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Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by layer8 on Friday November 17, 2023 @06:30AM (#38302089)
This looks nice. The website is a bit thin on description/documentation. How much does the display weigh? What's the power usage (Watts)? Presumably the device connects via Wifi? Does it support WPA3? Does this work with private iCloud calenders (e.g. as described in [0])? Is all processing on-device, i.e. doesn't involve any cloud services and would work in a closed home network if the calendars are served on that network? What's the update frequency/interval? Can it combine multiple calendars (i.e. private and work)? Is the frame user-replacable?

[0] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-find-your-icloud...

Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by konschubert on Friday November 17, 2023 @06:50AM (#38302259)
Hi, you are right, I need to add a FAQ section to the page!

- It weights about 400g including the wooden stand.

- It draws very little power. I am not sure how much, but you can run it on a battery pack for quite a while. (The power draw is so low that some external battery packs think that nothing is connected and go into standby, which is annoying.)

- Yes it uses WiFI. Not sure about WPA3 to be honest.

- Private iCloud calendars should work if you get the secret iCalendar URL as described in the article you linked.

- There is very little processing on-device, it needs an API backend that runs on the internet. Code that runs on an embedded device and updates only via Over-The-Air updates is always a liability in terms of maintenance and security, which I tried to minimise.

- The device polls for updates a few times a minute. But depending on the calendar integration, there may be caching going on in the backend. (For example, iCalendar data is cached for 10 minutes. The cache is encrypted.)

- Yes, you can combine calendars from multiple sources and accounts.

- You can replace the frame if you are willing to tinker a bit, re-solder a connection, and are you're careful.

Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by layer8 on Friday November 17, 2023 @08:18AM (#38303077)
Thanks. Would you open-source the server software so one can self-host it? To be honest, I wouldn’t want to disclose my calendars to a third party.
Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by konschubert on Friday November 17, 2023 @10:20AM (#38304765)
I’m a worried about my IP being stolen, to be honest. I don’t have much of a moat besides the software which is quite solid, I think