Let’s see how to use ePaper displays with both Arduino and Raspberry Pi. I’ll also show you a “nocode” method of building an ePaper information panel with PaperPi.

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ePaper displays are quite different from the types of displays we are used to working with. Unlike other displays, epaper doesn’t emit light, it reflects it. It also has the unique property of retaining the last thing written to it, even when powered down.

These ultra lowcurrent devices are perfect for portable projects, or those that require a display that can be read in a brightly lit environment.

We will be using a very common and inexpensive display from Waveshare that can operate as both an SPI device for microcontrollers and as a Raspberry Pi HAT. I’ll show you how to use it with both an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi.

After running a couple of demos, we will see how to write Python code to customize our ePaper display.

And we will also look at a relatively new product called PaperPi. This application lets you create cool ePaper display panels without writing any code, instead, it uses “plugins” to configure the display to your liking. You can build a clock, weather display or even a music player.

Here is the Table of Contents for today's video.:

00:00 Introduction
02:24 How ePaper Displays work
05:54 Waveshare 2.7inch ePaper HAT
07:42 ePaper with Arduino demo
15:36 epaper with Raspberry Pi demo
19:14 Coding ePaper displays with Python
27:02 PaperPi
36:16 Conclusion

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that epaper is not perfect. The displays are somewhat expensive (although the one I used was pretty cheap) and they aren’t suitable for video or fullcolor. But for some applications, they are just perfect.