E-paper displays are remarkable for a few different reasons. Extremely high contrast, viewable in direct sunlight, and the most popular feature: zero power draw to maintain the display. This means you can set a display, put your microcontroller into super deep sleep, and use a few nanoamps at most to keep a readable display.
This awesome e-paper development board features the Particle P1 WiFi module, which contains a Cypress WiFi chip and an ST Cortex-M3 microcontroller with 1MB of flash. The e-paper display is 1.54″ with a resolution of 200×200 pixels. The model number of the exact e-paper display used is not shown in the description, but it’s definitely an SPI-driven display from GoodDisplay; likely the GDEH0154D67. A built-in LiPo charger is an excellent addition, making this usable as an IoT display development platform.
E-paper is an excellent partner to IoT as the low power requirements of epaper pair well with limited battery capacity designs common with IoT devices. The combination of WiFi and epaper allows low-power dynamic displays to become more ubiquitous, allowing more convenient access to daily data, i.e. calendars, weather, stocks and news. The GitHub repository comes with example code for a weather display, a simple clock, and using the Particle P1’s functions.
This board sparks all sorts of project ideas in my head. Creating a portable home automation controller; a small note-keeping display magnet for a fridge… I’ve wanted to hack on e-paper displays, and this module is a great way to do so, while also having options for wireless connectivity!
