During the Corona lockdown, my old school colleague Lukas came up with the idea of developing a simple and beautiful e-paper display with a matching app – Inklay. Almost four years later, he has his side project ready to be purchased commercially. In the last few weeks I was able to be a beta tester and provide various feedback and input, especially to optimize the display of the PV system on the display.
Inklay – technical data
Two variants in appearance: Walnut and oak E-Ink display with 1200 x 825 pixel resolution 9.7″ screen diagonal with 16 gray levels Dimensions: 179mm (height) x 242.4mm (width) x 13.3mm (depth) Power supply via 3x AAA NiMH batteries or USB-C Inklay – beautiful e-paper display with a wood look
Furnishings
To set up the Inklay display, I inserted three rechargeable batteries from IKEA, 3xAAA are required. To set it up you also need the appropriate Inklay app from the App Store and you first have to create an account in it. You can then connect the Inklay display to this, which is very easy to do using the pairing button. This and other buttons, as well as the batteries, are hidden behind the magnetic wooden cover. After connecting, you can give the display your own name and select the desired display or app that should be displayed on the inklay.
Magnetic cover for the e-paper display
Inklay Apps
Currently Inklay offers 4 apps. On the one hand, there is the simple display of your own images – they are displayed as a slideshow in 16 shades of gray. Direct rendering of a targeted website is also possible and then two interactive apps are added. The connection to the Strava platform allows you to view certain statistics and a weather forecast, which was the original motivation for the developer. The other interactive app that I was involved in is the display of the most important key data and dashboard of the PV system via Solar Manager as a data provider.
Inklay as Strava view
Solar Manager Integration
I found the idea of using a beautiful display with low power consumption to display your own PV system and consumption data extremely exciting. Accordingly, it made sense to directly use the data from the Solar Manager platform as a leading company in self-consumption optimization in Switzerland. In the settings of the Inklay app you can log in to Solar Manager and then set how often the display should update. I currently have the display refreshed every 15 minutes, with longer cycles the battery life naturally increases. If you have the display connected to a USB-C power supply, you can have an update done every 15 minutes – longer cycles are possible in pure battery operation. With hourly updates, the display lasts 7 weeks on battery power.
All important PV data at a glance – Inklay
Solar Manager customers are certainly familiar with the daily dashboard with production and consumption data. In the upper area of the inklay, the most important data on the current production, consumption and charge level of the battery are immediately visible. I find the lower quarter of the display particularly successful, which clearly shows the values of the last 7 days. For me it is a great added value to be able to easily see this data in the living room.
The production data from the last 7 days always at a glance
Conclusion
Such projects, which arise from personal use, are often developed with a lot of heart and passion. This project created a really beautiful display with the Inklay, which can also be ideally placed on a wall thanks to its slim design and battery operation – the beautiful wood look also increases the acceptance factor in the household. This means that the wife and kids can also see more often what is happening energetically in the house. If I need more details, I can always use my smartphone. I see the biggest advantage over alternative displays in the E-ink technology and the associated battery operation. It should be obvious to everyone that a small series of something like this costs more than an industrially manufactured product, but for me it is something that is worth the price.
The inklay can be ordered directly from the developer for CHF 250.