More and better e-ink, please. It’s just the best at the things it’s good at. Give me a foldable phone with one e-ink screen!
“E Ink” is a company, producing displays with a very specific proprietary technology. I think you mean to say more “e-paper”, which is a generic term for “paper-like” displays. And unfortunately, right now the only real competition is RLCD (reflective LCD), which is arguably not paper-like enough to qualify. Yes, it’s reflective, but other than that, it’s just a higher density Game Boy screen. Which is great and all, but it can’t compete with E Ink in a lot of aspects. It doesn’t have retention, you gotta power the screen, so no signage and stuff. It has LCD-grade bad viewing angles.
RLCDs are cool for certain uses though. For example, I sometimes choose to play on my AGS-001 over my Analogue Pocket if I’m outside in bright daylight.
It will be so cool when that patent expires
I wish they made more e-ink watches
I’d love a successor to Pebble which doesn’t require an account. There are a number of options, but my issue is that most require creating an account with vendor, and app integration with - no doubt - copiuos data harvesting and reselling. Many are absurdly expensive.
There are several cheap options on Alibaba.
Goodreader.com lists a number of expensive e-ink watches, some of which look quite nice.
But I’ve got my eye on Watchy (github, old review); it was introduced a couple of years ago and is still being updated. It’s also available from a couple of vendors, including preassembled through Amazon.
my eye on Watchy
Have one after the Pebble, let me know if you have questions.
let me know if you have questions.
I have all the questions. I’m peripherally aware of ESP32; my experience with it, and its capabilities, is severely limited, and IME interface changes require recompiling and re-flashing things. Many of my questions stem from that ignorance.
- Integration support. I assume GadgetBridge on Android is how you’d do it? Or is there another app?
- How is the battery life IRL?
- What does the watch face & app space look like? The FAQ mentions a “gallery”, and instructions for contributions describe the github PR process. Is the gallery just the list of watch faces on the sqfmi website?
- What’s the process for changing faces, and installing additional functionality? From the docs, it looks as if this must be done over a serial cable, despite the device having WiFi capability. I assume that’s because adding faces is basically re-flashing the firmware, which is not supported over wireless? So, to get a new face, you clone the repo, compile a new firmware, and flash the device over a serial cable?
- The FAQ verbiage is confusing regarding the display technology, but I think it’s saying the display isn’t reflective LCD like the Pebble.
- Can you have multiple faces on the device, or do you have to re-flash it to change the face? The FAQ says the face is the entire firmware, implying only one face on the device at a time.
- If you’re part of the community: have there been any discussions about future development to add, e.g. health monitor hardware?
- Is there any integration with a phone, such as notifications? This is sort of the GadgetBridge question, but more about what integrations - if any - are supported. Vibrate on phone ringing? Quick responses to texts? Phone calls over the watch - yeah, I know it’s not that advanced, but for example.
- What’s your opinion of the device? Do you use it as a daily driver?
At under $70, I’m not expecting much, but it’d be nice to know what you expect. The sqfmi site is pretty sparse on details. If there’s an additional, deeper FAQ or Wiki, a link to that would be great.
Thanks!
- I’m not using that
- about a week
- it’s indeed like the gallery
- yes, you need to compile the firmware and flash it over USB. The first time is a tricky but then it takes just few minutes
- strangers have said it looked like actual paper. It’s extremely readible
- indeed it’s one face per firmware… but assuming there is enough space, you could imagine modifying it in order to have more faces
- for now I just briefly chat on Discord to get the basics going as I was one of the very first to have the new ESP S3, cf https://github.com/sqfmi/Watchy/issues/252
- cf 1 but I bet there is, I was thinking of changing the WiFi HTTP server to possibly send data to HomeAssistant but I didn’t explore that yet
- it’s my daily driver, it’s a HUGE thing but it works and often sparks interesting conversations, I like it
Happy to clarify a bit more if need be.
This article has completely missed a selling point of e-readers for people like myself: no constant refreshing.
My eye strain, when reading for a long time, doesn’t come from the light (or lack thereof), which is evident as a positive of backlit Kindles and other e-readers, though the constant flicker of screens. E-ink solves this issue perfectly, and with every device in that article mentioning “60Hz” on their alternatives I feel as though they’ve missed a big point of having an e-reader and what exactly constitutes as “paper like” (it’s a lot more than just “low/no backlight”).
Welcome news, with the caveats others have highlighted. E-ink is still quite expensive for reasons I dont understand. Someone said there were only a couple of manufacturers.
Cheap (and by that I mean rubbish) 10” tablets are available for under £30 in china, but if you want e-ink it’s at least double .