I have an E-ink picture on my wall in a really normal looking picture frame. It is just basically running a slide show that changes randomly after a fairly long pause.

BUT the slide show is sneaky.

I will be changing the theme once in a while, but the one I have running right now is a series of coloured illustrations of an owl sitting on a branch. It's eyes appear to change position. There's a branch in behind that occasionally makes an appearance. Even a bit of text sometimes shows up.

I never mention it to people. I just let them second guess their own sanity when the picture isn't always the way they remember it compared to other times they looked at it. I'm really abusing the fact that it doesn't look like a computer screen here.

Although it is completely unrelated, my inspiration came from remembering the Johnny Castaway screen blanker from back in the 90's. It was based on random "skits" that appeared to tell a story.

WOW I absolutely love, love, love this idea.

A really great way to play with guests. This was done a lot in older horror movies, where the eyes in a portrait seemed to follow people.

That was exactly my inspiration for the eyes.

Simply awesome. I would consider adding a hidden camera to track people position and move the eyes accordingly. You could sell to people decorating their haunted mansions.

That would detract from the intention. I don't have it changing often because I'd rather the change happen when nobody is looking. It plays with their memory that way. If they saw it "move" then that would change their entire interpretation of what is going on. They wouldn't be questioning their mind and memory, and instead marveling at a simple technical wonder.

Also, e-paper doesn't change smoothly, so animation is out of the question. It takes some time for images to change, and that would sap it entirely of its magic.

Yep the key here is that it makes you question your memory. "Wait... I could've SWORN that person was looking elsewhere earlier"

Show us pics and deets!

If you can wait til Christmas I have a huge improvement coming. It's going 3D, which I think will really add to the magical qualities. At that time I'll be posting a page on how to do both the "normal" and the 3D versions.

I consider the 2D version a prototype, even though it is already quite cool in its own right.

Bryan Boyer’s Very Slow Movie Player: https://link.medium.com/KmmRK9wA4jb (And my own Python version: https://link.medium.com/NkrysBDA4jb https://github.com/TomWhitwell/SlowMovie )

Top of the HN right now is an E-Ink project - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28740452 . Not sure you have seen it already.

Not a project, but a product. I'm eagerly awaiting for the onyx mira pro... a 25 inch e ink monitor.

I am doubtful about the refreshrate. I have been using their readers since ever. The Nova, Max1, Max2, Note pro, etc have all been advertised to do this either by HDMI or wlan connectivity, but they all suffer from issues with keeping up with typing or terribly ghosted. I have been looking at this on taobao for some time, but so far mild positive response. Holding off for now.

Pwnagotchi [0] is quite cool. It's kind of like tamagotchi, but you need to feed it Wi-Fi handshakes. It's using Raspberry Pi Zero and E-Ink display module.

[0] https://pwnagotchi.ai/

That's very clever. Love it.

PineNote

https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/