Image Credit: empty_vacuum

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Summary

• E-paper is perfect for low-refresh, ultra-low-power displays like once-a-minute info.
• Uses Raspberry Pi Zero + Inky Impression 7.3“ 7-color e-paper for the dashboard.
• Code and 3D-case included; the project has been updated for the worldwide weather API and is on GitHub.

If you’ve been seeing my articles on XDA lately, you’ll know that I really like e-paper displays. While they’re definitely not fit for every project (I wouldn’t want to game on one, for instance,) they are very good at specific jobs. If you’re looking for a screen that refreshes only once a minute or so and consumes as little power as possible, e-paper displays may be your best bet.

For instance, if you want a display that shows you the local weather, an e-paper display can do the job just fine. This is what one tinkerer discovered after they realised that these displays didn’t refresh as often as they’d like, so they found a new use for them.

This e-paper weather dashboard uses a Raspberry Pi Zero to show you your forecast

Over on the Raspberry Pi subreddit, user empty_vacuum showed off their lovely weather dashboard. Originally, they published the project using Australian weather forecast systems, but after getting lots of positive feedback, they’ve since updated it to work worldwide.

As is the case of some of the best projects out there, this one came to be due to a mistake:

This project started because I had a spare raspberry pi zero laying around, being a resourceful guy, I didn’t want to leave it there. After seeing a few E-paper related projects, I decided to make a dashboard of my work calendar.

So I ordered the Inky Impression 7.3“ 7-colour e-paper display(the 2024 edition), however after drawing my first image onto it, I realised that it took 30 seconds to full refresh, it didn’t support partial refresh :(.

The refresh rate was not advertised on the website when I ordered it! this was a no go for me as the refreshing was too distracting.

So after a few months of sitting idle, I pivoted to creating a Weather Dashboard as a gift for my parents,

The bill of materials is really small; you just need a Raspberry Pi Zero, the Inky display mentioned above, and an optional 3D printed case for the lot. You can then grab the code from the project’s GitHub page and get it all up and running, nice and easily. If you want to read more about this cool project, head over to the creator’s blog post describing the build. And if this got you in the mood to build something cool, check out these ultra-cheap e-paper projects anyone can set up.