Canvas

A self-hosted alternative to the official BLOOMIN8 app for managing images on your Canvas e-ink display.

Why?

The official BLOOMIN8 app has several limitations:

• Cannot upload iOS photo albums directly
• Crashes when uploading more than ~30 photos
• Uploads photos to an unknown third-party cloud
• No widget or quick way to monitor device status

Canvas solves all of these by running a lightweight server on your own network:

• Bulk upload — Send your entire photo library without crashes
• Self-hosted — Your photos stay on your server, never leave your network
• iOS app — Simple SwiftUI app to upload photos and manage playlists
• Battery widget — iOS lock screen widget showing battery level and days since last charge

How It Works

1. Upload photos from the iOS app to your Canvas server
2. Start a playlist — the server wakes the e-ink device
3. The device periodically pulls a new image from the server and displays it
4. The iOS widget shows the current battery level at a glance

Installation

Docker Compose

Create a docker-compose.yml:

services:
  canvas-server:
    image: moifort/bloomin8:latest
    container_name: canvas-server
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      HOST: 0.0.0.0
      PORT: "3000"
      NITRO_SERVER_URL: http://<YOUR_SERVER_IP>:3000
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data

Replace <YOUR_SERVER_IP> with the local IP address of the machine running the server (e.g. 192.168.0.165). The BLOOMIN8 device uses this URL to pull images, so it must be reachable on your network.

Then start the server:

docker compose up -d

CasaOS

A ready-to-use CasaOS configuration is available in docker-compose.casaos.yml. Import it directly from the CasaOS dashboard.

iOS App

Build and install the iOS app from ios/Canvas/ using Xcode. On first launch, open the in-app settings screen ("Modifier les réglages") to point the server URL at your Canvas server (e.g. http://192.168.0.165:3000) — a "test connection" button checks it is reachable.

iOS Widget

After installing the app, add the Canvas Battery widget to your lock screen or home screen. It refreshes every 15 minutes and displays the current battery percentage of your e-ink display.

Docker Hub

The Docker image is available at moifort/bloomin8.