TRMNL | E-ink dashboard to stay focused

16 points by tffr

Aks

I have it and I can't recommend it for what it costs. I am now running my own backend server for it on a raspberry pi since i do not trust this company to handle my data at all. Wish I had never bought it.

junon

That's a shame. Can't even say he learned and grew or whatever, this was from this year. I didn't need one, was thinking about getting one to play with, but this behavior doesn't deserve any more cash. There will be other e-ink toys to waste money on.
asymmetric

May be worth checking out Inkplate as an alternative.

EDIT: found a blog post by someone using the 10" version on a project.
glesica

That's a shame, because it's such a cool use-case for e-ink! Bummer.
- Aks
  
  I think you're better off having something like raspberry pi and installing e-ink screen to it, then make it do whatever you need. More hassle for sure.
jeeger
Oh no, what an idiot! But you don't really need one, it's not as practical as I first thought:
- The low refresh rate and little space doesn't lend itself to displaying information that changes more quickly than hourly. We've got a public ttransport schedule on it, and there's not enough space to display departures for the next half-hour, so you're constantly seeing departures that have already happened, even with a refresh rate of 15 minutes (the lowest, I believe?).
- You'll never see the screen you need at the moment, and you're not going to wait 5 minutes to see the right one (5 minutes is the lowest refresh rate without updating data).
- Somewhat obnoxious marketing (see above).
benl

I also got one and was severely let down.

Did you run their open-source server or build your own?
- Aks
  
  I made my terrible server with flask: https://codeberg.org/Queerminal/queerminal_server
  
  Its definitely not prime time ready but it works for my needs so im too lazy to work on it more
mtlynch
More details about TRMNL's founder, Ryan Kulp:
- Describes himself as "a slightly retarded entrepreneur who scientifically proved San Francisco is a sh*thole."
- Boasted about growing a previous company by exploiting a vulnerability in a discussion forum to spam its 20k members
- His previous company, FOMO was a growth marketing company that broadcasted sort-of-anonymized customers purchases to other viewers of the website (e.g., "Bob F. from Tallahassee, FL just purchased this mug 5 minutes ago!"). I have my doubts that the data was even real, but even if it was, the whole concept is is gross and consumer-hostile.
- Some of his tweets:
- sharp
  
  Oh man, I own a couple of these devices and had no idea. I'm super appreciative for the sunlight here.
- wrl
  
  Cancelled my TRMNL X preorder. Can't in good conscience put money in the pocket of somebody like this.
  
  Thanks for surfacing all of this.
vagos

"Just this one gadget and FINALLY I'll be productive."
- JulianWgs
  
  I bought one and never thought about it as productivity gadget. I just later found out that there whole marketing is around that idea. I haven‘t really gotten around customizing it, but currently I use it to display whether info. The idea of having a dumb, battery powered device that can display anything and is often in-view in my apartment is just nice as a general concept/architecture and for me a new product category. Do you need one: No (especially, because I just learned about their political views). Is it nice to tinker with: Yes, if you have the time.
Vaelatern

I've got one and enjoy it! The team behind it seems super chill and every interaction with them has been nice.

I only got it because they made it clear that there is a path for me to liberate it from their cloud if ever they become insolvent, so my screen won't be e-waste.

Since I bought mine they rolled out a firmware update that does partial refreshes instead of reloading the whole screen every time, and while it hasn't been without flaws, recently it seems super consistent and reliable!
jmtd

I'd like something like this just to have an easy-to-see shared family calendar, to get off having a paper one in the kitchen that I have to manually sync with my digital calendar in order to schedule stuff when I'm not in the kitchen. But I'm not sure that a read-only device would fully displace the paper calendar.
coxley

Mine cycles between top orange-site stories and my local subway schedules. I did a proof-of-concept of graphing Prometheus data on it, and it worked. I should push that one through some day, and maybe a Lobsters plugin.

The top stories stops me from wasting (as much) time browsing. If a headline catches my eye, I can look for it.