It is extremely important for each of us to maintain order – that is why creator and developer Jehon Shim put together this amazing Raspberry Pi-working organizational system. Using one of our favorite microcontrollers, Raspberry Pi Pico Whe developed a stand-alone calendar display that outputs data to Pimoroni’s low-power Inky Frame display panel. Shim named his custom creation Ink panel.
This organizer comes with several features and can be modified and customized depending on which programs you want to sync it with. Shim also decided to make the project completely open source, meaning you can make it yourself, send it to a friend, or just dig into the source code to see how it works. It is built around Pimoroni. ink framewhich we really liked when we had a chance to review it, but you can replace it with a different panel with a little effort.
According to Shim, the panel is programmed to automatically update every half hour. Since this is an e-ink display, the latest update will remain on the screen even if the device is unplugged. It’s designed to work with several different apps, including Todoist, a to-do list app, as well as various calendars such as Google Calendar or MicrosoftProspects.
The main board that powers the operation is a Raspberry Pi Pico W, which is soldered to the PCB of the surface mount frame. The exact Inky Frame model that Shim implemented is a 7.3-inch version that supports 7 colors. This is ideal for the organizer as it allows appointments to be differentiated at a glance.
The display interface was developed using the Light and Versatile Embedded Graphics Library (or LVGL for short). Shim also created a server that runs separately from Pico to access various applications and collect data for Pico. Pico simply needs to connect to the server periodically to receive data and update the organizer. This code has also been made open source and can be found at GitHub.
If you want to take a closer look raspberry pi projectgo to Ink panel project page where you can find assembly instructions as well as a full list of features. Be sure to follow Shim to stay updated on all future updates to this handy Pico organizer.