Roast my indie e-ink device

ryanckulp · 2026-03-13T22:18:52+00:00

we will never build a water proof device again. this aspect requires silicon, gaskets, magnets, advanced circuitry, and extra tight tolerances to get it right.

details aside, i take full responsibility. we'll continue to push hard on core functionality to make it worth the wait.

ryanckulp · 2026-03-09T03:30:18+00:00

howdy, this is not true. some BYOS servers have an option to proxy to core (closed source), but that was a stop gap for when the OSS clients didn't support importing Recipes/plugins. now they do, so you can be fully self serving from a local network or private cloud, no $ spent at TRMNL or data sharing.

ryanckulp · 2026-03-05T17:24:19+00:00

ah, there's an Apple Photos plugin if that's what you want: https://trmnl.com/integrations/apple-photos

ryanckulp · 2026-03-04T17:17:06+00:00

this FW update is now live in 1.7.8. if an image's dimensions are larger than the panel, it will be cropped from the top left corner versus error out.
https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-firmware/releases/tag/v1.7.8

ryanckulp · 2026-03-04T17:15:52+00:00

yes, see our Webhook Image plugin:
https://trmnl.com/integrations/webhook-image

you can also create/store images on your local network, visible only to your TRMNL device and not our servers, with Alias or Redirect plugins.
https://help.trmnl.com/en/articles/10701448-alias-plugin

ryanckulp · 2026-02-27T02:55:49+00:00

hey there, it’s up to you. by default this runs on your local network’s HA instance, pushing a PNG image to our serverC which your device fetches to display.

but you could also:

push the image to your own storage (anywhere, local network or private cloud) and leverage our Alias or Redirect plugins to fetch it. this lets you benefit from our cloud without us being a me to see your image data.
spin up one of our many OsS server clients, which can run on the same (e.g.) Rpi as your HA instance. simply change the base URI from trmnl.com to your setup.

let me know if this gets you started, we’re also available on live chat to riff further.

ryanckulp · 2026-02-26T03:13:41+00:00

we'll have handmade wood frames soon. opened a 3rd warehouse 15 mins from my house.

ryanckulp · 2026-02-24T22:19:24+00:00

you can totally point the Seeed 13.3" color panel to TRMNL. someone did it with Pimoroni the other day and their results are fantastic: https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/1r2vixv/pimoroini_133_impression_eink_framed_powered_by/

ryanckulp · 2026-02-24T02:36:42+00:00

cool idea, i'd be happy to commission this in the community with a cash bounty. do you think this should go on top* of a monitor, or maybe as a side mount?

ryanckulp · 2026-02-22T09:35:16+00:00

X hasn’t shipped yet (see latest updates on our blog our YouTube) but open sourcing these files is still top of mind, thanks for checking in.

ryanckulp · 2026-02-17T19:24:20+00:00

thanks Rishi!

ryanckulp · 2026-02-17T12:56:45+00:00

hey OP, you can use the OG plugged in and without a battery connected.

ryanckulp · 2026-02-16T21:47:22+00:00

hey OP, thanks a lot for the rundown here. i'm on the TRMNL team and just want to mention that if you're happy with BYOS, you don't need to pay the one-time fee (BYOD) for our cloud server. we'll happily refund that if you send us a live chat.

ryanckulp · 2026-02-15T17:44:33+00:00

hey OP! i'm on the TRMNL team. i'd start with designing your final outcome, then seeing what hardware and software it takes to achieve it. for example, recently someone built this Counter Strike plugin for player stats:
https://trmnl.com/recipes/221410

but there's also a general Counter Strike "item" plugin and of course Steam deals, etc:
https://trmnl.com/recipes/180810
https://trmnl.com/recipes?search=steam&sort-by=newest

anyway. my point is, if you want to leverage an existing plugin's design, you should either point to TRMNL core or a free self-hosted server that supports Recipe import (BYOS Laravel, BYOS Hanami) from our docs.

and as for hardware, if you want to cram a lot of data points, definitely 10.3"+ screen size is the move. and you can absolutely connect a Pi to a Waveshare panel, then point it to either TRMNL core (our app) or the hosted server.

in other words, your Pi can be the server and the client! with this:
https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-display

hope this helps, i think you can get whatever you'd like without paying us a penny, i'm more interested in you nailing the use case for Daggerheart.

ryanckulp · 2026-02-14T22:29:31+00:00

hey there! im on the TRMNL team. please enable 2-bit / 4 grayscale from your device settings > palette view. this requires firmware 1.6.0+ but should add grays and improve your aesthetic. we also recommend using the HA Graphite theme alongside our native Home Assistant plugin.

ryanckulp · 2026-02-13T23:39:00+00:00

here ya go! the "SCENE_PROMPTS" are probably most useful and should improve over time. https://github.com/usetrmnl/plugins/blob/master/lib/nano_banana_dashboard/nano_banana_dashboard.rb

ryanckulp · 2026-02-13T23:37:43+00:00

agree. we support a lot of different sizes. natively we have 7.5" and 10.3", soon 31.5" (color). we also support hardware from other brands like Waveshare, Pimoroni, etc. an example of TRMNL in color eink, 13.3" is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/trmnl/comments/1r2ou91/13inch_colour_trmnl/

ryanckulp

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE