An E Ink Ship Tracker Is the Perfect Girlfriend Gift

I just learned that some people really enjoy tracking ships — like, looking at where random ships are on the map and where they’re going. I knew people were into that kind of thing for trains, so I should have guessed that there were similar ship people. I found out about all of this after watching Paul Lagier build a really wholesome present for his ship-loving girlfriend: an E Ink ship tracker.

Paul’s idea was to give his girlfriend a device that makes it easy, convenient, and fun to check out the goings-on of ships sailing the high seas. We’re talking about cargo ships, cruise ships, oil tankers, and vessels of that sort. Apparently, the appeal is in seeing where the ships are, examining their routes, learning about their origins, and reading relevant statistics.

For example, the closest ship of size to me right now is the Nautilus Explorer, out of the Republic of Vanuatu, a passenger ship sailing in the Gulf of California. At least that’s what MarineTraffic.com tells me. Seeing that helped me learn that there is a country called the Republic of Vanuatu.

As you can imagine, there are a lot of ships in the world and keeping track of them all produces a massive amount of data. Several websites and services provide access to that data, but API privileges usually cost a substantial amount of money. Lagier didn’t want to take out a loan just for some data, so he kept searching and found that Finland’s government provides free access to data on ships within the Gulf of Finland.

So, his device displays ships in that body of water surrounded by Finland, Russia, and Estonia. It displays those on a minimalist map shown on a large E Ink screen, which is easy on the eyes and barely consumes any power.

A Raspberry Pi Zero W retrieves ship data from the Finnish service and populates the map. Lagier created a nice GUI, controlled through two rotary encoders, which lets the user swap data levels and view information about specific ships. That information view shows a QR code that the user can scan to look at a photo of the ship in question and additional data about it.

Lagier then printed a nice, minimalist enclosure to house those components. Power comes in through USB-C, so his girlfriend can put the device wherever she likes and can then track ships to her heart’s content. And it was really endearing seeing how happy she was to receive the gift in Lagier’s video.