16 ms·

Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

314 points by semisight 6y ago

Context upfront: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13771203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13771203 I'd really like to have a decent (let's say >13") display to hang on a wall in my room and display weather, my todo list, etc. It doesn't necessarily have to be E-ink proper, but I like the idea of having something that doesn't emit its own light. More like an electronic whiteboard. Alternatives include something like the Vestaboard, which is not cheap, and probably fairly noisy. Are there products I'm missing here?

macawfish 6y ago
I'm using the Dasung Paperlike HD and I really like it for writing code. 13 inches, but it's real nice. I imagine in 5-10 years or so, we'll see what you're imagining.
- enchiridion 6y ago
  Maybe. I feel like e-ink could have an iPhone moment. It just needs more attention. Remarkable and similar products are analogous to pre-iphone palm pilots.
- 1996 6y ago
  interesting but very expansive
- catmanjan 6y ago
  Could you write a review on it? I've been contemplating getting one for the same purposes but I'd really like to hear some pros and cons before committing
  - macawfish 6y ago
    Pros: it's super light, works outside, runs off of USB power, feels good on the eyes, has a high resolution and a very decent refresh rate. Convenient contrast buttons on the front and a quick clear button. It's VEGA mountable. But I got a lead weight so it's heavy enough for my adjustable monitor stand. Quirks: Expect ghosting. You'll have to press the "clear" button if the only thing moving on the screen is the mouse. This is oddly satisfying and not nearly as annoying as it sounds. Like "time for a fresh slate!" Getting the right contrast is also something you'll have to get used to. Dark themes are basically unusable because of ghosting. The monitor's very high DPI isn't handled well by gnome, so stuff is smaller on the eink display than on my main monitor. It's got different needs than an LCD in terms of software configuration of themes, color management, etc. I don't think any OS was made with this thing in mind, so there are quirks. I wish there were some better "per-display" settings in gnome. But oh well. In spite of the quirks, I don't regret getting this thing at all. It was expensive but now I'll be able to work outside. It's way easier on my eyes. Right now I pretty much just use it for reading and writing code or doing stuff in the shell. And it's great for that. Vim is like the perfect text editor for this. I also got vs code setup alright for it too now, but it's really great with vim, and has been motivating me to use vim more. Btw, I also got the Dasung "not e-reader" tablet which is also awesome. These devices are quirky but really well made and designed.
    - PaulStatezny 6y ago
      Thank you so much for the detail. Could you expand on the "easier on the eyes" part? What did your eyes feel like at the end of a work day before acquiring this monitor versus now?
      - macawfish 6y ago
        I was just having trouble focusing on the screen. My eyes would drift out of focus. It was physically uncomfortable to force my eyes to focus. So I wouldn't. But for my work I would feel like I had to at least try. For context, I had been going through some burnout. So some part of this was probably psychological. But I would look at the screen and just feel overstimulated. Like my brain wouldn't let my eyes focus on that bright little rectangle any more. This thing is just much more gentle to look at. The sense of physical relief is very similar to the sense of relief you'd feel when moving from a bright screen with no blue light filter to a nice warm screen. (Assuming you have comfortable lighting in your environment, of course.) You can try this at home: 1. Stare at a page of a book 2. Stare at a light bulb while it's turned on (just kidding don't actually do it it's not worth it) Which one would you rather do for 8 hours a day? I don't blame you if you say "neither one".
      - GordonS 6y ago
        Not the GP, but have you ever tried using a laptop outside, especially on a sunny day? It's not terribly pleasant, and you'll probably be squinting the whole time - the reflective surface is particularly troublesome. I haven't tried a large e-ink display (though I'd love to, especially for coding), but I've been using Kindle e-book readers for years - the difference compared to a glossy, or even matte, Led display is incredible; it's just like reading a printed book. No squinting, no eye-strain, just really pleasant to use.
- PaulStatezny 6y ago
  Could you share about the refresh rate and how it impacts you when programming? Is it at all an obstacle, at least at first? Also, can you share more about the resolution? This timing is superb; I'm this very week considering purchasing a Pro-F (1600x1200) from Dasung, which has faster refresh but lower resolution. Also a few hundred $$ cheaper. Really curious if you think the lower resolution will be a bummer, or if the higher frame rate will be unnecessary.
  - macawfish 6y ago
    Go with your gut. The higher resolution means that the text looks more like "real ink", but I'm not sure if this is a big deal for you. For me, the refresh rate is just fast enough that I don't notice it while I'm editing text. One important thing to consider, which maybe I should have shared in the other post: I don't really enjoy using the mouse on the e-ink display, because of the refresh rate. It's doable, but noticeably choppy. If using the mouse is important to you while you code, go for the faster refresh rate! The lower resolution might actually be nice too since it might better match your other displays.
    - PaulStatezny 6y ago
      Thanks for the response, I just ordered a 2019 Pro-F from Dasung. I'm hopeful it will help my eyes like it has helped yours.
lowdose 6y ago
Magic Mirror? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696017
JoshTriplett 6y ago
Since the demise of Pixel Qi, does anyone else have a credible laptop screen based on e-ink, that has a high enough refresh rate to be usable, and/or the ability to switch from transflective/zero-power e-ink mode to a normal screen?
- Waterfall 6y ago
  https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2020/1/6/21051340/lenovo-thinkbook-plus-e-ink-screen-price-date https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2020/1/... There's going to be a big display revolution soon. Microled will probably outclass everything until we're at cheap retinal laser displays.
- numpad0 6y ago
  E Ink proper seems to require high voltage and current to refresh. It makes sense because power will be “amortized” but refreshing it often makes it just a high power high contrast device. Other “e-ink” displays has way too low visual quality and markets don’t like that. Brighter backlight LCD and huge battery usually solves the same problem better. IOW/IMO if such technology is to hit the market it would need to be closely comparable to LCD.
- tmerse 6y ago
  My (meanwhile modest) hopes are with clearink [1]. Let's hope they don't go full mirasol. 1: https://youtu.be/zjJ2-cdhwMQ https://youtu.be/zjJ2-cdhwMQ
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
32" e-ink panels exist but are still too expensive to be practical for home use: https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2˝-monochrome-epaper-display-ed312tt2/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2˝-monochrome-epaper-di... The only commercial product I know of that uses it is from Visionect but it's a meant for digital signage rather than as a computer display: https://www.visionect.com/product/place-and-play-32/ https://www.visionect.com/product/place-and-play-32/. It's less expensive than their earlier system but still around $2500.
- pplante 6y ago
  I thought that might be an awesome splurge someday, then I saw the refresh rate of 750ms. Nearly an entire second to see a screen repaint every time I move a cursor.
  - tekknolagi 6y ago
    For a smaller size, apparently the displays made by Dasung are pretty nice.
- robin_reala 6y ago
  Not just 32”, Eink sell a 42” monochrome panel[1] and a 32” colour panel[2] too. [1] https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-epaper-display-ed420tt1/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-epaper... [2] https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%cb%9d-color-epaper-display-ec312tt2/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%cb%9d-color-epaper-di...
TACIXAT 6y ago
Also interested in reflective (non backlit) LCDs. The only ones I've seen are very small.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Like the sharp memory LCDs? They're pretty cool but I think the limiting factor is demand rather than technology (although they do have a pretty niche construction in that the control sillicon is AFAIK actually fabricated inside/along the LCD panel)
  - TACIXAT 6y ago
    I'm actually more interested in a high refresh rate, non backlit monitor. Power isn't really an issue for desktops, so that part of eink doesn't appeal to me. I'm trying to limit my time looking at illuminated sources. Something like [1] with no front light. 1. https://youtu.be/kDk-t6XkFvc https://youtu.be/kDk-t6XkFvc
    - Waterfall 6y ago
      What about a trans reflective display? I don't know about them being high refresh though.
    - namibj 6y ago
      Would greyscale be ok? If so, you should be able to delaminate a panel and replace the backlight with a reflector. If you'd do that with a color LCD, you'd have a very dark image, however.
- macawfish 6y ago
  Here's an interesting one: https://www.j-display.com/english/news/2016/20160520.html https://www.j-display.com/english/news/2016/20160520.html
efreak 6y ago
> It doesn't necessarily have to be E-ink proper, but I like the idea of having something that doesn't emit its own light. Such as an older LCD panel without a backlight? It doesn't sound like you're looking for anything special here.
- tomxor 6y ago
  Was thinking something similar - rather than an old panel you could take a newer large high res panel, chosen carefully so it's easy to separate from the back-light. I wonder what it would look like with just paper behind it instead? (or a slightly more reflective white material). I wouldn't expect color to "transflect" very well, but it might work ok as a simple 1-bit screen, fully transmissible as possible reflecting off the paper, or fully opaque. The LCD still needs continuous power, but far far less than the backlight. That might end up being a superior balance... a small amount of continuous power, with the benefit of up to 60hz refresh rate if you want it.
  - gen3 6y ago
    This sounds pretty similar to the display on the Pebble Time. It was a color LCD, sometimes marketed as a low power LCD or reflective LCD. For the majority of the time the display didn't use the backlight. They don't seem to be widely manufactured in my attempts to look for them... I should check again!
    - numpad0 6y ago
      Sharp’s Memory LCD, I think. Combination of SRAM cells to hold state in each pixel and improved reflexive backing, otherwise normal LCD, so data input can be stopped without losing contents. Also to parent comment: backlit LCD without backlight looks like brownish tinted frosted glass. Transreflexives look like calculators and never like a paper. There were high contrast monochrome variant in those Memory LCD products and it looked like half silvered mirror, respectively.
    - frosted-flakes 6y ago
      Or the GameBoy Advance and Advance SP. The Advance SP had a toggle-able front light, but was very usable without it. (A later version of the Advance SP had a regular back-lit LCD screen.)
ipsum2 6y ago
Have you looked at https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/? It's a little smaller, 12" diagonal. Dasung sells a 13.3" e-ink monitor: https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Paperlike-13-3-E-Ink-Monitor/dp/B00MWEPM3C https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Paperlike-13-3-E-Ink-Monitor/d...
- JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
  Looks like I can get the Dasung for $1200 used... It’s a pity because I’d love that thing to read the web on actually.
  - ipsum2 6y ago
    They might be out due to COVID-related supply issues, I remember seeing them in stock a few months ago. You might have better luck ordering from the company directly.
- dheera 6y ago
  Can anyone comment on the difficulty (for a hacker) of using Remarkable with Kindle books? I have a Kindle already, if that makes a difference in generating DRM-free files of content I already purchased reading rights to.
  - frosted-flakes 6y ago
    It is trivial to convert DRM'd Kindle e-books you own into epub or other formats. Check out Calibre and the Apprentice Alf plugin. https://calibre-ebook.com/ https://calibre-ebook.com/ https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/ https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/
    - baq 6y ago
      has something changed? it used to be easy but looks like there's a per-device encryption support in new kindles.
      - 6y ago
j88439h84 6y ago
Boox makes large e-readers. They're not cheap but they are good. https://shop.boox.com/products/boox-note-pro#custom-tab-1 https://shop.boox.com/products/boox-note-pro#custom-tab-1
- akavel 6y ago
  Kinda look sold out... nudge nudge hint hint at all the super fancy Business People of HN...
thomas 6y ago
Relevant article with many related updates and context: https://cloudconfusing.com/2020/02/07/e-ink-monitors-ready-for-prime-time/ https://cloudconfusing.com/2020/02/07/e-ink-monitors-ready-f...
GekkePrutser 6y ago
If you're interesting in building your own you can get a 12" one from waveshare: https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch-e-paper-module.htm https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch... This is the black/white one, they do a black/white/red one too. But beware, they take really long to refresh (the red color takes several refreshes to appear). And the one with red is on backorder till June. It can be powered by a raspberry pi (or ESP32 or Arduino) and is (much) cheaper than the ereader options of the same size: Only about $170. PS Beware: You can't simply start up a user interface like X-Windows on it. You have to write software to display on it. The display is addressed in 4 separate sections so it's not super easy.
- agys 6y ago
  I did some experiment with the bare version of this display, both with the b/w and the b/w/r displays. The black and white one can be partially updated (window mode) and is a bit faster. The four sections mentioned above don't have exactly the same size: two sections have slightly fewer pixels in width. I used a STM32 controller which came with the display; it had just enough memory to fit a whole image. It was interesting to write some 'generative' code for it... https://www.instagram.com/p/B6-h1TSBG6x/ https://www.instagram.com/p/B6-h1TSBG6x/ https://www.instagram.com/p/B3o6RirB5iU/ https://www.instagram.com/p/B3o6RirB5iU/
- bluedays 6y ago
  Neat. I was looking for one of these. Wanted to make a KindleBerry Pi to do some writing/coding in a destruction free environment.
  - tinkertamper 6y ago
    I wanted this for some time, an eink coding experience for outdoor use and good battery life. Do you know of any active projects online where people have got this working?
j45 6y ago
QuirkLogic builds large 42" e-ink displays that double as whiteboards. I would suspect they have smaller ones too. https://www.quirklogic.com/collections/all https://www.quirklogic.com/collections/all
hkiely 6y ago
There has been a great deal of improvement in color sub 12“ displays in the CPG space. Start watching for them at Walmart and Target.
cosmoian 6y ago
Check out Visionect 32“ - we use 42“ for outdoor - check out Soofa.co
cosmoian 6y ago
Visionect 32“ or for outdoor soofa.co 42“ EInk itself has a Whiteboard now
solarkraft 6y ago
This isn't perfectly within your search criteria, but you may still find it interesting. Just today I researched the available solutions for driving a ED097OC1 (compatible) display, which was built into the Kindle DX, has a diagonale of 9,7" and can be obtained for about 30€ [0]. There are some projects dedicated to driving the screen with an ESP32, which already has WiFi built in, has good low power modes and is pretty cheap as well [1] [2]. There's also a project driving e-ink displays with an stm32 [3] and one to do it with an FPGA [4]. Beyond 13" things get really expensive and hard to find - best I can do is 12,48" for 150€ [5]. [0]: https://aliexpress.com/item/32983492389.html https://aliexpress.com/item/32983492389.html [1]: https://github.com/dqydj/PaperBack_EPaper_Display https://github.com/dqydj/PaperBack_EPaper_Display [2]: https://hackaday.io/project/168193-976-e-paper-controller-kindle-screen/log/174926-v2-underway.A https://hackaday.io/project/168193-976-e-paper-controller-ki... [3]: https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekocal-an-e-ink-calendar https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekocal-an-e-ink-calendar [4]: https://github.com/vd-rd/project_rorschach https://github.com/vd-rd/project_rorschach [5]: https://aliexpress.com/i/32929629021.html https://aliexpress.com/i/32929629021.html
- solarkraft 6y ago
  So that's the current state of available stuff - The ESP32 stuff is quite interesting because it's all you need for an IoT module and in the right version it even has enough RAM for full screen updates. I don't know specifics about the voltage conversion yet (these screens need about -20V - 20V), but I reckon that if you're really frugal you could make a battery powered wall display for under 60€ with this stuff - and that's part 1 of what I'm thinking of doing. Part 2 would be to stick in a Pine64 SOPINE System On a Module [6], put on a capacitive touch layer [7] and run a mainline Linux with KOReader and maybe even a Wayland compositor to be able to run any Linux app (the high contrast GTK theme seems perfect for this application). All hopefully for under 200€, which is a lot less expensive than other e-readers if that size and a whole lot cooler. Any tips? [6]: https://store.pine64.org/?product=sopine-a64 https://store.pine64.org/?product=sopine-a64 [7]: https://aliexpress.com/item/32984143128.html https://aliexpress.com/item/32984143128.html [8]: https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader
Waterfall 6y ago
If you don't need refresh, a drawing board can be suitable. You can use this. https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4000550295706.html?pid=808_0000_0131 https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4000550295706.html?pid=808_000... OLED can work very well and I have used it for night reading over the eink display Kindle use. You may be interested in reflective LCDs like epaper too. A window outside is better for weather and writing a todo list is a better reminder. If you change your goal from remembering to do things and knowing how the outdoors is, you'll see that a large eink screen is not at all a productive use of money nor will it be the most optimal for knowing the weather or reminding you to do things. Writing notes in class helps you remember more than typing it, which in turn is better than taking a picture of the whiteboard. Famous tech enterprisers such as bill Gates and Steve jobs did not allow electronics to be used as learning tools for their children because they deemed them too distracting.
- wolco 6y ago
  In fairness their children haven't done anything in the tech space or much of anything near tech/science. Of the 7 children: Jobs kid's one is a writer, celebrity son, goes to school. All Standford grads or attending. Of Bill gate's kids one goes to art school, the rest not much. I would not copy them unless you have the billions for them to fall back on.
  - Waterfall 6y ago
    In higher level education they also use the familiar chalkboard rather than electronics. I use this not to say the merits of their children's occupations (regression to the mean is common in families of great achievements) but as a warning of what people in tech see as a threat to their own children's well being. Electronics are wonderful but not for everything. If screens work better for you, perfect! They have been a hindrance to me, addiction to screens is very common today and I am weak enough to fall into they category.
    - necovek 6y ago
      Wow, "regression to the mean". Creating something motivates most of the people on this planet, and without going into specifics, I would claim that Gateses and Jobses of this world are not all that rare as far as their abilities are concerned. Situation and, well, luck, are a big part of where life takes people. And having been provided for will discourage most from being as driven to "succeed" (in either financial or tech/scientific sense, two most common accepted ways to success on HN). Which is to say: don't judge according to your standards of "success". And raising kids is anything but science, unless you have such a large number of them that statistics applies (though even then, you'd probably be breaking a bunch of laws if you tried to be scientific :)). As such, addiction to screens is usually, imo, an addiction to specific type of content, or rather interaction (or lack thereof) type.
Animats 6y ago
They exist. They still cost more than color displays. Larger sizes are still "call for quotation". The current sales pitch seems to be "you don't have to wire AC power to the sign", for bus stops and such.
arvinsim 6y ago
An iPad-sized, Kindle-like reader would be a godsend.
- Waterfall 6y ago
  They have these but the contrast is so poor that it's hard to read for the resolution it claims to have. Try the mobile reader forums. There's large Chinese ebook readers.
- solarkraft 6y ago
  These things do exist (Sony DPT, Onyx Boox, ReMarkable) - they're just more expensive than you'd expect them to be considering what they can do.
  - beezle 6y ago
    Remarkable has a premium for the ability to write on the display with tactile feel and response time near identical to ordinary pen/pencil.
    - namibj 6y ago
      The Eink Carta generation (300dpi, 4-bit greyscale) has about 15Hz refresh rate when driven in 1bpp mode (black/white only). Combined with efficient partial refresh, this sounds like it'd not be more than a stylus sensor behind the display (as usual), and some software to properly translate this into partial refreshes. The premium is not really high just from them having to spend particularly much. Either they make very nice margins on it, or it's really that expensive to get a screen that size.
      - diffeomorphism 6y ago
        > this sounds like it'd not be more than a stylus sensor behind the display (as usual) And that would be a wrong guess. Eink readers with wacom styluses are not particularly new (e.g. Hanvon, onyx etc.). The remarkable 1's "claim to fame" was a greatly improved latency compared to these, i.e. to be much better than what you describe.
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
There is a need gap for 'Affordable E-Ink large external displays'[1]. Dasung, Onyx have been market leaders in this category and they are expensive. There are E-ink tablets from several other manufacturers as mentioned in other comments, but they rarely are external displays. Then there are reliability issues with cheap DIY E-Ink displays, they don't last long and especially when displaying low refresh rate data like Weather, todo list; there will be ghosting issues quite soon. I'm not exactly sure on whether manufacturing large E-ink external displays is just an unit-economics problem which will get resolved with improvement in technology or there is some underlying Intellectual Property issues from the likes of Amazon,Dasung,Onyx etc. [1]https://needgap.com/problems/43-affordable-e-ink-large-external-displays-eink-displays https://needgap.com/problems/43-affordable-e-ink-large-exter...
- ianai 6y ago
  From previous discussions, I remember it being a company sitting on the tech.
  - Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
    You mean IP?
    - ianai 6y ago
      Yes, I think.
- scottlocklin 6y ago
  Not only are Onyx expensive; they're basically unusable. A rooted Kobo H2O with koreader in landscape mode is vastly better. Sony is apparently still selling the DPT-RP1, and it still doesn't connect to Linux or read DjVu. I guess at least it has an OSX client.
  - j88439h84 6y ago
    Onyx boox note pro is expensive but fwiw I really like it.
numpad0 6y ago
I forgot to reply to the previous post on topic but is there someone looking for a single purpose typewriter laptop? One that I know is Kingjim Pomera line. They have a few reflexive LCD models based on some rare Toshiba uC, an E Ink model that runs on good old ARM926EJ-S, IIRC, and a color backlit LCD model that just runs Android Linux stripped bare(no Android GUI at all). Some people are running X on the last one. Those are only available in Japan with JP106 keyboard(think of ANSI with ISO return, ISO symbols and two extra keys next to spacebar) and I can’t assure hackability, but as an input...
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est 6y ago
There are some large E-ink display at bus stops in China http://einkcn.com/post/216.html http://einkcn.com/post/216.html https://www.sohu.com/a/330365162_100238338 https://www.sohu.com/a/330365162_100238338 I think it's a waste of tax-payers money. Besides why it's not been stolen yet? For consumer electronics I found modern e-ink tablets have very good refresh rate. Watching video is pretty smooth.
- missosoup 6y ago
  > Besides why it's not been stolen yet? Because it's not really useful to anyone. Anything worth stealing in China does get stolen, like their attempted solar cell bicycle paths.
csours 6y ago
Hah, this question is a blast from the past! I guess I kind of gave up at some point.
lolryan 6y ago
The technology is there, but E Ink (the company) is steadfastly refusing to lower prices because they believe there's a market for this. Now go to Alibaba and find that you can get a flexible, full-color OLED sheet for the same price as a given size E Ink panel. Go on eBay and buy an older NOOK device (they all ran Android) for $20, tape it to your wall, and point at your web page of choice.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  A great example of patents strangling innovation. If anyone has more concrete details on the way this company is holding back this technology I’d love to read details. Thanks!
  - okatzzz2 6y ago
    What makes you think it’s to do with patents? Maybe there’s just insufficient demand.
    - vanderZwan 6y ago
      There is insufficient demand for high priced e-ink screens. Which probably comes down to supply, which probably comes down to patents
    - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
      I am responding to a parent comment that suggested there was more demand but the company was holding it back. If that is true the only way one company could hold it back is patents.
      - okatzzz2 6y ago
        No. They could just choose not to sell at a lower price. In a frictionless market someone else would step in and sell the good at the lower price, but in reality if not enough people want it then that third party won’t bother.
  - 6y ago
keanzu 6y ago
A Canvas Made of Pixels (claybavor.com) The most interesting problem to tackle was “the blue glowing screen problem”. One of the many ways that screens give themselves away as screens is by emitting light that is “out of character” with the surrounding environment. They can be too bright or too dark relative to the things around them, and indoors, displays often seem too blue. I solved these problems with what I call “luminance matching”. The basic idea is to sample the light falling on the frame several times a second, and then adjust the display and image parameters so that what’s displayed is “correct” given the surrounding environment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10900439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10900439
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  Looks like updated link is https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-pixels https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-pixels
- ipsum2 6y ago
  This is what Apple is doing with True Tone.
  - keanzu 6y ago
    Clay Bavor published in Dec 2015 but Apple filed their patent on March 30, 2015 - seems Apple just got in under the wire there. http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=17&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=(apple.AANM.+AND+20160623.PD.)&OS=aanm/apple+and+pd/6/23/2016&RS=(AANM/apple+AND+PD/20160623) http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...
    - heavenlyblue 6y ago
      So Clay Bavor did _not_ invent that
      - keanzu 6y ago
        "A year ago over the holiday break, I created a large-scale digital “canvas”" posted December 27, 2015 https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-pixels https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-pixels He claims to have invented it prior to Apple, but he didn't publish before they got their patent in.
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mortenjorck 6y ago
I've long wondered why electrophoretic displays (the generic term for E Ink, which is a proprietary name) continue to be exponentially more expensive at sizes larger than a Kindle while other technologies like OLED have become vastly more affordable in larger formats over a similar timeframe. The best I can tell is that there just hasn't been an investment in scaling up fabrication anywhere near what the likes of LG (mostly LG, actually) has done with >40" OLED panels. Presumably the demand isn't there yet, and so larger-format electrophoretics remain the product of low-volume, high-cost manufacturing processes.
- lostgame 6y ago
  But e-ink technology isn’t ready to go out of the gate - the refresh rate is still a significant issue that makes it virtually purposeless for much beyond reading. If it is at this point, it just didn’t happen quickly enough.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    I'd like a very large e-ink display for artwork, signage, and metrics. It doesn't have to refresh more than once every several seconds.
    - 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 6y ago
      Some of the eink displays linked here have 12s refresh, and it does a super annoying flash black/white process while refreshing.
    - lostgame 6y ago
      Then you are a niche case. In order to forward a new technology, the masses need to adapt it. Apple, for instance, had to upscale the manufacture of Retina displays by starting with a proven successful product - then moving it to the iPad, then moving it to MacBooks. We had e-book readers for e-ink, but they stayed at a super slow refresh rate. There was no reason to create a tablet sized e-ink display until the ReMarkable removed the issue of the delay. Now we will have clones of that, and after that we will see a push to larger displays. Mass manufacturing is hugely about cost balance vs. demand. I think digital whiteboards in offices would be a great market for this. Again, though, if you’re going to draw on it at all there needs to be zero latency.
downshun 6y ago
Is it that hard to tile smaller displays together?
NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
ReMarkable 2 ? https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2 https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2
trevyn 6y ago
Soooo surely someone here knows something about this... at the fancy Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, they have “living paintings” as part of the ambiance, which are very clearly digital. They are large and in color, TV-sized. But they look like they are not emitting their own light. My best guess is carefully controlled brightness and some special coating (they have a paint-like finish), but that’s just a guess. Anyone know more details?
agys 6y ago
In Shanghai they are used as timetables at bus stops. Almost A2 size in some stops and smaller ones, about A4 (vertical) at others... The small ones had a clock which updated every minute (windowed mode) while the passenger data updated in longer intervals, probably hourly.
- riqbal 6y ago
  Thank you for the info. I just searched and found this post https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2018/11/15/e-ink-for-the-shanghai-bus-system https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2018/11/15/e-ink-fo...
  - agys 6y ago
    Yes. That's the bigger one! It's strange that the list of buses is sorted by bus number and not by time… Also: finally a display where advertisement is probably not so attractive.
    - yabatopia 6y ago
      > It's strange that the list of buses is sorted by bus number and not by time… You don't randomly hop on the first bus that arrives at your bus stop. You need the bus that brings you to your desired destination. The bus number is important to know you're on the right bus. Sorting by bus number makes it easier to scan for arrival time of the bus you actually need.
      - tda 6y ago
        Also, every route can be displayed on the board, even if the next ten buses are all on a different route with better service. Better to have the next bus for every route than just the next expected buses
      - agys 6y ago
        But there might be different busses which share the same route for a while: so you'd rather find find the first one.
robocat 6y ago
I suspect you would be interested in this: https://hackaday.com/2016/01/19/a-digital-canvas-thats-hard-to-spot/ https://hackaday.com/2016/01/19/a-digital-canvas-thats-hard-... It matches the LCD lighting to the ambient light, so that it doesn’t have that “glowing screen” look, but instead looks like a flat picture. Something else irrelevant to your question, but trés cool: https://hackaday.com/2019/08/17/great-artificial-daylight-via-broken-tvs/ https://hackaday.com/2019/08/17/great-artificial-daylight-vi...
luka-birsa 6y ago
Large format E-ink displays are currently used primarily in digital signage scenarios (outdoor advertising, passenger information systems,...) - examples are Soofa (http://www.soofa.co/ http://www.soofa.co/) and Mercury Innovation (https://www.mercuryinnovation.com.au/digital-bus-stop https://www.mercuryinnovation.com.au/digital-bus-stop). The largest size currently available is 42" and it is used in outdoor and indoor scenarios. Indoor use is for education purposes as a digital whiteboard - see Quilla (https://www.engadget.com/2017-01-03-quirklogic-s-quilla-is-a-42-inch-e-ink-whiteboard.html https://www.engadget.com/2017-01-03-quirklogic-s-quilla-is-a...). None of these are especially applicable for home use due to the price tag (just to be clear, the display itself is very expensive). What you could do is use Sonys larger format eInk tablet, use Remarkable EInk tablet or hack your own solution from an older Kobo reader. We're offering solutions somewhere in the middle - traditionally we were focused on SME, where our devices are being used as universal digital signage (http://www.visionect.com http://www.visionect.com) or tailored for room booking (http://getjoan.com http://getjoan.com), so a bit pricy for home use. But we just launched a 6" device called Joan Home (https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home/ https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home/) that syncs to your calendar and are looking to expand it with new functionality in the future. We're thing of integrations with home automation, pomodoro timer, IFTTT, etc... Comments on the Joan Home are welcome - as we're actively thinking of developing this into a more feature rich product in next two months.
- Operyl 6y ago
  What a cool product for meeting rooms! But .. and maybe I'm just not the target audience, there's no way in any universe am I paying 250 bucks for a "do not disturb sign" in my house. That's just way too expensive.
  - luka-birsa 6y ago
    Yup. We did get a lot of that with our meeting room solution. We'll be expanding the feature set over the near future, to entice home users to go for something like this even with a price tag of 250.
    - 6y ago
tanvir08 6y ago
new commnet
technobabble 6y ago
I use a DPT-RP1 13”. I use it everyday, however the pen has an adequate writing experience and the build quality isn’t great. I’ve used the ReMarkable before and it has a much better build quality and a better writing experience. Foe just an electronic whiteboard there are Boogieboards.
sureklix 6y ago
Good question, I wonder the same. I would say E-ink is still the best bet in terms of no-light emission property. Someone from ReMarkable could give really good insights as they are the hottest startup building a product within this space. Other than that possibly the cheapest option would be to tile old kindles and find a way to interface with them... Sad that Amazon makes Kindle very closed to modification in terms of software. Therefore I am a huge fan of ReMarkable because an underdog may allow us to finally build e-ink apps: https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable
CHsurfer 6y ago
BVG
nomanlagharipak 6y ago
Please visit link https://www.yoururdupoetry.com/2020/04/poetry-for-love-urdu-love-poetry-love_10.html https://www.yoururdupoetry.com/2020/04/poetry-for-love-urdu-...
macawfish 6y ago
Check this out, a 32 inch reflective LCD: https://www.j-display.com/english/news/2016/20160520.html https://www.j-display.com/english/news/2016/20160520.html
- solarkraft 6y ago
  Looks cool! Where can I get it?
  - macawfish 6y ago
    Good question! I found a demo here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4hu0B2F4HU4?t=12m https://youtu.be/4hu0B2F4HU4?t=12m
matheweis 6y ago
There’s an article on the front page right now about an individual who created an art project displaying a newspaper page with a 31.2” eInk display: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323 Unfortunately it looks to be quite expensive, but the technology is there. As others have already pointed out, the newly released Remarkable 2 sounds exactly like what you’re looking for. https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/
asgdsg 6y ago
xfjhnhjxbn
Mikho 6y ago
Here is E-Ink's 13.3˝ ePaper Display: https://shopkits.eink.com/product/13-3%cb%9d-epaper-display-ed133ut2/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/13-3%cb%9d-epaper-display-... 31.2˝ monochrome ePaper Display: https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epaper-display-ed312tt2/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epap... And here is 42˝ monochrome ePaper Display: https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-epaper-display-ed420tt1/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-epaper... Pricey, unfortunately. But does the work.
husamia 6y ago
https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-revisited-35b407822494 https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-revisited-35b40...
myuseraccount 6y ago
Artec Design offers products for digital signage based on E Ink's 9.7", 13.3" and 32" panels: http://www.artecdesign.ee/products/e-paper-digital-signage-platform/ http://www.artecdesign.ee/products/e-paper-digital-signage-p...
Vordimous 6y ago
I found this on Hacker News. does it count? https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-revisited-35b407822494 https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-revisited-35b40...