Aura, founded by early Twitter employees, has launched the $499 Ink frame, its first 13-inch color e-paper photo frame. Using Spectra 6 e-ink technology, it offers a cordless design with up to three months of battery life and a subtle front light for better contrast.
These are pretty easy to DIY with something like the inky impression 13 (a spectra 6 display), a pi zero 2w and a tiny bit of python.
Haven’t figured out a good coorless option but its a fun weekend project.
Any guide you know of for this?
I believe the inky impression might have tutorials available, but heres their sample code https://github.com/pimoroni/inky/blob/main/examples/spectra6/image.py
…i now realize I don’t have my code up anywhere though, but its basically that on a cron job to cycle through a directory of images.
You grab a pi zero 2w, or maybe anything with the standard pi gpio connectors slap that on the back of the display and you should be good to go.
It’s incredibly awkward to mount on a picture frame, and the weight of the pi does cause it to sag to one side, so might be better as a table frame than a wall mount.
This is really cool, I love that it has a gentle front light. But pricing aside, having to take off the wall to charge every three months is a dealbreaker. I wonder if a solar panel along the top edge of the frame would have been sufficient to keep the battery charged for most situations.
Regardless I hope we see more of these. Even if the
KaleidoSpectra 6 screen is FAR from photo quality.This is not kaleido, this is Spectra 6 which is unusable for e-readers as it’s meant for digital signage. It takes as much as 30 seconds to refresh a spectra 6 screen.
Thanks, I fixed my comment, the article said “similar to that found in the Kindle Colorsoft” and I didn’t read further.
Be warned, this market is currently exploding with options so if you are considering one SHOP AROUND THOROUGHLY. There are only going to be a handful of different screens all made by the same two companies, so the other features and app functionality will be how these are truly differentiated.
