend time fixing it up.

Thinking it through, I'd kindof like "primary queue (15m)" vs "secondary queue(5m)" and have "the algorithm" automatically merge them at runtime (ie: two pointer heads as you alternate queues), but the end game is effectively:

    def next_card(handle):
        if handle.time.hour == "12:00":
            return ( "Lunch Break", "30m" )
        elif handle.time % 60 == 0:
            return ( "Calendar", "15m" )
        else:
            return ( handle.plugins.shuffle()[0], "5m" )
        ...etc...

<3 ... the AI stuff looks tasteful + cool, please thank your support staff, and excited to see where y'all end up going! (Reminds me, need to figure out the supposed firmware update...)

we[1] operate out of `us-east-1` but chose to not use any of the cloud based vendor lockin (sorry vercel, supabase, firebase, planetscale etc). Rather a few droplets in DigitalOcean(us-east-1) and Hetzner(eu). We serve 100 million requests/mo, few million user generated content(images)/mo at monthly cost of just about $1000/mo.

It's not difficult, it's just that we engineers chose convenience and delegated uptime to someone else.

[1] - https://usetrmnl.com

Your product looks so good, congratulations on your launch.

Have you considered making a standalone devices with just sensors (think data only mode) and letting the users hook up their data on any eink dashboard of their choice.

Below are some of the example of community created Air Quality dashboards[1] installable on any e-ink hardware[2].

[1] https://usetrmnl.com/recipes/62233, https://usetrmnl.com/recipes/23306

[2] https://github.com/usetrmnl/firmware/

Disclosure: I work at TRMNL.

Thank you! Yes, that's something we'd like to prototype soon for supporting multiple rooms/locations. Integrating with other dashboards including TRMNL would be awesome too.

like ZigBee compatible with home assistant

At TRMNL we have published a guide on how to jailbreak your Kindle[1], we also have a lot of community driven recipe[2] which are comics[3]

Disclosure: I work at TRMNL

[1]- https://usetrmnl.com/guides/turn-your-amazon-kindle-into-a-t...

[2]- https://usetrmnl.com/recipes

[3]- https://usetrmnl.com/recipes/27184

That’s really fun use of TRMNL. I have the official device partially because I failed to find a jailbreak eligible Kindle in late 2024 :)

TRMNL community has published a lot of train/metro schedule recipe[1], that can be installed on any e-ink screen[2]

- [1] https://usetrmnl.com/recipes/

- [2] https://docs.usetrmnl.com/go/diy/byod

Disclosure: I work at TRMNL.

I recently got it. Device and firmware is a good value. I wish device would have better plastic quality but for something that hangs on the wall it doesn’t really matter.

It was very easy to make my own server with reactjs rendering for it. Now, adding new views is super easy and customizable.

Thanks for sharing, just made a pre-order, exited to have such a device, but as a young parent of two, I do not have the time to tinker such a costly project.

That's the exact reason we built TRMNL, because your phone is consistently trying to seek your attention (hence distraction). TRMNL helps build personal dashboard without necessarily creating chaos. We built handful of native integrations[1], but you can completely hack it and create your own dashboard with simple HTML content[2].

[1] https://usetrmnl.com/integrations [2] https://usetrmnl.com/framework

I think you should also checkout TRMNL. Being engineers ourself security/privacy is of atmost concern, and we follow a similar architecture mentioned above. You could create a private plugin and send in data in the form of REST APIs[1]. You could also use your own webserver by hacking the firmware[2]

[1]-https://help.usetrmnl.com/en/articles/9510536-private-plugin...

[2]-https://github.com/usetrmnl/firmware/blob/main/include/confi...

That is an excellent pointer. Thanks!

You should check out usetrmnl.com. It's commercially available and has 50+ native plugins and many community driven recipes[1].

Disclosure: I'm from the TRMNL team.

[1] - https://github.com/usetrmnl/plugins

Internally we are debating on releasing a Hackable DIY kit. Feel feel to send a message to support@usetrmnl.com.

It's shipped from USA.

Every time I setup a JS project which is older than a few years, it's

1. Extremely difficult to setup the code base, because of dependency spaghetti 2. Lot of breaking changes across different libraries, making maintenance not so easy.

Easiest projects to maintain were written on Go, Java, Ruby,