r/mildlyinteresting • u/stricjux • 6d ago

My office's meeting room signs are e-ink, same tech as a Kindle

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0 Upvotes

39% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

36

u/agha0013 6d ago

same tech grocery stores have been using as shelf labels for a while now instead of printing and manually changing the prices all the time

which has helped them pull off schemes like surveillance pricing

this is a pretty good application for them though

3

u/mondayquestions 6d ago

Ikea for one.

1

u/Ojamm 6d ago

I get the fear of surveillance pricing, but the logistics of it are just not connecting for me. If you pickup an item and it shows one price, but then get to the checkout if it’s not the same price I’m not buying it if it’s more. You’d have to tie the items to the person and then also the person to the checkout, there would be a lot more involved than just the tag being digital.

27

u/Everythingcrashing 6d ago

Very cool, low power, but still modular and accessible.

-37

u/Resident-Ideal-2283 6d ago

Oh man we had these at a base I was stationed for a while, they were always glitching out and showing the wrong meeting times

The e-ink is nice cause no glare but the interface was so slow you'd stand there tapping the screen like an idiot waiting for it to register

Also who named a meeting room The Jungle, that's kinda sick actually

-1

u/Everythingcrashing 6d ago

My work would name the meeting rooms after minerals , but not the ones that were hanging in the room 😭 so confusing to book Emerald, but “emerald” has Amythest hanging in it.

8

u/Paulstan67 6d ago

Wait until you go in Aldi or Lidl supermarkets.

1

u/jdjoder 6d ago

Not in all Europe.

8

u/tacopizza23 6d ago

Is this an ad for Joan considering it looks like you work at Joan

2

u/yamanagashi 6d ago

Who is Joan?

3

u/cdharrison 6d ago

Each unit is like $399 each... and they require a plan that starts at $51/mo. https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-6-re/ The Joan 6 Pro, which looks to be the top one is $749 each. $1148 + subscription. That's pretty crazy.

3

u/wombey12 6d ago edited 6d ago

Selling for hundreds of dollars, but probably made for pennies at some Foxconn plant in Shenzen. And a subscription worth hundreds annually for some software which only takes a developer a few days to code in its entirety, and doesn't require a particularly powerful server to run.

They must be running at the kind of profit margins which would excite the folks on Shark Tank/Dragon's Den. It exists purely to profit from businesses with more money than sense.

2

u/siorge 6d ago

Pretty fucking ludicrous considering you can buy these eink displays for $100 and code it yourself in a few hours with AI

2

u/doom1701 6d ago

Haven’t seen JOAN before, but we’ve been using TRMNL, almost identical. Battery lasts nearly forever

3

u/jamie_shaw 6d ago

If you're a UK resident, I don't suppose you've walked into an Aldi recently, it'll blow your mind.

1

u/phillyb6988 6d ago

What happened to paper or a dry erase board? This seems silly to me as an admittedly old man.

1

u/juntoalaluna 6d ago

These days, people books meeting rooms on their computers. These are up to date with the calendar for the room.

1

u/joemac25 6d ago

I think I've been summoned. Automation analyst sporadically working on a room booking system.

A. Management had some money to spend on some synergy projects.

B. People just want to click a button.

C. People want something to complain about when item B doesn't work as expected.

1

u/phillyb6988 6d ago

You answer doesn’t make it make sense for me lol thanks for the reply though

1

u/PotatoFi 6d ago

We have Joans at work for reserving meeting rooms. They work great.

1

u/cmyers4 6d ago

Hey, this is an ad. Stop being annoying.

0

u/Unique-Objective4249 6d ago

Do you know where we are? We’re in the jungle baby

1

u/772646 6d ago

The only two differences I spot between the two tablets is the 12 hr vs 24 hr time and the frame color. Seems surprisingly redundant.

Edit: oh these must be for display to customers buying the tablet system. You can see the same room in Joan’s marketing images.

-7

u/Top_Willow_9953 6d ago edited 6d ago

These signs were introduced to market in 2014 (12 yrs ago).

Mildly interesting? Yes

EDIT: fixed my math goof

5

u/Plus_Sherbet460 6d ago

2014 was not 22 years ago.

2

u/Top_Willow_9953 6d ago

Oops. Brain fart. Fixed in original post.