We’ve covered a fair amount of connected e-Paper/e-Ink displays based on ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SOC including several Inkplate displays, with the latest Inkplate 6Plus model including a touchscreen, TTGO T5 displays with small sizes, or even the fully enclosed M5Paper ESP32 IoT development kit with a 4.7-inch touchscreen e-Paper display. There’s also Watchy ESP32 smartwatch with a 1.54-inch display if you really need something small.
But here’s another option courtesy of Rohit & Prasad, two young engineers from India, with the paperd.ink 4.2-inch ESP32-powered e-Paper display that ships with an optional 3D printed enclosure.
paperd.ink display specifications:
- Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32 module with ESP32 dual-core processor, 4 MB SPI flash, 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 & Bluetooth LE connectivity
- Storage – MicroSD card slot for storing images, files, etc
- Display – 4.2″ monochrome e-Paper display with 400 x 300 resolution; 3s for full refresh; partial refresh supported
- USB – 1x Micro USB port for charging and programming
- Expansion – 26-pin extension header with 8x GPIO, I2C, UART, SPI, ESP_EN pin to enable/disable ESP32 to lower power consumption, LDO_EN pin to essentially turn off the board.
- Debugging – Via Micro USB port connected to CP2104 USB-UART chip
- Misc – 4x tactile buttons, piezo buzzer; internal: reset button
- Power Supply – 5V via Micro USB port, 2-pin battery connector plus battery charger circuit
- Power Consumption – <20uA in sleep mode
- Dimensions – PCB: 92.1 x 78.1 mm; enclosure is 98 x 82 x 16 mm
The display is available as a bare development board,
or housed in a 3D printed enclosure with a stand.
The display is open-source hardware with the KiCAD design files (schematics/PCB layout), STEP files for the 3D enclosure, and an Arduino sample available on Github. Their Arduino sketch relies on the Adafruit GFX,
GxEPD, and ArduinoJson libraries.
epaperd.ink just launched on Indiegogo with a 25,000 Euros funding goal. Rewards start at 59 Euros ($70.3 US) for the board and display, but most backers so far pledge 69 Euros ($82.3 US) to get the 3D printed enclosure as well. Shipping adds 14 Euros to the US, 16 Euros to the rest of the world, with perks expected to become available in December 2021, which means people should likely receive those in 2022 with the shipping time and potential delays taken into account.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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That’s a cool idea. I always wanted to program my own small e-ink display with a clock, calendar, weather sync and also some kind of to-do tasks sync from computer or phone, and put it on my desk. I wonder if that would be possible 🙂
Yeah, it’s absolutely possible. Inkplate has example projects for everything you just listed 🙂