My second MagicMirror, this time on Epaper frame

[uros76]

After good success with my first MM, I decided to try and use MM software for something different.
The initial inspiration for my second MM came from this post.

Once I started to order the parts I didn’t know how big of an issue will be the epaper screen. The 7.5" sized epaper from waveshare comes in v2 format which has increased resolution. It’s hard to get the v1 model in this size (with lower resolution) and I thought the higher resolution will help me anyway.
Unfortunately, the v2 epaper screen comes with a bad HAT module which doesn’t work when used with RPi 0. I spent hours trying to adjust scripts and debug but in the end, waveshare support confirmed there is a problem with HAT module. The shop where I bought the epaper screen did some fixes on the HAT module but that didn’t help entirely. I was getting random hangs of screen refresh scripts, regardless if it’s Python or C.
Anyway, the problem is not resolved and now I waiting for the shop to potentially replace the HAT module or the whole epaper+hat set. In the meantime, I managed to get it working the way I want with a temporary solution of adding a reboot script into crontab after every screen refresh. Not ideal at all but it works for the moment.

Parts used:

• Raspberry Pi Zero running Pi OS Lite (without desktop environment)
• Waveshare 7.5" B/W Epaper Screen v2 list item(don’t recommend using this one, go for a different model with Rpi 0)
• Custom made wooden picture frame
• USB-C power supply

Modules used:

• Clock, Calendar, Currentweather, Newsfeed
• MMM-Jast
• MMM-SunRiseSet

All in all still happy with how it turned out. I am using it on the main work desk to show me some basic data. Data is refreshed on an hourly basis. And best of all power usage is tiny and has no backlight.

[sdetweil]

@uros76 very cool…

[Davepre]

@uros76 This looks great! For anyone interested in more/similar e-paper projects theres one called InkyCal here that looked interesting as well. InkyCal on Reddit

The reddit isn’t the most active, but discord is

[uros76]

@davepre thanks for the hint. Wasn’t aware of InkyCal, will try it one day. But, I see it requires full Pi OS Desktop which is heavy on Pi Zero.

[Davepre]

@uros76 Thats actually a very good point. I did not realise that. I really like what you’ve done with this. Would love to build one myself

[sdetweil]

@uros76 mm also requires full desktop. pi 0 or not

[uros76]

@sdetweil not really. I have it running desktop-less on my Pi Zero W.
There are some scripts behind that run virtual browser and take screenshot of it. It’s described in the link above that inspired me to do this.