I was excited, until I found out how much it costs..
For some time I have been looking a small screen that would be used for displaying various information. However, I don't want to build the hardware myself as I feel that the result might not be safe for 24/7 usage.
I've been checking digital photo frames, but have not found any solution which would allow updating the image directly and without requiring reverse engineering of an app or the device itself.
Inkplate[1] might be a good option for around 100€. Compared to Joan it's less polished. You can get 3d printed case and it requires some coding (it doesn't support rendering HTML).
I'm working on a personal dashboard for the screen. I'll create a website in React and then use rendertron[2] to get the screenshot on the Inkplate.
I've been using a first-generation iPad a digital photo frame. I use the LiveFrame [1] app, which still supports very old versions of iOS (9.5).
The iPad had just been sitting in my closet for a few years, since I couldn't update it to the latest version of iOS, and most apps stopped supporting it. I was about to throw it away before I had one last attempt at doing something useful with it. I'm really glad I found the LiveFrame app and was able to get it working.
It also has a web browser that can display almost any webpage (although it would probably struggle with the latest CSS features.) So you could show a dashboard web page to display some information.
I would recommend looking on eBay to see if there are any cheap iPads or Android tablets.
I built a small program which takes input from HomeAssistant (a smart home self-hostable platform) and draws it over some stills I extracted from this video [1] (with night/day change). The frame I'm using has a built-in FTP server, so a small Homeserver (which I'm running anyways) is used to upload the image to the frame in regular intervalls.
That was my take on it, after I got rid of my iPad - I used it as a display, and after 1.5 years of constantly being plugged in, the battery suddenly decided to inflate.
Finding cheaper solutions is tricky. I myself am not that strong in electronic engineering, so assembling my own small device is a no-go for me. But yes it would definitely be possible with a small LCD and rpi.
For some time I have been looking a small screen that would be used for displaying various information. However, I don't want to build the hardware myself as I feel that the result might not be safe for 24/7 usage.
I've been checking digital photo frames, but have not found any solution which would allow updating the image directly and without requiring reverse engineering of an app or the device itself.