Image credit: elektormagazine
The Parking Disk, which allows time-restricted parking in regulated areas, is often made of plastic, cardboard, or other materials. Recently, a new digital model of the parking disk has appeared with a modern e-paper display. The proposed display uses advanced features, including the on-demand display of the current date and time, setting the arrival time with a single button, the ambient temperature, battery level, etc.
The E-Paper Display
E-Paper or e-ink became popular mainly because of its use in eBook readers, thanks to the display’s paper-like reading experience. The popularity and benefits of e-paper displays have spread this technology in other sectors because of their ability to display information for longer, even without a power supply. This enablement is useful for devices, for example, electronic labels at retail outlets, that require power only for updating the screen (refresh).
The e-paper module used for this Parking Disk is a Waveshare 2.9-inch diagonal, black and white with 296 x 128 resolution. The built-in logic level converter supports partial refresh, which is an indispensable feature of this accessory.
Over the past few years, applications of e-paper have surfaced in many sectors, and parking disk is one of the new innovations. However, the e-paper display has some limitations also, and the notable one here is the low refresh rate. The proposed model of the Parking Disk completes the partial refresh in 0.3 seconds, and the entire refresh cycle takes 2 seconds. These values do not compete with other display types when it comes to the visualization of rapidly changing graphics and text. So, the project needs more thinking and research to make it suitable for the automotive sector.
Navkiran Dhaliwal is a seasoned content writer with 10+ years of experience. When she's not writing, she can be found cooking up a storm or spending time with her dog, Rain.