CutiePi – A Raspberry Pi 4 tablet
cutiepi.io
cutiepi.io
I think there's a great niche for "embedded" devices around the home -- weather readout panels, lighting controls, music player, intercom, etc. -- but glowing rectangles mounted to the wall are just too... glowing. E-ink panels is where it's at, and a Raspberry Pi powering it is perfect.
Unfortunately, the only real general-purpose e-ink tablet I'm aware of is the Boox, but their models are all $400-800, which is way too expensive (when similar tech in a Kindle is $80).
All I want is a relatively low-power, low-memory, low-storage touchscreen e-paper tablet (i.e. specs of an old Kindle) that I can run Linux and a WebKit browser on.
And I want them to be cheap enough in bulk so that other companies and startups can build home devices on top of them to resell.
Update: oh holy shit, John Gilmore was a Pixel Qi investor, bought the patents to help the company close cleanly rather than go bankrupt, and licenses the patents with an generally-available Defensive Patent License[1]! What a story!!! Thanks John! Pixel Qi is from ~2010, so he's better than halved the time it took to get this amazing technology legally accessible to the world. The gotcha is that it's a somewhat "copy-left" gnu like license, so anyone unwilling to open some of their own patents for use (or not holding patents) is going to have to go to John to get these built, until these patents expire.
Just a quick word on the Pixel Qi screen, it's a LCD screen with a normal transflective mode, but it can also switch into a reflective black and white mode that works great outdoors. 10" 1024x600 screens go for a bit over $100 today.
[1] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-rise-and...
The whites are still quite bad I can see already, it has no special high whiteness polariser.
I'd love to have one too, I live in Spain and it would really help with outdoor use in the sun.
I think they are Waveshare's supplier, you might even get cheaper/more specific stuff: https://www.good-display.com/product/6/
I wanted to use it to display room temperature and electrical information like home power consumption, solar panel power generation and stuff like that, and expected a refresh rate of around 1 update per second.
Having it blink and do stuff for around 7 seconds just to redraw the next frame made me send it back and replace it with a small LCD touchscreen [2].
[1] Waveshare 1.54 Inch E-Paper Raw Display Panel(B) V2,200x200 Resolution,3.3v [ https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B074P32F9B ]
[2] ELEGOO Display 3.5" Zoll TFT LCD Touch Screen Monitor 480x320 für Raspberry Pi mit Allen Daten und Touch Pen (SPI Schnittstelle) [ https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01JRUH0CY ]
Edit:
Look at all that needs to happen just to update the minute counter as well as the temperature and humidity. It certainly is faster than the colored display I bought, but still, do you really want such a flashing display? https://youtu.be/v9sNzmtMSXo?t=164
You can get for that money 7,5” e-paper hat for Raspberry Pi. It goes for 71,99€ on German Amazon.
I would suspect the boox actually has more capable hardware because it needs to run android 10. I don't care enough to check though.
You are right that $185 might be a more realistic pricing, but that's a 68% increase over the price of the $110 Kindle so I wouldn't say that they are similarly priced.
Most of the device is Open Source and the compliance section gives you the root password of the device that has ssh via usb enabled by default.
There are also initial (unpolished) solutions for encrypting files with gocryptfs.
Most parts of the stack are conceptually figured out:
A Pine64 SOPINE module (comparable to the Raspi CM, but cheaper), a Linux DRM driver based on tinydrm (https://github.com/notro/tinydrm) or gud (https://github.com/notro/gud/), as panel driver either vroland's ESP32 based EPDiy (https://hackaday.io/project/168193-epdiy-976-e-paper-control...) or a custom FPGA solution.
What's really missing and I just can't figure out is how to get a touch input layer on there. Because the format is so weird there's just nothing available off the shelf at a fitting size. Cutting a larger one to size doesn't seem feasible (or is it?), perhaps the most DIYable would be an infrared solution like early kindles and old larger touch screens have, but on that topic there's a distinct lack of information (best I could find is this EEVblog video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnZ9KfJNjRQ).
A button-only navigation would really suck, since even KOReader (the absolute minimum application to run, preferable would be a full Wayland desktop) doesn't seem to be compatible with that.
I figure this is the best place to ask: Does anyone have an idea how this could be solved? Also, would anyone be interested in E-reader kits like that?
[1] https://needgap.com/problems/43-affordable-e-ink-large-exter... (Disclaimer : It's my platform).
If you want an 8" device there's a fairly good market around 300€ already, with my favorite being the Kobo Forma and the Kindle Oasis also being worth a look (along with some others). Both have fairly small bezels on 3 sides and a thick one on one for holding.
My dream would look about like those devices, but yeah - the touch panel issue. I can't imagine a decent UX just based on buttons yet. One possible way forward is finding/making/retrofitting a reader app that is buttom navigable and maybe having a thinkpad nib as a fallback, but I'm not too sure about that since it'd compromise the UX fairly significantly, I'd say.
In case anyone is interested: https://mindfulbytes.io/
Without the Lena photo the side would be even cooler ;). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-018-0337-2
Last time it was on HN: [2]
My main use case: when I'm following a recipe, my devices go to sleep in a minute or two and it's a huge pain in the ass to wake it up and type in passwords while covered in sauce or flour or raw meat or whatever. I've started printing (or writing) recipes on blank paper just so I can move them around the kitchen and not worry about things going to sleep on me.
The press would eat it up with snark (Silicon Valley invents recipe cards. ha ha ha ha ha so clever!), but I don't want a rolodex full of cardboard that I have to stick in a drawer somewhere and sort/manage.
I know individual apps can turn off sleep. The browsers ought to also be better at recognizing that you're looking at a recipe, and keep the phone from falling asleep.
[1] https://github.com/e-radionicacom/Inkplate-6-hardware/issues...
How close would a hand-crank mechanism be to driving an e-ink tablet for a useful amount of time? A quick look at a clockwork crank-wind-up torch shows it has 300mAh battery and 30hrs of blinking SOS LED on a full charge, and they claim 1min of winding gives it 2hrs of blinking LED, so roughly 20mAh per minute of winding. How much computing can one do in 20mAh?
"Clockwork radio" and no-battery crystal radios must be quite low power, and one approach for e-ink screens is to only update a small changed area of screen at once. The FireBeetle ESP32 can deep-sleep on 0.011mA [1] and reference is at 39mA. Maybe 1min of clowkwork winding could drive it at reference power for 30 mins, and half-power for an hour?
What kind of computing UX/UI/OS could there be with primarily audio feedback[2] using a low power earphone, e-Ink style screen updated only on demand?
I carried on this thought to "treadle powered computer" thinking of a flywheel, and found someone has built one: https://scoraigwind.co.uk/2010/07/treadle-powered-computer/ which seems to be generating around 6 Watts and running a laptop.
[1] https://diyi0t.com/reduce-the-esp32-power-consumption/
[2] http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/ - EMACSPEAK computing interface for the blind. Also ref the classic `ed` editor which doesn't print unless you ask, because it was from the days of printing on paper
We have two working groups. One's creating an e-ink laptop, and the other is using a low-power CPU/MCU with an e-ink display.
If interested, check us out at the EI-2030 forum or join our Discord channel.
https://forum.ei2030.org/c/working-groups/26 https://discord.com/invite/nnxKnxh
The Compute Module 4 is the first revision (similar to the regular 4 model B) that is fast enough to actually be a practical/sensible replacement for a great deal of use cases where traditionally low power PC hardware would be preferred (though often more expensive).
The one common theme though is the soldering of the hirose connectors is a bear to do manually.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR-DXc1voovS8nhAvccRZhg
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[1] Red Shirt Jeff did not make me say this, honest.
Reporting standby time seems like a question dodge.
It looks like they're using an STM32 for this, which I believe can be made to draw approximately zero power if it's just waiting for a button to be pressed.
The processors in the Raspberry Pi don't support power management, so as far as I know, it's impossible to sleep a Raspberry Pi. The best you can do is to suspend to disk, at which point a battery life test would be relatively meaningless.
If you're into maker projects with Raspberry Pis, then I'm not sure what this does for you. It's a Pi already built into a consumer device. Not seemingly a platform for new maker projects.
If you want a tablet with a Linux kernel buried in there somewhere, then there's probably a thousand Android options with better specs at the price point.
Just kinda seems like a tablet with with limited apps and terrible battery life, being marketed to Pi fans who think having "Pi" in its name will make it a good conversation piece.
At least for the Mediatek stuff there's some leaked datasheets and programming manuals as well as board layouts and such.
I guess the problem is always power management, and I guess writing drivers for the appropriate hardware?
I still fail to understand why there isn't more open source projects like this using android, since android is open source.
I mean using linux on a desktop is easily feasible, but "owning" a tablet or a phone seems like it's so difficult.
RAM-wise the CM4 they're using in the CutiePi has 2GB, while the 400 has 4GB.
Not sure saying it's an open source table is any better but calling it a tool for keeping projects on the go is also just weird.
The battery lasts long enough, I run some services and some other tools and the HAT alone will last you a day or so. If you do something like video encoding, it will burn quicker obviously. Think phone battery levels of juice with the HAT.
They ran a Kickstarter last year with a target ship date of late November, but I’m not sure how many orders they’ve filled. None of my friends who ordered have received theirs.
Their open source repositories are available here: https://github.com/cutiepi-io
Note this isn’t a tablet in the traditional sense. Think of it as a Raspberry Pi with external touchscreen, camera, and battery folded into a tablet-like form factor. They’ve done some cool things with software and hardware to bring it all together, but it needs to be viewed as hackable open source hardware and not a competitor to a cheap Android tablet from Amazon.
I would have preferred if they had shipped what they had, instead of delaying the project for that upgrade, but it seems most backers preferred to get the shiny new thing, even if it meant the project was delayed.
Thing is I am desperate to have a tablet with decent capabilities (and at about $500 price point) that is not a consumer device, and I need it nine months ago. Too late now - up to my eyebrows in Apple iPad nonsense.
I have been working on a application that uses a dedicated tablet (iPad FFS, why does Apple hate developers so much? I spent thirty years away from them - how fantastic they used to be... I digress) I would really like to have complete control of the tablet that the users are out using - controlling millions and millions of dollars of assets and revenue - not have a consumer device with all the cruft that implies.
Whilst it is possible to strip capabilities off of a consumer device, as a developer I am not in control of it. The only confidence I can have in it is based on Apple's engineering, and as a developer I have a inside look at that, and it is not what it was (or seemed to a younger me thirty years ago).
Nice start, too little, too late - for me.
Reading your rant, I have no idea what your problem or requirements actually are. Why not buy $350 Surface Go tablets and put together a Linux image that runs on it?
I do not think that is a very good suggestion!
I am not familiar with the Linux Ecosystem, so I don't understand what this really means. Can someone please explain? Will any Linux apps run on it directly or do developers have to create separate apps just for the platform?
X is the display server on Linux for decades back, and XWayland is the compatibility layer for it built into the newer display server Wayland.
The default OS image that ships on the devices has their own touch UI shell which currently runs on EGLFS, which is basically an alternative to X or Wayland meant for embedded devices. So as it currently stands you can't run normal Linux apps in the default OS.
They're supposedly porting it to Wayland which will allow normal Linux applications to run within their custom shell. Their shell is a relatively straightforward Qt Quick application so it shouldn't take a huge amount of work to port. Though the most recent commit was a little over a year ago[1] so who knows when it'll actually get finished.
[1] https://github.com/cutiepi-io/cutiepi-shell/tree/wayland
[1]: https://www.seeedstudio.com/Raspberry-Pi-Compute-Module-CM41...
Care to elaborate a bit on why ? I have been using n for years at home and at my office without any problems. It seems much faster than b and g which I had before.
That being said the device actually supports WiFi 5, the page just seems to be out of date. Still only 1x1 though which is the bigger travesty.
Having said that it looks like a missed opportunity here for supplying the masses with a Linux device for learning purposes especially in the developing countries during the pandemic or not. I think the best price for this device is USD$100 as promised by the ill fated OLPC laptop project. Perhaps USD$100 is not much by developed countries standard incomes but in most part of developing countries you are very lucky to have USD$100 disposable income at the end of the month (or year) to buy your children a tablet/laptop/computer.
It also interesting to note that the 2019 Galaxy Tab A (without LTE) with similar specs (8", 2 GB RAM, etc) to the CutiePie is probably cost about USD$100 nowadays [1].
The good news is that since CutiePie is based on open hardware system perhaps someone can use the open design to come up with a cheaper version closer to the USD$100 price point[2].
p/s: RPi 400 costs about USD$100 but the fact it does not has a built-in screen limits it impacts on usability department for children
[1]https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_tab_a_8_0_(2019)-976...
(I am a backer, but I haven't received mine yet, so don't yet have an opinion on the product)
This team isn’t involved with the Raspberry Pi team. They’re just using it in their open source product.
Board photo from their GitHub shows version 2.0 with GPIO pins [1], but it looks like updated version 2.1 [2] ditched GPIO and put microphone in its place.
[1] https://camo.githubusercontent.com/1e615d82470b7e1dccbd18583...
(Disclaimer: I think the specs match, but the form factor of the laptop board might vary.)
- 30k mAh battery, instead of 5k
- use of RPi HQ camera (12 MP, not 5)
- 8 GB RAM (not 2) & a 1 TB NVMe SSD
Projected price for above components is ~ $350. I want to introduce them to Linux (they do everything on Windows for now) and by exposing the RPi's GPIO to also introduce them to robotics.
I sometimes use HQ Cam in the field and for now I use RPi 4 with 7" touchscreen and external power bank so this tablet would be great usability upgrade.
The CM4 is really small, should be possible to make something that's not a brick :) Not as svelte as some Android tablets no, but still better than this.
I wish my kids could take their online classes using this device instead of their phones.
Would be nice to load up on movies copied from DVDs I own for the kids to watch on road trips.
Could I get one and install Android on it?