I Turned My RSS Feeds Into an E-Ink Newspaper — and It's Better Than Any App

I Turned My RSS Feeds Into an E-Ink Newspaper — and It's Better Than Any App

A developer named Jonny built a device that takes RSS feeds and renders them onto an e-ink display as a physical "newspaper" — and the project went viral on Hacker News (144 points, 58 comments). It's a brilliant example of using technology to solve a problem that apps have arguably made worse: the way we consume news.

The Problem

Most people consume news through their phones. This has several problems:

1. Notifications interrupt you — even with notifications off, the habit of checking your phone is itself an interruption
2. Infinite scroll means there's no natural stopping point — you never feel "done" reading the news
3. Backlit screens cause eye strain and disrupt sleep when read in bed
4. The phone is a portal to everything — reading news on the same device where you get work emails, social media, and messages means constant context switching

Jonny's solution: a dedicated e-ink display that renders RSS feeds as a newspaper layout. You read it like a newspaper — when you're done, you're done. No notifications, no infinite scroll, no blue light before bed.

How It Works

The project uses:

• An e-ink display (likely a Waveshare or similar panel)
• A Raspberry Pi or similar SBC to drive the display
• An RSS aggregator that fetches and parses feeds
• A rendering pipeline that formats articles into a newspaper-style layout
• A scheduled refresh that updates the display periodically (e.g., once in the morning)

The e-ink display is perfect for this because:

• It only uses power when changing the display (battery life is measured in days or weeks)
• It's readable in direct sunlight (unlike LCD/OLED)
• It has no backlight (no blue light, no eye strain)
• It looks like paper (the aesthetic is literally a newspaper)

Why This Resonates

The Hacker News discussion revealed that many people are reaching for similar solutions:

• Dedicated reading devices (Kindle, Boox) that only do one thing
• Print subscriptions to physical newspapers and magazines
• Email-based news digests that arrive once a day
• "Dumb" devices that intentionally do less

The common thread is constraint as a feature. When your news reader is also your work email, your social media, and your messaging app, you can't focus on reading. When it's a separate physical object that only shows news, you can.

Building Your Own

If you want to build something similar, here's a rough parts list:

Hardware:

• Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (~$15) or Raspberry Pi 4 (~$35)
• Waveshare 7.5" e-ink display HAT (~$50-70)
• 3D-printed frame or picture frame (optional, ~$5-15)
• Total: ~$70-120

Software:

• Python with feedparser for RSS
• Pillow (PIL) for image rendering
• epd7in5 library for the Waveshare display
• A cron job to refresh feeds and update the display

The rendering can be as simple or as complex as you want. A basic version might just show headlines and sources. A more advanced version could format articles into columns, include images, and even paginate through multiple "pages" with a button press.

The Philosophy

What makes this project special isn't the technology — it's the philosophy. In an era where every app is trying to maximize engagement, maximize time-on-device, and maximize notifications, a device that intentionally does less is radical.

It's the same philosophy behind:

• Light phones that only make calls and send texts
• Pomodoro timers that force you to stop working
• Single-purpose computers like the Light Phone or Daylight Computer
• Paper notebooks in a world of note-taking apps

Sometimes the best technology is the technology that gets out of your way.

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Based on Jonny's blog post (144 points on Hacker News).