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Thanks for the feedback. There are other general purposes ePaper devices out there meeting that need (TRMNL comes to mind). I wanted something smaller for my desk that looked like a cockpit instrument. That's why I created this.

I am curious to see if there is more general use demand for this form factor.

I created an ESP32 driven weather display for pilots that looks like a cockpit instrument. The goal was to move METAR off the phone screen and onto the desk where it is always visible. It’s a dedicated, "always-on" desk accessory that fetches real-time aviation weather and renders it onto a high-contrast e-paper display. It also has a quiz mode to help student pilots learn and test METAR decoding.

Jumpseaters: Adding Personality to the Data Raw METARs can be dry, so I implemented a feature called Jumpseaters. These are selectable personality profiles that transform the device into an opinionated flight crew.

Instead of just seeing "OVC001," you might get a report from Downwind Donnie, who sarcastically judges your "personal minimums," or Checkride Charlie, a virtual DPE who delivers weather updates with the uncomfortable silence. It was a fun to map these "personalities" to specific weather triggers in the firmware.

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The Technical Details

Controller: ESP32-S3. I chose this for the native USB support and the power efficiency needed for long-term deep sleep.

Display: 4.2" E-Paper. It uses an open-source library https://github.com/martinberlin/CalEPD

Power: Deep sleep cycles keep the current draw low, allowing it to run for weeks on a small LiPo. I am continuing to optimize the power usage because I feel I can get it to last many months even after the daily screen refreshes.

Tech Stack: ESP-IDF/C++ for the microcontroller. Flutter/Dart for the iOS/Android mobile apps. Nextjs for the website and API.

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I have learned a lot about hardware devices during this process. It has been fun programming for the E-paper display. It has it's own unique challenges because of the nature of the technology (seconds for each refresh vs. refreshes/second for traditional screens). I really enjoy when it refreshes.

The Kickstarter is live and 38% funded with 15-days to go. One thing I wish I had done a lot more of is prelaunch marketing. Ads now have had good conversion driving to the Kickstarter page, but the volume takes time.

On the same prelaunch theme, the other major lesson learned is that I wish I had asked for more feedback publicly (I do have early testers, but all local) and shared more before working on the Kickstarter. Once you say Kickstarter, all the mods put it in the commercial category and don't allow posting ANYTHING related to it.

Check it out at https://papermetar.com or https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/charlie29r/papermetar

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46800206

Points: 1

# Comments: 3

I uninstalled the macOS beta app and reinstalled the stable version. It seems to be working fine for the last day or so.

I use browser extension in Edge on macOS. I am on a page signing up for a new website and want to save credentials. It doesn't. Keeps erroring out. Disabling and re-enabling extension, and then refreshing the tab finally fixes it. I reached out to customer support and they told me to sign out to force refresh the cache. I did it, but the problem wasn't fixed.

1Password needs to fix the bugs that their customers are already reporting, instead of alienating their users with telemetry. I don't think the learnings from telemetry will be worth the damage it will cause to their brand.

  Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago. The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall;

At the same time, depending on how the business is doing, some investors might look for exits too instead of plateau or later raising another round. So, it could be both.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22604648

Points: 2

# Comments: 5

I only have one, but I have heard that a second one could be a hit or miss. In some cases, it will help fix the first one, but in other cases it has resulted in getting spoiled itself.