Ace Innovation Lab's Inkycal v3 Puts a Raspberry Pi-Powered Modular ePaper Dashboard on Your Desk

Pseudonymous maker "Ace," of Ace Innovation Lab, wants to put a smart Raspberry Pi Zero W-powered ePaper device on your wall or desk with the Inkycal v3 — the latest in a line of low-power devices designed to use the Python-based Inkycal dashboard.

"Inykcal is software written in Python 3 for selected ePaper displays," Ace explains of the project. "It converts specific ePaper displays into ePaper dashboards. It's open source, free for personal use, fully modular and user-friendly! Being modular, you can mix and match any modules you like and configure them without coding over a webpage running on the Raspberry Pi."

While the Inkycal software itself is open source, under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3, Ace also produces Inkcal-branded devices which come pre-loaded with the software and ready-to-run — and has unveiled the latest generation version, the Inkycal v3, which brings with it a custom-built display driver board designed to improve efficiency and a lowering of the thickness from 12mm to 10mm (around 0.47" to 0.39").

Inside the Inkcal v3's black frame is a 7.5" electrophoretic ePaper display, designed for ease of readability in direct lighting — including sunlight — and best known for the fact it requires power only when changing states, being able to show a static image even when fully disconnected from the driving device and power source. This is connected, through the new display driver board, to a Raspberry Pi Zero W which comes pre-loaded with Raspberry Pi OS and the Inkycal software.

Said software is responsible for what appears on-screen, which can be configured by the user from a list of modules: calendar with synchronization to iCalendar sources; an agenda, which again pulls data from iCalendar sources; image display, using a file stored locally or remotely; a slideshow for multiple images; RSS and ATOM feed reader; stock ticker; weather forecast, linked to OpenWeatherMap; a to-do list powered by Todoist; and random jokes, pulled from icanhazdadjoke.com.

"Inkycal has grown a lot since it's release in 2018," Ace claims of the project. "Inkycal now has over 800 [GitHub] stars, 18 contributors and a growing number of modules. With an increase in costs for electricity, ePaper-based products are a great alternative as they use less electricity compared to LCD or OLED."

The Inkycal v3 is now available to order on the Ace Innovation Lab Tindie store for $190, including Raspberry Pi Zero and the buyer's choice of black-white-red or black-white-yellow three-color ePaper display; the software is published to GitHub.