[David Watts] picked up an inexpensive Waveshare e-Paper display. He made a video about using it with a breadboard, and you can see it below.

The E-Paper or E-Ink displays have several advantages. They are low power, they retain their display even without power, and they are very visible in direct light. The downside is they don’t update as fast as some other display technologies.

To drive the device, [David] used a WeMos D1 to drive the display. He picked up the 1.54 inch display, but they are available in several sizes up to about 4 inches. The smaller display runs about $20. If you find one for less, be sure it has the PCB and isn’t just the raw display panel. As you’d expect, the larger displays cost a little more.

[David] didn’t really provide a tutorial, he simply showed how he connected it to a breadboard and his example project. However, there is at least one Arduino library available. You can also find a lot of documentation, libraries, and examples on the Waveshare wiki.

If these get much cheaper, maybe we’ll see more e-paper business cards. Or perhaps they will become as ubiquitous as sticky notes.