Badges, even those featuring E Ink displays, aren’t anything new. They are a dime a dozen, with lots of people having made those in the past. That, of course, hasn’t deterred DIY artist Pablo Trujillo from coming up with his own version of an E Ink badge. After all, it is always fun making one from scratch.
Coming to the details, the badge, as Hackster.io mentioned, comes with a 2.9-inch four-color e-paper display module having a 296 x 128 pixels resolution. Four colors should be enough for a badge that is designed to show information such as your name, the company you are working for, your designation, and so on. The advantage here is that you can always customize the badge to show the information that you’d like to.
Opting for an E Ink display has its own advantages, prime among which is its ability to maintain an image without drawing any power in the process. It is this quality of e-paper displays that makes it perfect for use in a badge. You will be required to change the content only sparingly, like when your designation changes or you join a different company altogether.
Things are a bit different when the badge is going to be used for those attending a conference or a meeting. In that case, there are going to be temporary badges allotted, and the entire content will be changed once the same badge is provided to another set of employees. Regardless, the use of E Ink display makes the most logical choice given its exceptional power efficiency.
Further adding to the power-saving capabilities is the Raspberry Pi RP2040, which serves as the core of the badge. Further, Pablo opted for the Arduino IDE for developing the firmware of the badge. This makes for the most ideal option given how Arduino IDE is compatible with both Raspberry Pi and E Ink displays. Also, it being an open-source project, just about anyone with a DIY mindset can build their own version of the badge.
