PaPiRus e-ink display for the Raspberry Pi – a couple of reviews

Apologies for the lack of blog posts this week. There are reasons, most of which are too boring to get into! Anyway…

The PaPiRus e-paper HAT for the Raspberry Pi was a pretty successful Kickstarter, raising over £36k. The screen comes in three sizes and you can now get the product from the Pi Supply website from £30 up to £65. Well, shipping of the Kickstarter pledges has now happened and, therefore, people are starting to get hold of them.

Both Pete Scargill and the writer for Makerspace have written about their experiences with the board. To summarise: the quality of the board is good but the documentation is lacking and the software needs a lot of work. Currently, people are having to follow these instructions from Frederick Vandenbosch to have any joy with it. Judging by the comments on the Kickstarter, everyone is having the same problem so hopefully mentioning Frederick’s work here will point people in the right direction.

Without being hyper-critical (with all the negative comments on the Kickstarter, it doesn’t need me to add to it) let me just say this: There’s no point in having a beautiful product if the software is no good.

12 comments for “PaPiRus e-ink display for the Raspberry Pi – a couple of reviews

  1. That problem with the software have been known since last july when i first mentioned it 🙂 , a couple of other s/w problems have been fixed but that one was a PITA to start with. The hardware is great though and i’ve seen s/w in a much worse state from a KS before so i’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they will improve in future and get around to fixing the source on github sooner rather than later

    • Definitely true that the software and lack of guide is a huge pain point. We are fully aware of that and are working to get it sorted asap.

      Trying to keep our heads above water at the moment, as well as push ahead with PiJuice manufacture. But we haven’t forgotten PaPiRus!

      • Try to go on Kickstarter and post a comment/update before things get out of control. Doesn’t need to be much, just a sign of life. It’s been almost two weeks and at this stage, silence could probably do more harm than acknowledging the problems and saying you’re working on them.

        • Yes, I agree that more comment indicating the status. I ordered the PiJuice and dispite my comments for information nd contacts on thier Site absolutely no remarks at all. In fact I am thinking of
          bailing out and getting Kickstarter to intervien …again.

          This no information policy is deadly for a yound company.

    • Looking at that web page you mentioned, I’ll be able to make (some) progress with it this weekend. I’ll let you know how it goes.

  2. Fair review.

    We’ve managed to get it working, with Frederick’s blog, the papirus Github issue 3 and additional notes on the Github wiki. Not straight forward yet.

    The pogo pin, when soldered in, aligns to the reset point on the Pi so the board can wake the Pi. Software examples for alarm clock or periodic monitoring are still needed.

    • Hi Nick,

      Can you open a GitHub issue about the missing alarm clock and periodic monitoring code?

      Would be really helpful for us to keep track of everything 🙂

      Thanks

  3. @Aaron.

    Frederick – will do

    Bonzadog – are you referring to PaPiRus or PiJuice here?

    I did write “The PiJuice”.
    I really hope you change your information policy – marketing is very important. I can take delays but cannot accept no information.

  4. @ Bonzadog – what information are you after? We have been updating the Kickstarter regularly. Have you looked at the updates?

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