AFL-CIO calls for ban on such labels to protect consumers and workers from surveillance pricing and job cuts
The universal adoption of electronic shelf labels in grocery stores across the US could cost tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in lost wages while further driving up grocery costs, according to a report released on Tuesday.
An analysis by the AFL-CIO Tech Institute of the label manufacturers’ own marketing materials found the universal adoption of electronic shelf labels, which are marketed to retailers as a cost-cutting measure, could cost workers between $1.6bn to $6.9bn in lost wages annually and affect between 44,223 and 191,633 jobs.
The policy brief – Priced Out, Pushed Out: Electronic Shelf Labels Raise Prices and Shrink Paychecks – calls for a ban on electronic labels to protect consumers and workers.
What about just stripping the little eink displays off and hooking them to a RaspberryPi (or whatever).
The problem would be driving the display. Typically you need some kind of dedicated display driver IC which is likely baked into the control IC on these devices. It’s most likely not worth the time to try to figure out one without the other. The good news is someone linked a really cool hackaday article above where somebody worked out the control protocol on at least one model and demonstrated pushing pretty arbitrary content to the display.