On Sun, 13 Mar 2016, Wayne Workman wrote:

I actually like the idea of having a small display on a consumer router.

Obviously this would not be cost effective for enterprise grade, though,
when a network administrator is overseeing 2,000 access points remotely, he
does not care about a display on the device, he cares about functionality
and cost.

But back to having a small screen. Newer high-end business HP network
printers have had a small display for a really long time. I really like it,
and it allows me to very quickly have the printer print out (on paper) it's
configuration. I can also quickly get to some common areas that way. But,
all these printers with small displays... they have a full-on Web interface
as well.

So I'd ask for what you do to be able to tie into a web interface at a
later time.

But maybe we could go with cheaper hardware if we didn't need to run a full
Web server?

no, a webserver is really cheap to run. I expect that you would not be able to tell the difference in CPU load between running a webserver and driving a built-in display.

David Lang

On Mar 13, 2016 10:19 AM, "Jonathan Morton" <[email protected]> wrote:


On 13 Mar, 2016, at 02:15, David Lang <[email protected]> wrote:

my point is that you can use a browser interface to mock-up what you
would do on your local display without having to build custom hardware.
Yes, it would mean you have to work with javascript/etc to build this
mockup, but it would let you create a bitmap image with buttons/etc that
will work the same way that your physical device would, but be able to
tinker with things that would require hardware changes if it was a physical
device (different screen sizes, button placements, etc)

And my point is that if I can do that *without* involving a browser, so
much the better.  Given my existing experience, I can probably do it
*easier* in something like C and Xlib (yes, really) than in a browser.

Yes, it would be a pure software mockup, and thus still easy to change.

a 6x8 font on a 2.7" screen is unreadable for many people, this is about
an 11pt font on something that is not at your optimum reading distance.

The display I linked has basically the same pixel density as a 1980s/1990s
Macintosh display, a 9-pin dot-matrix printer, and a basic Nokia phone -
the standard 72dpi.  Anyone with standard visual acuity should be able to
read 8-pixel-high text on it.  Your concern would be limited to that
segment of the population who already needs to buy large-print books and
newspapers.

The most important text wouldn’t be 6x8 - I included that stat only to
contrast it with the 16x2 cell text-only display.  Since it’s a graphical
display, we can use larger fonts where desired.

Incidentally, the classic Nokia phones seem to use a proportional font
which is 5x7 on average.  They sold many millions, probably because they
designed a UI that even my mother could be coached into learning (believe
me, that’s a feat).  Up, down, select, cancel, and a numeric keypad.  The
size of the text on the screen doesn’t seem to have been a factor.

OLEDs do color as well.

The ones that do colour are even more expensive than the mono ones.
Increasing the size of an OLED display also seems to be incredibly
expensive - I couldn’t even find one at 2.7” or larger on the “maker kit”
sites, only as raw components.

don't forget that you also have to have buttons/switches to go along
with the display. don't assume that people are going to have a spare USB
keyboard around to plug in.

There is a substantial population who's only computers are tablets,
phones, TVs, and other non-traditional devices, but who need wifi to use
them.

Keyboard, mouse, xbox/ps4/wii controller - don’t care.  They’ll either
have at least one of those (basic models are cheap), or we can
auto-generate a basic working configuration and display the resulting wifi
SSID/password on the screen.  The only button needed is a factory-reset.

If they don’t have anything with an Ethernet connection, they would have
difficulty configuring most existing routers from the factory-reset state
anyway.  I just made a brief search for WPS on my Android phone - no dice.
Apparently there *is* a WPS function, but it’s buried four layers deep in
the UI, behind an “advanced” option^W^W “beware of the leopard” sign - and
it’s potentially in a different place on each device, making it hard to
give directions remotely.

But with the wifi SSID and password visible on-screen, we wouldn’t need
WPS.  That’s something an ordinary router can’t do.

 - Jonathan Morton

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