Is it necessary to have the content proxied through your API server? If the company doesn't work out, it would be a shame to have this device stop working, even though it's fully capable of reaching the internal URL I would be hosting my content on.
Could that be changed?
If I am not hit by a metaphoric truck, I give my best to make sure not to disappoint my customers. My plan is to keep the backend running for 10 years after I sell the last display.
But of course that's just a plan und I understand that you may not like the odds. That's totally reasonable.
1) Have a touch screen
2) Integrate with Outlook calendar and multiple Google calendars
3) Integrate with smart home features (e.g. lights, temperature, etc)
4) Integrate with other data sources (e.g. news)
At $150, be open-source and open-hardware (at a lower price point, I'd do without).
I'm looking for something like that.
Until then, neat product!
Find the people who want to use a product despite all the lacking features, because the one thing it does is exactly what they need, and build on that.
https://www.home-assistant.io/
They have customizable dashboards. What I'm really looking for is something I can use as a sort of command center in a few places in my house. It allows me to control the things I care about, shows my upcoming schedule, and whatever else is relevant. By my work desk, the #1 thing I care about is upcoming meetings. Other places, I care about other things.
Critically, though, I don't want it to glow. I want it either e-ink or purely reflective LCD.
This is probably a few devices. Ideally, there'd be small / cheap ones with mechanical switches and a tiny screen to replace my light switches, and big ones for my living room, work room, etc.
I think the trick would be to start with something, so one doesn't have an infinite engineering task, and so there are ready frameworks for modularity. Either Home Assistant or dash would be decent starting points, depending on which direction this took.
But yeah, now that I mention it, I have a vision in my head for what I want (which I would buy). Retrokludged features without the same vision would probably not get us there.
So I'll cut this back to what everyone else is saying: Calendar flexibility. This needs to sync with home, work, and other calendars, so at the very least, Outlook.
I might do this myself, hmm.
Without that, I suspect I'll never get around to making one work, and I'm not buying another half-started project.
As a footnote, 50% of the remaining work is on the stupid stuff like cases and power supplies. I'm glad you did that. But if you ever sell this as a device, consider provide a variety of cases for different use-cases (desk stand, wall mount, metal box with room for other stuff, etc.) and your sales will double.
As a footnote, I like when devices are compatible with something standard, like a Micro:bit or a Circuit Playground. That guarantees a basic working toolchain for at least getting code on, as well as a support ecosystem.
Regarding calendar: You can already connect as many google calendars and as many .ics sources as you want. If you can create an .ics link from outlook that's supported. (At least on iOS, the Android update is still being worked on. Did you know about Jetpack Compose? I didn't...)
Of course, Outlook support would be nice. It's on the roadmap. But as always, I don't want to promise things that haven't happened yet.
(a) required an operating system
(b) still works
It all bitrots to hell. For comparison, everything I've made on a PIC, Atmel, ESP, etc. continues working.
FPGAs have a more mixed track record; the devices work, but they're unmaintainable (the dev toolchains require e.g. Windows NT and some activation server which no longer exists).
Things I've made out of wood, metal, and similar materials work too, as do PCBs I designed with analog.
My point is I want a piece of hardware and not a computer.
I tried with 2-2 different companies that I worked with, but to no avail. I just wanted a simple app that syncs some events from the work calendar to my personal one...
Outlook is on the roadmap. But I felt like supporting .ics was more pressing.
There are two aspects that make this easier than most people realize:
- You will theoretically retain your existing Gmail address forever, even if you close your Gmail account. This means you can reactivate it at any time.
- You can use your new email address as the sign-in ID for your existing Google account. This means you can continue to use Google Docs, YouTube, etc and stuff without being reliant on Gmail.
I wrote a short guide a while back here: https://www.justus.ws/tech/how-to-ditch-gmail/
I get that the SF crowd was all about it, but if the last few years have taught us anything it is that there’s more to the techie world than VC free money startups.
I reckon there are far more people who need this and who might buy this who are using Outlook/Office 365 either alone or in some combination than who use Gmail exclusively.
And yes, Office 365 has an API. Even Alexa works with it.