Javi Javier

E Ink Weather Display

If you want to follow along

  1. Order an Inky Frame. I got the 7.3" one with the accessory kit
  2. Set it up by following Getting Started with Inky Frame
  3. Create a web app that renders a fixed 800 x 480 ui, no need to be responsive.
  4. Hook that up to a Weather API, I used Pirate Weather.
  5. Set up a service to generate a screenshot at a URL.
  6. Edit one of Inky Frame's preloaded scripts nasa_apod.py to download that screenshot

Previous Iterations

The very first version was a mix of the poem clock and the weather. I tried generating different versions of weather in different writing styles.

inky-no-bg.png

The next version was a grid dashboard (according to Nikki, it looks like a dashboard made by a data scientist).

inky-no-bg.png

Then tried to copy what mobile apps do.

inky-no-bg.png

* Sunny icons created by Freepik - Flaticon

What I learned

Inky Frame has smoothed out a lot of the rough spots from the last time I used Raspberry Pi. There's preloaded examples, an easy to edit text file to put your wifi password in, and a battery pack and stand.

I wanted to try writing code just on the Inky Frame but it takes a minute to save refresh, not really ideal for making quick adjustments and exploring different designs, which is why I ended up doing the screenshot-of-a-webpage approach.

It's also interesting to deal with a very different kind of display that's not lit and a different viewing distance. I really wanted the information to be glanceable from afar like a wall clock which is what eliminated the other options for me. It would've been nice to add more color and variety, but I don't really like the dithering that resulted. I think I'm going to figure out the exact seven colors and find more suitable assets.

Inspirations

2024-07-15T15:23:57.551Z