After considerable to and fro I finally ordered a 7-color e-ink ¹ display for the raspberry pi from pimoroni ². With the help of the official repository ³ putting images on the the display is quite easy. The repository also has code for other e-ink-displays from pimoroni.

With about 85mm x 115mm it is comparable to typical e-reader display sizes. Although the glass leads to a different look compare to the matte e-reader displays. When setting a new image the transition looks quite elaborate and takes about 30 seconds of flashing through different colors. Eventually it looks quite interesting. With the limited range of colors everything looks a little like an art print with intentionally noticeable dithering artifacts ⁴. The artifacts are shown in the closeups beneath.

update: e-paper display in a frame

After ordering a paper mat⁵ and frame of fitting size for the display I finally went on and build a fixure so that the display would stay at the right position behind the opening. I used 3mm gray paperboard and cut it to size.

The framed display already aced its first test passing as a regular paper print, when my girlfriend didn’t notice anything about it.

next up: writing some scripts that automatically resize, crop and put images onto the display. Also some scripts that show weather information.