Beyond 6 Colors: Exploring Dithering on Spectra 6-color E-Ink Displays

I have tested the XIAO ePaper DIY Kit (ESP32-S3) - EE04 from Seeed Studio in depth. While its 6-color Spectra 6 display is impressive out of the box, I wanted to see if software could overcome hardware limitations. In this post, I’ll share how I’ve pushed this hardware to its limits by using dithering techniques to simulate an entirely new range of color tones and shades. This post is divided into the following sections: Hardware Analysis How SPECTRA 6 E-INK Works The Challenge of SPECTRA 6 Conclusion Hardware Analysis The hardware is composed of two elements. The first one is the controller board. It features several push buttons, an ON/OFF switch and a charging circuit to power the device via battery and charge…

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Project: Developing an E-Paper Dashboard with Arduino and the reTerminal E1001 (Step-by-Step Guide)

Thanks to the good reception of the previous post, where I described my project of an e-ink dashboard to visualize events and weather using the E1001 terminal from SeeedStudio, in this guide, I will explain step-by-step how to flash your own customized terminal. Additionally, I'll leave a few links in case you haven't acquired the terminal yet. LINK: [https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c39JPkAd]  [https://www.seeedstudio.com/reTerminal-E1001-p-6534.html?sensecap_affiliate=roDgS6q&referring_service=link] SeeedStudio link with discount applied at the end.  If you haven't seen my previous post, I recommend reading it: I explain good design practices that can be very useful for future embedded systems engineering projects. https://myembeddedstuff.com/dashboard-arduino-e1001 1. Installing the Arduino IDE We need the IDE to compile the code and adapt it to your Google Calendar, location, and other parameters. Guide and download…

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Project: Developing an E-Paper Dashboard with Arduino and the reTerminal E1001

I've always wanted a device at home for a long time that would let me see at a glance, every morning while I have my coffee, what I need: the weather, my upcoming events, and some sensor data. I tried several solutions until I discovered a device that was perfect for this purpose. It saved me a lot of time in hardware development and was fully customizable to suit my needs. I'd like to share the development of my small project using the reTerminal E1001 e-paper display hardware from Seeed Studio. In this post, I will discuss the display's hardware, how I used the Arduino IDE to program it, the architectural schematic I followed, and the tools I used for the graphical design. I…

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Getting Started with ESP32: ESP-IDF GitHub Examples Explained

INTRODUCTION When I started working with the ESP32 and its ESP-IDF framework, I found myself stuck and facing numerous problems when trying to develop even the most basic tasks: How do you initialize an I2C bus? How do you program a periodic timer? All of these questions kept coming up until I discovered how to make use of the documentation provided and look at simple examples to learn how to perform the most basic tasks with ESP-IDF, and then scale my project from there. Keep reading to find out how to get started with ESP-IDF in a practical way. INSTALLATION (You can skip this section if you’re already familiar with it.) The first step is to install ESP-IDF using the IDE you prefer.…

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