5 ms·

It ought to be easier to get a blank slate of a small device with some compute power and a screen, like the Kindle here, without having to jailbreak something.

RicoElectrico 2y ago
There is one, it's called the Raspberry Pi ecosystem, but due to the small volume and the target audience largely being not-my-own-money (think educational institutions), the price is quite detached from the production cost.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 2y ago
  I think more of the issue might be the eink screens. As far as I can tell, there just aren't 5+ inch eink screens for cheap.
  - GeoAtreides 2y ago
    yes they are: https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm?___SID=U&limit=80 https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm?___SI... A 4.37inch E-Paper in 3 colors is $24, problem is need you to program yourself (they have code sample in python, for raspberry pi), and you need a raspberry pi, case, cables, etc. Also, these cheap epaper displays are, of course, of lower quality (slower, lower resolution) than an kindle display.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 2y ago
      They jump up in price pretty quickly as size goes up. The cheapest 5+ inch display I found at your link was over $40, and it's about 100PPI. It's certainly not prohibitive, but certainly priced high compared to "just jailbreak a kindle" for any remotely kindle-comparable display, right? (remotely comparable in size and resolution)
      - FrecklySunbeam 2y ago
        I imagine the Kindle is sold as a loss leader, plus whatever economies of scale/negotiating Amazon does pushes the price down heavily vs buying a single unit from an electronics retailer
    - TRiG_Ireland 2y ago
      They look kind of cool, and now I'm trying to come up with a project such that I can justify buying one.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Arduino-compatible devices based on ESP32 are plenty powerful enough at a fraction of the cost.
  - RicoElectrico 2y ago
    CPU is indeed beefy for a small wi-fi chip, but the small RAM hurts. Yeah, there's QSPI PSRAM but the bandwidth is lacking as well.
deleted 2y ago
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RicoElectrico 2y ago

There is one, it's called the Raspberry Pi ecosystem, but due to the small volume and the target audience largely being not-my-own-money (think educational institutions), the price is quite detached from the production cost.

6gvONxR4sf7o 2y ago
I think more of the issue might be the eink screens. As far as I can tell, there just aren't 5+ inch eink screens for cheap.
- GeoAtreides 2y ago
  yes they are: https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm?___SID=U&limit=80 https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm?___SI... A 4.37inch E-Paper in 3 colors is $24, problem is need you to program yourself (they have code sample in python, for raspberry pi), and you need a raspberry pi, case, cables, etc. Also, these cheap epaper displays are, of course, of lower quality (slower, lower resolution) than an kindle display.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 2y ago
    They jump up in price pretty quickly as size goes up. The cheapest 5+ inch display I found at your link was over $40, and it's about 100PPI. It's certainly not prohibitive, but certainly priced high compared to "just jailbreak a kindle" for any remotely kindle-comparable display, right? (remotely comparable in size and resolution)
    - FrecklySunbeam 2y ago
      I imagine the Kindle is sold as a loss leader, plus whatever economies of scale/negotiating Amazon does pushes the price down heavily vs buying a single unit from an electronics retailer
  - TRiG_Ireland 2y ago
    They look kind of cool, and now I'm trying to come up with a project such that I can justify buying one.
nine_k 2y ago
Arduino-compatible devices based on ESP32 are plenty powerful enough at a fraction of the cost.
- RicoElectrico 2y ago
  CPU is indeed beefy for a small wi-fi chip, but the small RAM hurts. Yeah, there's QSPI PSRAM but the bandwidth is lacking as well.

deleted 2y ago

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