#16 How to Re-program (reverse engineer) e-ink (epaper) Price Tags (Shelf Labels) with an Arduino

Recently I realized my local grocery store replaced traditional price tags with electronic e-ink (epaper) price tags / shelf labels. I found out that you can easily buy the same ones from e-bay, and I was able to re-program / hack them.
These devices can be used as cheap Arduino E-Ink Displays, and you can easily program these with usb-TTL adapter, or any Arduino board.

The brand of the e-paper display I re-program is Hanshow, and the model is Stellar.

Here are the links which is mentioned in the video:

Blog page (in Chinese, but auto translation works fine):

Other projects you might think interesting:

▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
0:00 - Intro
0:32 - Contents of the package
1:20 - Tear-down
5:00- Investigation existing projects
6:25 - How to make connections and upload custom firmware
8:18 - Bluetooth operations (updating the time, sending comments, and OTA)
12:48 - Further development ideas and conclusion

[pixobit]

I am working at a company that installs and programms these tags. They are normally updated via a special access point which is connected to a local server in the market. For big market chains they are getting their prices from a central server somewhere in the world. For smaller markets they can enter the prices manually in a special software.

[ettcha]

These things make sense in my country! Prices are recalculated almost daily, and i can assure you, never downwards 😂

[atc]

Maker of this project here :)
nice to see it being used, on my channel you can find some in-depth videos about the reversing and creating of this firmware and more E-Paper and price tag related content

[MrFastFox]

BestBuy has had these for a while now, but as far as I can tell they work with IR, like a TV remote. We just scan the barcode for the tag at the register, then enter in the product we want to link to the tag, then the tag updates automatically. There are these large chrome saucer looking things hanging from the ceiling all around the store, and if you point a camera at them while setting a tag you can see a ton of IR LEDs blinking.

[wkjagt]

They have these in a large department store here in Canada. They use the built-in LED to more easily find products in some cases. For example, when buying a light bulb for your car, you can look up the model you need on a touch screen (by entered your car brand, model, year etc) and then there's a button that says something like "flash price tag". When you press it, the LED on the price tag for the bulb you selected starts flashing bright green, which makes it really easy to spot it among the hundreds of other similar looking bulbs.

[mccormack]

My local supermarket has these, they often throw out boxes of them into their bins, I just take the boxes and I currently have a big wall of them with various article titles that I've written (I'm a journalist).
The supermarket doesn't mind because I'm getting rid of their illegally dumped e-waste for free, and I get some cool little electronics that are very versatile.

[adriancentra]

I was hoping for a wireless hack that could change the display of tags deployed in a supermarket…purely for scientific purposes of course. But this is very cool nonetheless!

[madcow]

If you want to program 50 of them without soldering, I made a tool that would work a couple months ago. There was a similar physical interface on a GMRS radio that I was trying to troubleshoot. I measured the hole pattern and drilled a 1/4" piece of plastic. I then used pieces rigid wire connected to a mini-grabber. Gravity held the rigid wire down to the connectors well enough to program it. In this case if the plastic adapter is cut(or 3d printed) to the size of the opening of that case then it will line up the pins for you.

[fangthewarrior]

I was apart of a Best Buy remodel team that put these up, they're so cool! I had asked a lot of questions about them. One being if they could update automatically (like in a price change) and the answer was yes!
There are transmitters in the ceiling that can send information to individual tags, even when they're close together.(I've even had them go off my mistake in the box or in my hand probably due to the same id?) Unfortunately I get the chance to have a the PDA to program them myself but basically it's scan that barcode on the tag then the product, wait a bit then it starts strobing!
My guess is, the PDA sends this info to a centralize computer that then sends the programing data to the tags through those transmitters via IR. That little blip from the tag after programing probably means 'complete'.
They had them in this size and a *much* larger size too, for the appliances, I think something like 2½"x3" maybe? Those for sure can be used in projects and would be cheap!

[ThomasBensler]

luckily these are available from my local supermarket ;)

[benvanoers]

these things are super helpful. Where i work we have got the exact same esl's . you can let it blink to find the product, it updates the price automatically, and you only have to scan the product and the esl to pair it. Also the battery lasts around 5 years.

[ZincLeadAlloy]

I'd love seeing this implemented as a LP counter for yugioh

[bruhgamingnl]

I know in Albert Heijn employees can log in on those handheld terminals (ZEBRA android devices with special software and barcode scanner) and log in to a software that allows you to change what product is displayed on those tags/fix them if the display isn't working correctly/refresh it. You can also find the product by activating a green LED that flashes

[renakunisaki]

Instead of soldering pins to those pads, I use the thin wires from telephone cables. Hold them down with kapton tape because they break easily. You can glue headers to the edge of the board/case, or splice them to thicker wires and let those hang loose.

[lluisllimargas]

Have you tried pogo pins connectors to temporary connect to the board? You can even make your own socket using 3D-printing. They work like a charm.

[joecooltasker]

Stole one today, look forward to seeing what I can do with it!

[onlinetoby_]

they normally communicate (well in bigger setups) via special wifi access points that additionally to 2.4 and 5gh wifi have an rf receiver and transmitter, biggest producer is ses imagotag and the V:IoT protocol, connections to the server (where the prices and images are stored) are verified through x.509 certificates to combat mitm attacks.

I was once given a bunch of these as a gift because some of them started to fail and acted funny. I have them in a drawer and I think I'm going to try to do something interesting with them.

[captainchaos]

My local supermarket just put these up, and I was already planning to try and hack them when your video showed up in my feed. 😄

[gabrielsirilan]

I am quite late to the party. I had a shower thought that E-ink displays could be used for price tags, and I am quite delighted to know that it exists! I am definitely not going to see it anytime soon in my country though.