The Best Way to Hack Electronic Shelf Labels

You’ve probably seen ESLs (Electronic Shelf Labels) appearing in brick-and-mortar stores lately. They aren’t great for consumers, as they enable dynamic pricing. But retailers sure do love them! Regardless of how controversial they are, ESLs are pretty neat technology. If you want to play around with them, TagTinker is the easiest way to do so.

If you haven’t seen one in the wild yet, an ESL is a replacement for the standard printed price label on a store shelf. It will have an e-ink screen, a battery, and a controller with some communication capability for setting the displayed content, including the price. Because e-ink screens only consume power when refreshing display, the battery lasts a very long time and ESLs are practical.

The communication protocol varies based on ESL model. Some are wireless and they let store managers update prices in batches. But some rely on old-fashioned infrared blinking...

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