Customer:
Will this work to display an iCal file without a server? Do you know what the battery life is?
Originally submitted via email support on 4 February 2025. Migrated to the forum for community visibility.
Soldered Support:
Yes, there is a Google Calendar Arduino example for most Inkplate devices which takes a link to Google Calendar’s .ical file and displays it on Inkplate. For example, the Inkplate 6 example is here: Inkplate-Arduino-library/examples/Inkplate6/Projects/Inkplate6_Google_Calendar/Inkplate6_Google_Calendar.ino at master · SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-library · GitHub
This example should work with other kinds of .ical files hosted elsewhere as it uses the standard format, though it has only been tested with Google Calendar.
Keep in mind that this example has memory limitations if the .ical file is quite large (hundreds of calendar entries), as the ESP32 microcontroller has limited memory.
Battery life depends on your Inkplate model and how often you refresh the display. Since e-paper doesn’t use power to display data after it’s shown, the sketch has been able to run for almost a month with refreshes only once every hour.