Hands-On with the Papyr ePaper/BLE Display Device

ePaper displays, such as those found on some Kindle e-readers are incredible pieces of technology, requiring no power to maintain an image once it’s “e-printed” on the screen. Unfortunately, they don’t refresh at anywhere near speeds appropriate for video use, and feature a limited number of colors — generally white, shades of gray, and sometimes red. As such, they’ve remained something of a niche product, but it’s absolutely perfect for some applications.

So, I was excited to hear about Electronut Labs’ Papyr. The device is advertised as being able to display semi-permanent images in three colors, and is controlled over BLE — thanks to its Nordic nRF52840 SoC — which allows you to send it images via a smartphone or MQTT. Best of all, this efficient BLE/ePaper design means that when it’s not actively transmitting, it uses only 22 micro amps of current, enabling it to function for years between battery changes.

After getting in touch with them, they agreed to send me one to borrow and try out. The Papyr is now for sale, so I presumably got one of the first production units , and they sent over a full development kit including a battery, clear housing, and programming accessories to peruse. You can see a clip of me unboxing the hardware and trying it out in the video below.

My first impression of the Papyr was that it was packaged really well, with a nice logo-labeled tin. While perhaps a secondary concern, it’s always nice to make a good first impression, and as seen in the video, this makes a nice holder for screws when you’re putting things together.

With the device in hand, I carefully connected the battery (reversal is apparently a bad thing for the device) and let it boot up. After installing the Electronut Labs app, I then attempted to connect via BLE, only to find that it required me to turn location services on. This may be a non-issue for most, but for those — like myself — that are somewhat concerned about privacy, this seemed unnecessary. After inquiring about this, Electronut Labs stated that they are not doing any tracking, though they do collect software crash information. Unfortunately, this is a function of Android under the guise of “greater data protection.” This reasoning seems a bit questionable to me, but I’m not here to review Google/Android.

After that, it took a few tries to connect to the unit, but once things were locked in I was able to transfer quick notes, along with images stored in my phone. The color palette is obviously limited, so you’ll need to experiment with what becomes black/white/red, but the image is nicely “ePapery,” making it easy to view and read in a variety of light settings. While I didn’t try it out, the device is also able to receive info via MQTT, and given its programmable nature should also lend itself to a wide variety of different projects!

There were a few very small annoyances, such as a fairly minor scuff on both the front and back sections of the plastic case, and no directions that I could find on physically putting the case together. Now, however, you can watch the video, so issue #2 should be resolved if I put it things together correctly.

Even with those minor issues (that will hopefully be resolved in future iterations) it’s a very neat device, and something that could even be a great gift. Personally, I think it would work great with a magnet on the back of the case, so it could stick on a refrigerator. I’m sure the people that buy these devices will come up with all kinds of unique applications both software and hardware-wise!