Waveshare 7.5 inch E-Paper Display HAT V2 for Home Assistant & ESPHome Projects 800x480 3.3v/5v E-Ink Electronic Screen with Embedded Controller SPI Interface for Raspberry Pi/Jetson Nano/STM32

Very happy with this screen. I have the first gen screen and I've been using it for about 5 years now as a weather and calendar dashboard. I have the Waveshare 7.5 Inch V1 from many years ago. Just search for simple waveshare epaper dashboard by mendhak. I've attached it to a RPI Zero, and put it in a picture frame. The screen doesn't take too long to refresh, it used to be 30 seconds but the latest code brings it down to less than 10 seconds.

I brought the screen having done a little research and got exactly what I expected! I'm using it to display a screen of information such as weather, news, local train times and the temperature in my home which updates every five minutes. I found it pretty easy to use a Raspberry Pi Zero WH to drive it using code based on the samples WaveShare provide online. The only disappointment is that it does not support partial screen update, as far as I can tell. It doesn't take too long to update the screen in full though, and my application is not time critical, so all good.

This is a great display, but far from intuitive and their wiki is crap!... I wanted to make it work with an SAMD Arduino board and tried to follow the instructions on the wiki, but the instructions and the example is for Arduino Uno and their example doesn't even compile for an SAMD board (says 'Epd::' qualifier not necessary, just removing it compiles nicely though). The wiki says you should set display config:A and interface config:1, but I couldn't get it to work, I could only get it to work with the opposite settings. Also, you have to figure out the wiring for yourself (I did for my MKR WiFi like this: 1010 VCC-VCC, GND-GND, DIN-8, CLK-9, CS-4, DC-7, RST-6, BUSY-5), and find the place in the code where these need to be updated by yourself too. Even then it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't... not sure why. There's a GxEPD2 library for Arduino that allows partial refresh and has some gray-scale looking images (just lower density of BW pixels), but again it took me hours to figure out what to uncomment, particularly the line with the "2ms" reset pulse...

Great screen when it is new, nice and dark clear text/images. After 4 months use the screen is now fading, it is worse at the top. The writing/images are grainy. I doubt it will last much longer. Waste of money.

The e-paper display is clear, if a bit reflective and slow to update. However it completely suits my needs. It's very thin and can easily be mounted in a frame. The product came on time as well, securely packaged in a foam inside. However I have to criticise the documentation provided. Currently the HAT is unusuble with a Raspberry Pi Zero, you must instead connect the pins individually. Attempting to utilize the screen whilst connected via the hat results in an instant system crash. This is not documented in the online wiki, and no paperwork is provided by the supplier. Instead I found this information inside some GitHub issues. If this information was provided it would have saved me a week worth of late night troubleshooting. Incredibly annoying and something that needs addressed.

Rating 4* because waveshare helped with it.

This product broke after 1 day of use, it now just static anytime content is sent to it. Clears (black, then white) fine but then shows static no matter what you send. Avoid this brand and product.

Developed dead lines after a month (see pic). Poor quality in my experience.