Use a Raspberry Pi and E-Ink Display to Build a Desktop Monitoring Station for Vital Information

For most professionals, it’s vital to monitor certain information throughout the work day. What you need to monitor depends on your job, but it’s pretty common to need to frequently check your emails, to-do list, tweets, and so on. You can certainly check those on your computer or phone, but wouldn’t it be nice if you had a dedicated display on your desk that always showed that information?

For about $75, you can follow Hamedtaha’s tutorial to do that. The project uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W and a 7.5" E-Ink display tucked into a picture frame to reveal whatever information you’d like—by default it’s the weather and a Todoist list, but that can be changed. The E-Ink display from Waveshare is the most expensive component of the build, and will set you back about $55, but the other components are all pretty cheap.

Once you’ve collected all of the parts, it’s a simple matter of fitting them in a picture frame of your choice. How exactly you do that will depend on your frame. But, a little bit of glue or double-sided tape should do the trick. That’s all you need to constantly monitor vital notifications and information on a dedicated desk display!