Is it necessary to have the content proxied through your API server? If the company doesn't work out, it would be a shame to have this device stop working, even though it's fully capable of reaching the internal URL I would be hosting my content on.
Could that be changed?
If I am not hit by a metaphoric truck, I give my best to make sure not to disappoint my customers. My plan is to keep the backend running for 10 years after I sell the last display.
But of course that's just a plan und I understand that you may not like the odds. That's totally reasonable.
1) Have a touch screen
2) Integrate with Outlook calendar and multiple Google calendars
3) Integrate with smart home features (e.g. lights, temperature, etc)
4) Integrate with other data sources (e.g. news)
At $150, be open-source and open-hardware (at a lower price point, I'd do without).
I'm looking for something like that.
Until then, neat product!
Find the people who want to use a product despite all the lacking features, because the one thing it does is exactly what they need, and build on that.
https://www.home-assistant.io/
They have customizable dashboards. What I'm really looking for is something I can use as a sort of command center in a few places in my house. It allows me to control the things I care about, shows my upcoming schedule, and whatever else is relevant. By my work desk, the #1 thing I care about is upcoming meetings. Other places, I care about other things.
Critically, though, I don't want it to glow. I want it either e-ink or purely reflective LCD.
This is probably a few devices. Ideally, there'd be small / cheap ones with mechanical switches and a tiny screen to replace my light switches, and big ones for my living room, work room, etc.
I think the trick would be to start with something, so one doesn't have an infinite engineering task, and so there are ready frameworks for modularity. Either Home Assistant or dash would be decent starting points, depending on which direction this took.
But yeah, now that I mention it, I have a vision in my head for what I want (which I would buy). Retrokludged features without the same vision would probably not get us there.
So I'll cut this back to what everyone else is saying: Calendar flexibility. This needs to sync with home, work, and other calendars, so at the very least, Outlook.
(a) required an operating system
(b) still works
It all bitrots to hell. For comparison, everything I've made on a PIC, Atmel, ESP, etc. continues working.
FPGAs have a more mixed track record; the devices work, but they're unmaintainable (the dev toolchains require e.g. Windows NT and some activation server which no longer exists).
Things I've made out of wood, metal, and similar materials work too, as do PCBs I designed with analog.
My point is I want a piece of hardware and not a computer.
