E-ink Picture framePrivate10.2025 – 11.2025 (2 months)DescriptionA few years ago I already made a picture frame using an e-ink display. At that time the screen resolution and colors were not the

Private

10.2025 – 11.2025 (2 months)

Description

A few years ago I already made a picture frame using an e-ink display. At that time the screen resolution and colors were not the best and that affected the end results. When I heard about new technologies I had to try it out.

Project summary

In this project I utilized a bough e-ink display that I controlled over a raspberry pi. The display has much better colors than the previous technologies and the size is almost an A4 page. 

My responsibilities

• CAD design and 3d printing the screen fixture for the picture frame

• Programming and testing

Results

My aim was to run a script that updates the shown image every 24h. The used screen can be operated only using a raspberry pi, thus that part was already defined. A raspberry Pi is power hungry, even at stand by mode and a sleep mode doesn’t exist. Therefore I decided to use a relay to cut the power completely. 

Loading images to the display went smoothly. Thanks to the supplier libraries I was able fast and effortlessly update the images on the screen. After that I turned my focus to the relay part. I utilized a latching relay, again to save power and simple usage. 

The idea was to use the real time clock to turn the relay ON and later the raspberry would turn it OFF again. I tried several different real time modules with Raspberry and Arduino, however I was not able to get the alarm clock function running smoothly. Getting the clock data worked without issues, nevertheless I didn’t find a usable library for the alarm clock. 

After trying 3 different RTCs I decided to leave it and use only a manual switch to change the image. It’s not as practical as intended at the beginning of the project, however the basic functionality is there. 

Not all the images are shown well on the screen. Some are better than others and obviously the suppliers are showing only the picked images on the advertisement photos. The new e-ink display technology is a huge improvement, nevertheless there is still improvement possibilities.

Used tools

SW: Arduino IDE, Python, Fusion 360

HW: real time clock, Raspberry Pi, e-ink display, 3d printer, relay