
Getting started with Raspberry Pi – Building a Digital Photo Frame - jimmcslim
http://paulstamatiou.com/getting-started-raspberry-pi/
======
Animats
An E-ink digital photo frame you could reprogram and that ran on batteries
with a long life would be nice. Vikaura announced one in 2015, collected money
for a way oversubscribed Kickstarter, and then didn't ship. They're still
taking pre-orders with a ship date of August 2016. They last updated their
"news" on Feb 04, 2015, when the Kickstarter was funded. Looks like they took
the money and ran.[2]

Their address was 566 Alpha Drive, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At that address
now is a new startup called PowerHarvester. Hm.

[1] [http://www.vikaura.com/](http://www.vikaura.com/) [2]
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1658373341/vikaura-
scre...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1658373341/vikaura-screen-use-
your-smartphone-to-customize-yo/comments)

~~~
pjc50
The major problem is that colour e-ink displays don't seem to exist - the
nearest is
[http://www.eink.com/display_products_triton.html](http://www.eink.com/display_products_triton.html)
, which is a monochrome display with a TFT overlay to add the colour.

~~~
speps
They're coming :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2V9iuTW3sA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2V9iuTW3sA)

~~~
sondr3
That looked really awesome, I've been wanting something like that but I can
only imagine how expensive am e-ink display like that will cost.

~~~
Animats
Way too much.[1] $4700 for a 32 inch color E-ink display right now. $3600 for
black and white. $1000 for 13 inch b/w. Everything bigger than e-reader size
seems to be insanely expensive.

[1]
[https://www.visionect.com/development_kits](https://www.visionect.com/development_kits)

------
shriphani
Very cool! a couple of friends and I put this together for our living room:
[http://blog.shriphani.com/2016/08/03/a-frame-that-
listens/](http://blog.shriphani.com/2016/08/03/a-frame-that-listens/)

It is a pi + a condenser mic which generates visualizations in response to
sound.

~~~
princeverma
Amazing visualizations ! Care to detail how did you guys did that ? Is it open
source ?

~~~
zxcvgm
From the photos it looks like the display panel is driven by a Raspberry Pi.
Adafruit makes it relatively straightforward to build the hardware part [1],
now all that's left is the software that processes the audio and displays the
visualization.

[1] [https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-led-matrix-
display/o...](https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-led-matrix-
display/overview)

~~~
shriphani
Sorry I only just checked this HN thread.

The panels are from adafruit - there's 4 32x32 panels so you need a beefy PSU
to power them.

The visualizations listed there are:

1\. an STFT (this is simple to compute - look @ numpy.fft.rfft 2\. an energy
based vis - light up n pixels where n is proportional to the energy of the
frame (this is the integral of the function squared). 3\. another energy based
vis where if enough energy accumulates particles fall (acceleration
proportional to energy).

The code's super kludgy; I'll release it once it is cleaned up.

------
smartbit
Elderly people love, really enjoy, their Nixplay[0]. I call it "Facebook[1]
for grannies". Putting the names of people below the pictures helps people
with mild forms of dementia to repeat & remember the names of their beloved.

The Nixplay device is quite good, regretfully the UX of their website is
_horrendous_. And there I see a problem. If someone would build a selfhosted
version of "Facebook[1] for grannies" with an Raspberry PI: open source
projects are not known for their excellent UI/UX designs.

Time will come, and given the feedback I hear on the Nixplay, I expect that
one day we'll have these devices all over in houses of elderly, either
connected to a special screen or connected to the TV set.

[0] nixplay.com

[1] replace with Instagram, Flikr or your favorite photos sharing app/site

~~~
smacktoward
Yes yes yes. I've had the same experience with Nixplay in that scenario: the
device is loved, but the people who love it can never figure out how to load
new photos on it.

Part of the problem is that the web UI is as dire as you mention. Another part
is that in trying to be helpful, they offer ways to connect the thing up to a
dozen different photo services, but the sheer number of choices they present
ends up paralyzing non-technical folks who just want to _upload a damn photo._

They really need to concentrate on having dead simple iPhone/Android apps that
do one thing and one thing _only_ : take photos on your phone and push them to
your Nixplay. (Or integrate "Send to my Nixplay" as an option camera apps and
the like can tap into, via intents or whatever.) Do one thing really well
instead of a dozen things poorly.

~~~
smartbit
> take photos on your phone and push them to your Nixplay.

Good you mention the Apps, I forgot. Indeed the app is quite useless and how
difficult could it be to have a Send To action? With an option to add comment,
like in WhatsApp.

Indeed, do one thing good and skip the rest or offer one alternative like
email. Also focus on a single device per logon with a single watch list. Given
the number of complaints on their forums they don't listen and it is just a
matter of time for (self hosted) alternatives to appear.

------
spdustin
I've been meaning to do this sort of thing for a while, and after reading the
comments here, I've decided to _embrace the glow_ from the display when I make
my frame. Using a strip of addressable LEDs, you can emit a glow around the
frame that extends the colors visible along the edges of the photograph beyond
the frame, like the old Philips Ambilight.

Here's one Instructable I found with one idea for an Ambilight clone:

[http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-your-own-Ambilight-
clo...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-your-own-Ambilight-clone-with-
the-Raspberry-/)

~~~
hellweaver666
> old Philips Ambilight?

Nothing old about Ambilight, they still make those screens (and now powered by
LED's they are better than they ever were). They also integrate with Hue
lights as well so that your whole room can react to the screen (which in
practice is pretty naff, but if you have an ambilight TV and Hue lights you'll
probably try it at least once with Finding Nemo) :)

------
jonathankoren
Not to knock this project, which seems well executed, but I'm always a bit
ambivalent about digital frames. Sure it's kind of neat to to be able to have
changing images, or at least be able to easily push new images to the frame,
but they're always so impractical.

You either have a wire you have to hide, or you have to remember to charge the
frame regularly. All that costs energy. Then of course it's always backlit,
which seems odd. Do I really want a glowing rectangle on my walls? Not really.
It kind of kills the vibe. Perhaps eink would be better, but beating dyed
paper is hard.

~~~
peterclary
Clay Bavor addressed that problem using photodiodes so that the picture never
seemed brighter than the surroundings. It really helped sell that it was a
normal picture.

[https://www.claybavor.com/?p=407](https://www.claybavor.com/?p=407)

~~~
PStamatiou
That's really cool!

------
jsingleton
Displaying a full screen web page on a Raspberry Pi is such a common use case,
I'm surprised there isn't built-in support. Something really lightweight based
on RISC OS (like NOOBS is) would be great.

I wrote up some of the options at [https://unop.uk/adding-basic-
authentication-to-screenly-ose](https://unop.uk/adding-basic-authentication-
to-screenly-ose) but they all seem to run on a full Rasbian stack.

~~~
Jaruzel
If I were to write this I think I'd go down this route:

1\. Micro kernel with just file,net,graphics support

2\. Fetch data via sockets (can be http, but not restricted to)

3\. Parse the data for layout info and data values

4\. build a frame buffer in memory, and place data (images/text) accordingly

5\. write frame to display

6\. sleep

7\. goto #2

Any ready to roll *nix distro is WAY too heavyweight for the above, so a
custom OS or even mini-distro is definitely the way to go.

~~~
pjc50
What benefit do you gain from doing all the trimming work?

~~~
jsingleton
I would imagine better performance and a lower boot time. NOOBS boots far
faster than Raspbian and still has full networking.

You also get less artefacts if the system is designed for this purpose. You
are less likely to see cursors, modal dialogue boxes, crash
dumps/notifications, window chrome/frame or other unwanted UI elements.
Admittedly, this is more a problem with Windows (for example, BSODs and
Windows 10 upgrade pestering). I regularly notice public display screens where
something is broken in this way.

Perhaps the latest browsers don't support RISC OS though, which could be an
issue for very modern sites. It looks like this idea is for a frame buffer
approach so you could render the page in the cloud and just push the resulting
image. It would be sensible to have a local cache anyway in case the network
dies.

------
monochromatic
I hate that it's so hard to find a high-resolution display with a suitable
aspect ratio for photos. 16:10 is way too wide.

~~~
Tempest1981
Some 4:3 possibilities:
[http://www.ebay.com/bhp/15-monitor](http://www.ebay.com/bhp/15-monitor)

~~~
Uberphallus
Except most photography formats are 3:2.

~~~
peterclary
Just mask off some of the display and size your images to the remaining area?
Ideally you want the cardboard matting flush to the surface of the screen
anyway.

------
Sn4p
fantastic project! I have wanted to do something like this for a while.. think
I will try to copy yours a bit :-) all we need now are a sensor to turn off/on
automatic depending on people in the room or not.

Advanced bonus points:

1) (simpler version), connect to a calendar service, and match photos to
calendar. (e.g. you have a visit from your brother on saturday, so show photos
of him and your kids that day).

2) (more advanced), use a camera to recognize people in the room, and base
photos on these (I can these the perfect host mode, where a perfect host would
find photos from the basement and put on mantelpiece before a friend come to
visit, making that person feel special).

so many thins that could be cool here!

------
jablan
Does it really have to be such high resolution display? I gather that, as the
observer gets further from the display (and this is a photo frame, usually
looked at from afar), the resolution gets less and less important.

~~~
mark-r
Sometimes you just want to get close and admire something.

~~~
PStamatiou
And sometimes I like geeking out and going overkill with my projects and as a
photographer just had to get a high-dpi display even if it's not needed :)

------
shakeel_mohamed
Interesting timing, I actually want to do this with my Pi (but wired). The
only thing holding me back is the cost of the display - any suggestions for a
cheaper non-touch display?

~~~
bpye
I have used other displays from BuyDisplay but not their larger panels,
however they have a 1024x600 10" panel for <50$ which should work, if you can
live with that resolution.

[http://www.buydisplay.com/default/10-1-inch-raspberry-pi-
scr...](http://www.buydisplay.com/default/10-1-inch-raspberry-pi-screen-w-
hdmi-video-vga-driver-board-1024x600)

I would be perhaps tempted to instead look for an old Android tablet. If you
could get a 2013 Nexus 7 or some 10" tablet with a decent screen it might be a
cheaper and easier way to do it. USB power + either some Android app or
depending upon the device you might be able to run a different Linux distro on
it. Looks like the Linx 10 goes pretty cheap sometimes too.

~~~
shakeel_mohamed
Thanks for the link! I want something for my desk, so I can try using my old
Nexus 4. Maybe I can live with the 5" display since it won't cost me anything

------
jaboutboul
you don't even need to run the gui and do all the greaskmonkey stuff, its
overkill. just set up fbida
([https://www.kraxel.org/cgit/fbida/](https://www.kraxel.org/cgit/fbida/)) its
available packaged in most distros and you can set up the slideshow right
through the command line using the framebuffer to show the images. I've built
several picture frames this way.

------
Mao_Zedang
This is a really nice site, something about the design.

~~~
trickjarrett
Considering he works for Twitter on their design team, he's got a pretty good
eye for it

~~~
Mao_Zedang
It looks nicer on the eye than twitter.

------
NhanH
I've wanted to build something similar lately for an always on ... todo list
(mostly because I'm trying to make a habit of looking at todo list). I'm
looking for some screen with similar size of a bit bigger than 10", with a
caveat it has NO backlight. Can anyone suggest a screen like that? E-ink would
be even better.

~~~
pcl
I can -- I've been working on something that closely matches that description.
Will reach out to you 1:1.

------
chidea
How about it with gif animation?
[https://github.com/chidea/FBpyGIF](https://github.com/chidea/FBpyGIF)

------
LAMike
This project is awesome. The stand that came with the screen made it seem like
a good desktop option too

------
mschuster91
Nice! I wonder whether it 'd be possible to use the RPi's DSI connector
instead of HDMI?

~~~
Uberphallus
I don't think I've seen an actual real screen using the DSI connector yet.

------
Tempest1981
Any software suggestions for displaying photos from a local network share, or
DLNA?

------
SubiculumCode
Nice write-up...gave me some ideas, although I am still new to my raspberry
pie.

------
yingnansong
This is impressive! Good job!

------
stop1234
Images broken on the site...

Edit: now working...

------
honzajde
Inexpensive Pi, Expensive display, expensive solution. I don't get it. At
least made you happy.

~~~
FilterSweep
Displays can always be used for other purposes, as well. And, with 4K only
being marginally better at certain viewing distances for its price point[0],
there is plenty of time where this display can be reused. Most other
components can also be reused. I bought a 24" display to set up a RPI gaming
rig and now that I don't have time to play with it anymore, I may reuse this
display as an "RPI Home Digital Assistant" (future project which I'll probably
never get around to implementing).

My only concern is power expenditure - I have minimal knowledge of kWh price
of using such a display.

But all in all, some people really like these DIY projects - and others don't.
Nothing wrong with that!

[0] [http://i.rtings.com/images/resolution-4k-ultra-hd-
chart.png](http://i.rtings.com/images/resolution-4k-ultra-hd-chart.png)

