epaper News - Page 4 of 7 - CNX Software

April 1, 2021April 2, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Tiny Tri-color E-Ink display for Wemos D1 Mini board sells for $10

tri color E-Ink display for Wemos-D1 mini ESP8266 board

Wemos D1 Mini is one of my favorites ESP8266 boards with a cheap price, tiny form factor, and support for stackable expansion boards. Lolin has now launched a small 2.13-inch tri-color E-Ink display that is compatible with D1 mini, D1 mini Pro, and D32 Pro boards, and sells for just $9.90 plus shipping. Specifications: 2.13-inchTri-Color (red/black/white) ePaper/e-Ink display with 212×104 resolution Driver IC – Good Display UC8151D Connection to D1 mini, D1 mini Pro, D32 Pro via 10-pin connector Debugging – 8-pin unpopulated header with EPD signals (SPI, Reset, Busy…) 3.3V, GND You may wonder why the PCB reads “2.13 INCH e-Paper 250×122”, while the resolution is 212×104. That’s because the company probably reused the PCB from their 2.13-inch black and white e-Paper display with 250×122 resolution (IL3897 driver). The display can be programmed with Arduino using LOLIN_EPD, Adafruit_GFX, and Adafruit_BusIO libraries as explained in the Wiki. You’ll find three […]

February 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

7.8-inch PocketBook InkPad Color eReader launched for $329

Color eReaders and color e-Ink smartphones have started to show up last year with products such as Onyx Boox Poke2 Color, PocketBook Color, or Hisense A7 CC with displays ranging from 6-inch to 6.7-inch in size. If you like the idea of having a color eReader, but would prefer a (slightly) large display, PocketBook InkPad Color may be an interesting option with the eReader featuring a 7.8-inch Kaleido e-Ink display with 4096 colors. PocketBook InkPad Color specifications: Processor – Unnamed dual-core processor @ 1 GHz (probably Allwinner B288 dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 processor) System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, and microSD card reader up to 32GB Display – 7.8 inch E-Ink Kaleido display with 1872 x 1404 (16 shades of grey – 300 ppi) or 624 x 468 (color – 100 ppi) resolution, capacitive touch, and front-light Connectivity – WiFi 4 and Bluetooth (e.g. for audio) USB […]

February 16, 2021February 17, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 35 Comments

Pine64 unveils Quartz64 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3566 SoC

We may just have written about Geniatech RK3566/RK3568 development board, but as expected, Pine64 has now unveiled more details about Quartz64 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3566 SoC. As we’ll see below, the design is very similar to RK3399 based RockPro64, but the new model adds a native SATA 3.0 port, an integrated battery charging circuitry, an ePD port for e-Ink displays, and supports more memory with up to 8GB LPDDR4 RAM. Quartz64 Model A preliminary specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor up to 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1, 0.8 TOPS NPU for AI acceleration System Memory – 2GB to 8GB LPDDR4 Storage SPI Flash optional eMMC module from 16GB up to 128GB capacity bootable SDHC/SDXC MicroSD card up to 256GB (or is it 2TB?) SATA 3.0 port (multiplexed with USB 3.0) Video Output / Display Interfaces HDMI 2.0a up […]

February 4, 2021February 4, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Watchy Pebble-like Smartwatch with E-paper display, ESP32 processor launched on Crowd Supply

Pebble smartwatch was introduced in 2012 on Kickstarter. The Bluetooth smartwatch came with an E-Paper display, would connect to your Android smartphone or iPhone to receive notifications or other info, and the company also released an SDK for further customization. It was quite popular at the time having sold over one million units, the Pebble Time followed in 2015 with a color display, as well as other models. But despite selling millions of watches, the company folded in 2016, and the Pebble was discontinued after the intellectual property was purchased by Fitbit. Watchy is a new smartwatch that reminds me of the original pebble. It is based on ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC, equipped with a 1.54-inch E-Paper display with 200×200 resolution, and the usual accelerometer for activity tracking and gesture detection. Watchy key features and specifications: SIP – Espressif Systems ESP32-PICO-D4 system-in-package with ESP32 dual-core processor with Bluetooth LE […]

January 29, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Hisense A7CC 5G smartphone integrates a 6.7-inch color E-Ink display

Hisense A5 was one of the first phones exclusively equipped with an e-Paper display. But following the launch of color E-Ink displays and color eReaders from other companies last year, the Chinese company has now launched Hisense A7CC 5G smartphone with a 6.7-inch color E-Ink display. The phone is powered by UNISOC T7510 octa-core processor, which appears to be based on T710 SoC with 5G modem, and comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB flash storage. Hisense A7CC specifications: SoC – UNISOC Tiger T7510 octa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A75 cores @ 2 GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz, and Imagination PowerVR GM9466 GPU System Memory – 6GB RAM Storage – 128GB flash Display – 6.7-inch E-Ink display with 4096 colors, 100 dpi Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack with AK4377AECB audio DAC; built-in microphone and speaker Camera – Dual rear cameras + single front-facing camera Connectivity Cellular – 5G […]

January 15, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Inkplate 10 ESP32 e-Paper display offers faster refresh rates (Crowdfunding)

Inkplate 6 is an ESP32 powered wireless e-Paper Display based on a recycled Kindle E-reader display, and that e-Radionica launched in December 2019 via a crowdfunding campaign. The company says backers were “happy about the versatility and simplicity of the display” but wished for a larger display, a faster refresh rate, and extra features. This gave birth to an upgraded version: Inkplate 10. The new ESP32 wireless display comes with a recycled 9.7-inch display with 1200 x 825 resolution, up to 38% faster refresh rates, as well as extra GPIO pins, an RTC clock, a USB Type-C port, and lower power consumption. Inkplate 10 specifications: Wireless module – ESP32 WROVER module with dual-core ESP32 processor with Wi-Fi & Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE) connectivity, 8MB PSRAM, 4MB flash External storage – MicroSD card socket Display – 9.7-inch, 1200 x 825 e-paper display with support for grayscale, partial updates, and quick refresh cycles: […]

December 31, 2020March 19, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Year 2020 in review – Top ten posts and stats

It’s this time of the year when we look back at what happened, and what may be next. 2020 did not pan out as planned in more ways than one, but there were still some interesting developments. Based on 2019 announcements, 2020 was promising to be an exciting year for Amlogic and Rockchip with the expected launch of RK3588 and S908X high-end processors for 8K capable devices, but we’ll have to wait for 2021 for this to happen. Instead, the most interesting processor of the year from the Allwinner, Amlogic, and Rockchip offerings was probably Amlogic S905X4 processing adding AV1 hardware decoding. As pointed out in our “RISC-V 2020 highlights” post, it was a fairly eventful year for RISC-V architecture, although there’s still a long road ahead, especially for application processors. We had seen some general-purpose and Bluetooth RISC-V MCUs in 2019, but 2020 saw the launch of the first […]

December 4, 2020December 4, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

$25 TTGO T5 4.7-inch e-Paper Display comes with ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC

We’ve very recently covered M5paper IoT development kit based on ESP32 WiSoC, and equipped with a 4.7-inch touchscreen e-Ink display together with a 1,150mAh battery all nicely packed into an enclosure. It looks great, but costs $69, so if you’d like to integrate this type of ESP32 connected display into your own project at a lower cost, you may be interested in TTGO T5 4.7-inch e-Paper display with 16 gray levels fitted with an ESP32-WROVER-E module with 16MB flash, and 8MB PSRAM. TTGO T5 key features and specifications: Display 4.7-inch ePaper display with 960×540 resolution, 16 gray levels , partial refresh support 6-pin FPC touchscreen connector Wireless module – ESP32-WROVER-E with ESP32-D0WDQ6 V3 dual-core processor, 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM USB – 1x USB-C port Expansion – 4-pin connector with GPIOs, GND, 3.3V Misc – 1x reset button, 4x user buttons Debugging – USB-C port connected to USB to TTL CP2104 […]