Birbla

Discussion summary

Valve open-sourced the Steam Machine e-ink display design, allowing users to create their own. Discussions included the device's features, pricing, and modding possibilities.

What the discussion says

  • Some users are interested in making custom e-ink displays.
  • There is debate over whether the price is justified without the display.
  • Comments mention the device's modding capabilities and design.
  • Some users discuss the cultural and grammatical aspects of the article.
“Valve will not be making and providing their own e-ink display for the Steam Machine.”
— romaniv
“I want to make an actual eInk display myself, not just buy one.”
— Fokamul

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  • Hacker News
  • I would love to see an analysis of how valve's openness and goodwill affects their bottom line. Intuitively it should be a net positive for them, but there gotta be upfront costs, otherwise everyone would be doing it too.
    by tra3
  • Hold on , i gotta recharge my front plate
    by ismaVQ
  • Looks like Waveshare has a E6 full color ePaper/eInk/EPD display in 3.6" and 7.3" but not yet in 5.83":

    "5.83inch E-Paper Display (G), E-ink Display, 648 × 480, Red/Yellow/Black/White, SPI Interface" https://www.waveshare.com/5.83inch-e-paper-g.htm?sku=32584

    by westurner
  • Anyone aware of an A5 sized (~10 inch diagonal) eInk screen that can use HDMI or USB-C as an input?
    by dv35z
  • This is so cool! Coincidentally, I'm currently building something in a similar vein that pushes system metrics out to an Android app so an old phone or tablet can be used as a case screen. The app has widget plugins that expose a repo of metrics received and a GL surface, that can then be used to display fancy visualisations.

    Check it out here: https://github.com/xfoa/humours. It's not finished yet, but the basic functionality works. It just has one widget at the moment that draws a spinning cube with temps, etc.

    by foax
  • I'd love to see an easy guide to doing this with the Framework Desktop form factor. I didn't buy any of the silly little squares for the front of mine since I figured I could 3D print some later, but six months in still haven't gotten around to it.
    by anticorporate
  • In case you're wondering and don't want to click around, the display is a standard Adafruit 5.83'' eInk panel: https://www.adafruit.com/product/6397
    by dgellow
  • I wish more hardware companies treated these kinds of optional add-ons as something the community can run with instead of either productizing them badly or locking them away completely...
    by RataNova

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