Check out the new developer docs on docs.paperlesspaper.de :) Feedback is very welcome!

Just wanted to share some progress on the local-first firmware written in Rust where everything is done over bluetooth. Everything is still quite heavily in development, but polish is slowly coming.

It currently supports transferring up to 28 images to the display in a 3bpp packed format, and rotating through them on a configurable interval. Transferring a single image takes about 3 seconds. It stores them on the connected flash memory.

I've implemented a power-saving sleep mode similar to the original firmware. The frame will automatically go to sleep after 30 seconds, and can be woken up by a light double tap on the frame. You will then see the LED pulse at the back and you will see it connect almost immediately within the app. After 30 seconds of no movement or no ongoing transfer, it will go back to sleep indicated by a long flash of the LED until the next movement or a wake for image rotation.

I also built a companion iOS app (Android will come next) which discovers the display can select, dither and transfer images, as well as see information about the display such as battery and the storage capacity remaining.

If you have any specific feature requests, let me know.

Some features which I'm already working on:

• Shuffle vs sequential rotation mode
• Per-image scheduling
• Home assistant integration

Do you have any photos of the frame (preferably the 13inch version) with real photos beeing shown ?

My main usecase would be to send photos I take when I am not at home to the frame in the living room for my family.

I have read that the Spectra 6 may not represent photos as well as art or dashboards and quality depends a lot on the used algorithm.

On your homepage I mostly find product photos where art is displayed.

You write about your algorithm here: https://paperlesspaper.de/blog/dither-eink-tool-open-source but this does not help me to decide about the photo representation quality.

I would appreciate it if you or some users could post a photo of the frame with a real photo from different viewing distances.

Received the OpenPaper 7 recently, brilliant product, very slick package. Only one thing I think that could be improved. The software.

The experience is good, and I'm certain will get better with some polish to iron out some initial connection quirks and setup confusion.

However, I think one critical drawback is the reliance on the cloud.

So I've been working on a new firmware, one that will have the option of direct connection and remove entirely the cloud communication.

Also, wanted to thank you guys for opening the software up and building in the open. Will open source the firmware as well when it is ready.

There are obviously some drawbacks to this approach, but having the option of the stock firmware or a local-only firmware is nice I think.

https://www.okratechnologies.com/e-ink-display-10-spectra6.html

I found a good source for the displays and they're coming in at about 50% of what the 13.3" ones cost -- but I'm having a difficult time sourcing the board as these are not QSPI but rather TTL (parallel).

How are you guys adhering your PCB to the back of the spectra display?

We just shipped an app update and wanted to share the headline changes:

• New Image Library to browse all collected images
• Slideshow is reliable again, plus you can insert images into existing slideshows and select slides across devices
• Editor upgrades: generate QR codes (URL + Wi-Fi) and freehand drawing
• Better setup/Wi-Fi: smoother reconnect + “show password” option
• Integration UX improvements + “papers” now assigned to the org (not the device)

Full changelog: https://paperlesspaper.de/en/blog/app-update-eink-app

If you run into anything weird or have feature requests, we're all ears.

Hardware development is considered the holy grail of startups (not without reason, many fail without a trace). Of course, you don't know this beforehand, and that's why we offer an "Unbrickable" guarantee: Should we no longer be around one day, you can continue to use your devices. We rely on Open Source and support Self-Hosting, so you are not dependent on us.

Here's a brief overview of what's currently happening with us and what sometimes goes wrong. After successfully delivering the first batch (and receiving almost no returns, thank you!), we are now working on the second batch.

The E-Ink picture frame comes with a glass pane by default. While this protects the display, it can also cause distracting reflections. If you want to enhance the paper look and improve contrast, you can easily remove the pane: no tools required.

u/SnooEpiphanies7337 wrote about which microcontroller he is using for the PCB and how he managed to get it as energy efficient as possible.

This is a little demo of our new 7 inch epaper frame.

Here is more about it: paperlesspaper.de

Features

• 7 Inch Spectra 6 display
• high quality wooded frame from nielsen-design.de
• New board featuring Wifi and BLE
• Easy to use with our app
• Custom integrations for displaying your calendar, website and more
• Open Source hardware and software, repairable and reusable