I’ve been on vacation for a few weeks and a big part of that was completely leaving work and a computer/laptop entirely behind. If I had a computer handy, I would have been tempted to noodle around on some project, jot down some notes on some new harebrained scheme, and potentially slide sideways into working. And, even if I didn’t do any of that, I would have been looking at a screen – rather than the scenery I had worked so hard to go and see.
Even so, I couldn’t help but notice things that still helped germinate ideas. In Europe lots of grocery stores and especially pharmacies made use of e-ink price tags. Pretty nifty since they could probably be updated wirelessly via Bluetooth or perhaps with an IR protocol of some kind. These tags were often the really cool tri-color variants1 and I only l learned of the quad color variants just today.2
With the weather heating up, it might be neat to have a weather display – but I don’t just want another weather display. I would prefer something that had data I’m interested in – just the one task I have to be working on right now, the time I’ve allotted myself to work on it, maybe the weather, a timer button that can start/stop lights and/or a buzzer. I dunno, this is all very much in the “brainstorming” stage while I’m still fumbling around with e-ink code.
Random ideas:
- It would be neat to have exercise, stretching, standing, eating, drinking, etc breaks built into the display. (I do realize there are circular themed smart-watch systems…)
- My job requires various tasks with various timelines and monthly-ish metrics. It might be neat to have various trackers for that kind of data.
- I know various wearables display neat graphics like circles that get completed, achievements, etc, when the person reaches a certain number of steps or level of activity. That would be neat to incorporate as a way to “gamify” certain aspects of my life / job. Additional colors would certainly add to this kind of flair.
- I haven’t given up on the idea of feedback from the sticky-e-note via buzzer, speaker, vibration motor, haptic feedback, and LED’s or with inputs from buttons or touch capacitive sensors. However, the more of these things I pack into a device, the more unwieldy it becomes and longer it would take to learn / build. There’s certainly something to be said for a stripped down, elegant solution versus building a chunk pile of wires tethered to a USB cable.
Having just come back from vacation, my home office / lab area is an absolute catastrophe. It’s a tangle of all the things I might have packed, almost packed, unpacked, and the remnants of all the things I kind did while walking around all the aforementioned stuff. At a glance, I’m probably operating on about 10% of the normal surface area – mostly now devoted to a thin, windy, and treacherous path from the door to my desk.
Sticky Note Timer- Ah, just what I need! A new project!
- Sticky Note Timer, parts arrived!
- Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3 and a small sticky note display
- Brainstorming More E-Ink Stuff
- Smol Fonts for E-Ink Displays
- Tap Light Focus Timer System
- Black, red, white-gray [↩]
- Black, red, yellow, white-gray! [↩]