Building Zettelbox 2.0 – An ESPHome E-Ink Display Upgrade

Two years ago, I built a wooden notepad box with a 2.9-inch E-Ink display and wrote about it. Until recently, it was still sitting on my desk and it’s still working. It was even shared on Hacker News back then. But there were two things that kept bothering me a bit. Not a huge deal, but still. That’s why I’ve been toying with the idea of an upgrade for a few months now. The display was too small I could just about fit the data I wanted on it, but that was about it. And the box itself looked exactly as it was: sawn by hand, filed by hand, and given a quick coat of paint. Quite obviously a DIY project. The new display #The original Waveshare 2.9" panel had 296×128 pixels, landscape. The layout was always a compromise. Everything squeezed to fit. The new panel is a Waveshare 2.7". Slightly smaller on the diagonal, but 264x176 pixels in landscape with a 3:2 ratio. More vertical space. The card-based layout I’d been sketching for a while actually worked on the first try. The new box…