Think about e-ink is it stays readable even when the charge runs out.

At first I thought “that’s a very specific shopping list for fridge magnets”. :)

I stuck with the recommended full refresh every 15 interactions and partial otherwise. There's also a full refresh when moving from the settings screen back to the main list. Honestly though it probably makes sense to only do a full refresh when unticking (which is rare) or changing screens. The typical use cases are (1) glancing at the screen to make sure something is one the list and (2) ticking things off as they go into the basket. Neither really require a full refresh imho. Some ghosting is acceptable in general use I think

Key eink patents are expired since c. 2017. But they bought potential competitors and keep innovating (and patenting), so the monopoly stays strong. If someone entered the market right now, with 2000 eink tech, and pricing at very low margin prices, they will go bankrupt: would you buy a 20" screen, no touch, ~70 ppp, refresh around 2 seconds for maybe $300? Also, patents might have expired, but key tech, such as precise micro-sphere manufacturing, is not under patent protection, but under trade secrecy: on top of old tech, it would be unreliable. Some like Zhiwei specialize in epaper for tags using old tech, but only for b2b and barely below Eink prices.

Competition explores completely different technologies: Daylight DC-1, Reinkstone, ChLCD e.g. from Iris... but either the tech isn't good enough to generalize or be cheap (the later), or the niche economics don't allow the inventors to keep investing (the two first).

there's no secret, they're just expensive to manufacture

That was part of the motivation here: If I can think it up, can AI actually build it, even when it's outside my day-to-day experience? (and can it do it without frying the hardware somehow)

There is exactly one manufacturer of large EPDs, E Ink Corporation.

A few have tried to compete over the years, none have really managed to ramp up production and compete from my understanding. I believe there are some chinese firms making smaller panels now, mainly used in electronic shelf labels for stores.

From my understanding most of the patents for the foundational tech have expired at this point. I believe the panels are just generally very difficult to make, with difficulty ramping up further as panel size goes up, presumably the yield is fairly low.

Honestly it's pretty good, but it's too new to give you an actual number. I haven't had to think about it so far. As a LoRa Meshtastic node the device ran for days and still had plenty of battery.

In normal operation battery life is by how often you do a refresh, the rest of the time it's in deep sleep. I think for this application I could build in a refresh schedule tied to when the house is active (mornings, evenings, weekends) to reduce the number of refreshes. It syncs on touch if it hasn't synced in the last 5 minutes (and there's a button for when your feeling impatient)

I'd check https://github.com/Josh-writes/microslate-firmware/ for the xteink as it is less focused on only reading, but keep in mind it's a screen only, so not touch. Buttons though are pretty good so enough for tick items on a list IMHO.

I think open source code would sit in the opposite end of the spectrum to Juicero.

That's a cool idea! There are small 1.54" e-ink screens, I wonder would it be possible to add an NFC chip and have them completely passive? (i.e. powered from the writer)

Haha true. This is why paper and pen are so hard to beat!

Much more advanced than what I use for this, but I use a small palm size drawing tablet with a magnet back from a Japanese stationery company called KING JIM. It's called the KING JIM BB-12. It was like $15-20, and I find it practical for quick jotting and as for my grocery list I can easily tuck away in any pocket.

I think there's something to be said about not carrying a phone-like device into stores, since the whole "cameras everywhere" situation is feeling more dystopian than it already did. I even carried paper lists to not further contribute to that.

Watchy Anki device might be fun. There are cheap Chinese clones as well.

Should be able to do this on an xteink x3 or x4. I had been half considering vibe coding a project like this

Well. It’s synced paper. If I am on the go, i cannot check the paper on the fridge.

You'd love the Grocery App for iOS and Apple Watch. It learns based on which items you check off on your grocery list and puts them in order.

I'm like a caveman hunting my prey using it. I'm in an out with no meandering around.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/grocery-smart-shopping-list/id...

You can sort the aisles manually in the app, and there's a (hacky) route to use AI to categorise new items into an aisle. It shouldn't be too hard to use AI to sort the aisles I'd guess

Nice work. I did something similar with my Kindle scribe. It shows me widgets for my grocery list, home todos, one that cycles between local weather, and some quotes. And I can use the pen to add or check off items. All vibe coded!

Post-it note

* Produces paper waste * Easy to lose * Clutter * Limited space * Can run out of stock * Not searchable/reusable

This would be great as something I can load the groceries to, then have the recipe and steps when making stuff

I hate using my phone for that stuff as it’s usually doing a few things and messy hands/ scrolling stuff is awful