New IndieGogo Project Wants to Fund World’s First E-ink SDK

03.10.2013 Nate Hoffelder 2 Comments

Shezhen Ocean has come across my desk again with another IndieGogo project.

When I wrote about them before they wanted crowd-funding for a 6″ E-ink monitor. This time around they want you to help fund an E-ink SDK.

This new gadget is a development kit which hardware developers can use to craft their own custom gadgets with an E-ink or LCD screen.

They’re calling it RockthEink, and it is based around a custom single board computer with a 1GHz Rockchip RK2918 CPU, 512MB of RAM, and a microSD card slot. According to the specs list, this board also has Wifi, an ethernet port, audio, and USB Host.

The board  itself costs $79, and if you participate in the IndieGogo project you’ll also have the opportunity to buy one or more of a variety of E-ink screens. Options include 6″, 8″, 9.7″, in both Pearl and HD. The 8″ screen is available in color.

And if E-ink isn’t your thing, you can also get a 7″ LCD screen (with touchscreen). Assuming that this SDK uses standard components, you might even be able to buy a screen elsewhere and plug it in. Pixel Qi, anyone?

The screen prices range from $29 for the 7″ LCD screen to $149 for either the 9.7″ E-ink screen or the 8″ color E-ink screen.

Shenzhen Ocean reports that they have already designed the board, which you can see below attached to an 8″ color E-ink screen. They’re looking to raise $5,000 to fund a small production run and put together a volume order for the screens.

This is an interesting project, and if I had the funds to spare I would seriously consider risking the $250 it would cost to get the 8″ screen and the SDK.

Alas, I don’t have the funds. If you help fund this project, let me know how it turns out.

IndieGogo