For years, I have been waiting for low-energy e-ink signage to become ubiquitous because they are so solarpunk retropunk.

And because this present is a past’s terrible future, digital e-ink signs (with lights to help gig-workers find products faster) are ubiquitous at local grocery and big box stores, but e-ink e-book readers remain costly and my local transit system seems to have never heard of them or their promise:

This is all to say, that when I heard that there was a developing e-ink sign ecosystem that being launched that allowed users to easily create desktop displays without knowing how to jailbreak a kobo, I put myself on the waiting list to get myself a TRMNL when the next batch was available.

I got mine last week. It’s lovely.

I’m writing this purchase up because I wanted to share how easy it is to create a digital sign with TRMNL.

1. I chose the Screenshot app from the list of TRMNL plugins
2. I added the url for a study room managed in Springshare’s LibCal, found Admin>Spaces & Equipment>Edit Location>Spaces & Categories
3. I gave it a name and I set the refresh rate for every 15 minutes.

The admin end of TRMNL looks like this.

In LibCal, you can specify whether you want a user-created nickname to appear on screen with the booking (e.g. Tuesday Journal Club), to display the full name or email of the person making the booking, or my preference: a masked email address with just enough public information to confirm that you have indeed booked that room (despite someone already being in the space).

And this is how the screen looks like when the room is available. My phone was able to pick up the QR code that takes you to the room booking page.

I am writing this up because I spent $139 USD for a personal TRMNL device to goof around with. I’m having a lot of fun with it!

I thought that using a TRMNL as a sign wouldn’t make sense money-wise, until I learned from reading posts on SpringShare Lounge, that some libraries are spending more to buy new ipads and lock them down in kiosk mode to use as digital signs, or they have been buying Samsung Tab A9+ 11″ tablets. Still others are integrating using a centralized Creston signage system with tablets.

But you know what’s also awesome about TRMNL? You can jailbreak old Kindle Paperwhites and turn them into digital signage for your library.

TRMNLs are currently available for sale.

And for what it’s worth, this is not a sponsored post.

I just want a solar punk future.