Valve open source the Steam Machine e-ink screen so you can make your own

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aahlCVA about 3 hours ago 31 commentsRead Article on gamingonlinux.com

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Discussion (31 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

RataNova•about 2 hours ago

I wish more hardware companies treated these kinds of optional add-ons as something the community can run with instead of either productizing them badly or locking them away completely...

dgellow•about 3 hours ago

In case you're wondering and don't want to click around, the display is a standard Adafruit 5.83'' eInk panel: https://www.adafruit.com/product/6397

whatisthiseven•about 1 hour ago

Anyone know what the refresh rate for these displays are, at least with the stock firmware? Reading the datasheets didn't help, though maybe I didn't know what to look for.

Rebelgecko•3 minutes ago

Partial refresh on these can often be surprisingly fast, even when full refresh takes seconds

embedding-shape•39 minutes ago

Data sheet seems to say (Page 8 -https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/product-files/6397/P6397+C2226...):

> Image update time - 25 ºC - - 4 - sec

I'm guessing you could probably push that somewhat by going beyond the specifications, would wager a guess how far though.

claudex•32 minutes ago

The datasheet says 4 seconds for the image update time. However, I didn't found the time for partial refresh.

gunalx•42 minutes ago

Probable seconds per frame at least.

Neywiny•about 1 hour ago

Assume slow

orbital-decay•26 minutes ago

Is it even useful as a faceplate? An active display would be way more accurate at displaying hardware stats when the machine loses power.

cubefox•2 minutes ago

That's an interesting case of a display being off actually indicating something ("loss of power") which can't be replicated with a bistable screen.

On the other hand, you probably don't want that glow of an active screen all the time. Status LEDs are annoying enough.

anticorporate•about 2 hours ago

I'd love to see an easy guide to doing this with the Framework Desktop form factor. I didn't buy any of the silly little squares for the front of mine since I figured I could 3D print some later, but six months in still haven't gotten around to it.

phren0logy•about 2 hours ago

Same, but the front is important for airflow in the Framework Desktop, so I don't think covering it with an e-ink screen would work. But maybe with some space between the screen and the fan intake?

RataNova•about 2 hours ago

A little e-ink status tile for temps, build status, now playing, or just a static label would be much more interesting than most decorative inserts

foax•about 2 hours ago

This is so cool! Coincidentally, I'm currently building something in a similar vein that pushes system metrics out to an Android app so an old phone or tablet can be used as a case screen. The app has widget plugins that expose a repo of metrics received and a GL surface, that can then be used to display fancy visualisations.

Check it out here: https://github.com/xfoa/humours. It's not finished yet, but the basic functionality works. It just has one widget at the moment that draws a spinning cube with temps, etc.

RataNova•about 1 hour ago

The main thing I'd worry about is long-term reliability

romaniv•about 2 hours ago

"Valve will not be making and providing their own e-ink display for the Steam Machine"

Too bad. The picture in the articles looks awesome. Like a device from some alternate reality. Neither retro nor the standard flat-panel LCD.

I don't want to mod a pre-build $1,049 device. I want it to be good our of the box and I'd rather pay more to get more. (If it was a $3K top-of-midrange machine, I would buy it in a second.)

jdiff•about 2 hours ago

You're not modding a pre-built $1049 device. The faceplates are removable and swappable with no disassembly needed, and this fancy one connects via bluetooth and is powered via a battery. Entirely non-invasive.

ismaVQ•about 1 hour ago

Hold on , i gotta recharge my front plate

rbanffy•about 2 hours ago

Is the Steam Machine a decently priced desktop compared to the "generic" ones?

oAlbe•about 1 hour ago

Gamers Nexus did a very in depth review of the Steam Machine [1], which includes a comparison to a build yourself similar machine.

The result is that for about 70 dollars less you can put together a somewhat more powerful PC than the Steam Machine, but not for that form factor, it would still be bigger.

IMO, the Steam Machine is not a bad purchase if you are in the market for that type of product.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=66QzlDewigE

weberer•8 minutes ago

Compared to buying from parts? No.

Compared to an average prebuilt? You can probably find large tower PCs at a lower price, but they'll likely have a low quality motherboard or power supply.

Compared to an average prebuilt that ships with Linux? Absolutely

delecti•29 minutes ago

You can't build a machine which is as powerful, small, quiet, and cheap, nor can you take for granted that a machine you build can have a controller that can wake it from sleep, or which has HDMI-CEC (both are possible, but take extra work or hardware). You can rather easily build a machine with multiple of those attributes, but you'll have to pick ones to sacrifice in the name of the others.

haunter•about 1 hour ago

Wildly depends where you live.

For the same price I can get a prebuilt desktop PC with double the performance (Ryzen 7 5700 + RTX 5060 Ti)

Even if you go mini ITX you can get a better PC with 50% more performance (Ryzen 7 5600x + RTX 5060) https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/498435-diy-45l-steam-m...

artisinal•about 1 hour ago

For a small gaming box it is a good price.

If you don’t care that much about size, HDMI-CEC or SteamOS there are faster alternatives for the price.

voidUpdate•about 1 hour ago

Especially since, afaik, you plug it in and it just works. No messing around with installing operating systems, setting up users (aside from signing into steam) or anything. It's essentially a console that plays PC games, but it's also a PC for the purposes of upgradability and ability to do other, non-console stuff with it

weberer•6 minutes ago

>No messing around with installing operating systems

This is the real killer feature. So many people that I talk to know they want Linux, but are deathly afraid of installing it themselves.

westurner•about 2 hours ago

Looks like Waveshare has a E6 full color ePaper/eInk/EPD display in 3.6" and 7.3" but not yet in 5.83":

"5.83inch E-Paper Display (G), E-ink Display, 648 × 480, Red/Yellow/Black/White, SPI Interface" https://www.waveshare.com/5.83inch-e-paper-g.htm?sku=32584

Fokamul•about 1 hour ago

Clickbait, I want to make an actual eInk display myself. Not just buy one from Adafruit.

ray_v•about 3 hours ago

It would have justified the price had they included this in the base model - this is the next best thing I suppose. Valve is really coming out as the good guy here in the video game industry and we should really support and applaud all that they're doing to hold the line for consumers and fans.

voidUpdate•about 2 hours ago

Given computer part prices recently because of new datacenters, I think the price is already justified, as they don't want to sell it at a loss

stavros•about 2 hours ago

Yes but saying "it would have justified the price if they had included extra expensive things" is the same as saying "it should be cheaper". Sure, but stuff costs.