Kindle as a motorcycle dashboard?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

What you want has been done before, and it won't be hard to duplicate. You'll need a Rasp Pi or some other SBC, and a Kindle:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...bike-comupter/

I remember that one. Totally neat idea.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by elektrinis

Hi.

I am working on a nice electric motorcycle project and we are looking for an awesome instrument cluster display. E-paper (with backlight) would be a nice touch.

We can go in two ways with this:
1. buy a kindle and throw everything away, except display, backlight and touch. Obviously that would involve a design of new motherboard. Not too big a deal, but still.
2. buy a kindle, throw only the enclosure away, leave all the electronics.That would give as a running OS and possibly a good head start to create our dash app.

The main concern is about the display. I know there is a sequence to change pixel color, however, since we would only need black&white and would do segmented components (like a 7-segment digit display for speed), we would not mind any leftover shadows on the edges at all, it could be a design element...
So the question is: is it possible to get reasonably good refresh rates (200ms) when only few components are changed, and can it be done without the usual flickering? Is it possible in hardware at all, and if so, does the OS/drivers allow it? I believe our choice of options depends on that.
Thanks.

Hi. I noticed the little tiffs and wanted to comment.
In all actuality: black and white are NOT colors.
Black is all colors together and white is the absence of all colors.
In technology and art, there is a big difference between "black & white"(grayscale) and colors. Always has been. When I was growing up, the TV in my room was a black & white, the living room TV was in color.
Sorry but the resident crafter had to check in.
Note: even today some older movies are listed as black and white.
So yes, one does need to be specific when trying to do something technical.

As to backlight and frontlight,
They also work totally different. Again, it helps to be specific if doing something technical.

Otherwise, it turns into a battle of did you mean this or that because this and that are two wildly different things.
Good luck with your project.

[issybird]

I've deleted one comment for rudeness that had nothing at all constructive to say, but I'd like to ask most of the participants here to take a deep breath and chill a little. Back and forth nitpicking achieves nothing.

[elektrinis]

After some more reading now I see that it is possible to write custom code for some of the devices, like Kindle. Of course the coding is very ugly (Java), but it is doable, which is good news.

Now I was looking for a 5" e-reader and could not find at least one with lighted display (I hope I say it right this time). All lighted ones I found are 6" or larger...
Also what about bluetooth? Not a very common thing on these devices I see. Is it available at least on 6" devices?

[Cinisajoy]

If I remember right, the old Kobos had Bluetooth but I don't think any of the new ones do.
Now you have me curious. What would you connect to the dashboard with the Bluetooth?

[elektrinis]

A phone. To do smart watch thing. Or at least show who's calling (the headset is in the helmet).

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by elektrinis

Now I was looking for a 5" e-reader and could not find at least one with lighted display (I hope I say it right this time). All lighted ones I found are 6" or larger...
Also what about bluetooth? Not a very common thing on these devices I see. Is it available at least on 6" devices?

No one is currently making anything smaller than 6" with a frontlight.

I know some of the Android based devices, such as Onyx, have Bluetooth. Others that might, I'm not sure ATM, would be Boyue and possibly PocketBook (which is linux based).

[Glorfindel]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

In all actuality: black and white are NOT colors.
Black is all colors together and white is the absence of all colors.

Actually white is all colors reflected, and black is all colors absorbed