8 ms·

Chicken and the egg? You need high volumes to drop the price and you can't get high volumes with high price. The E Ink technology has a lot of downsides compar

Chicken and the egg? You need high volumes to drop the price and you can't get high volumes with high price. The E Ink technology has a lot of downsides compared to OLED and LCD, such as update speed, limited colors,... We (http://www.visionect.com http://www.visionect.com) have been building E Ink solutions for past decade and we just stoped convincing people that they should use E Ink where they could use LCD or OLED. E Ink is useful only as a niche solution for specific, mostly not consumer (exception being Kindle and Remarkable) products. We've sold a platform for any application and after a while we saw that it only makes sense to focus on specific niches (digital signage, transportation, bus stops) or go for finished product (see our https://getjoan.com https://getjoan.com). In the end it is what it is - everybody says they'd use an E Ink display everyday, but almost nobody is prepared to spend the cash when they can use iPads, phones or huge LCD/OLED instead. E Ink will have it's day in digital signage as they solve the colors as these screens will replace all paper advertising eventually, but untill the you'll see this screens on ebook readers / note takers, on conference rooms and on digital bus stops.

ghaff 7y ago
And even E Ink Kindle is a bit niche. It's great for reading flowing text as in most fiction. However, for things with a lot of graphics/photographs a tablet or even a phone tends to be a lot better. To say nothing of all the other things you can do with a tablet. As a result, when I travel, I almost never take my Kindle because a tablet is so much more versatile.
- _ph_ 7y ago
  Right. E-ink ist really only for mostly static display. Thats why I think that for proper pdf-reading you would need an e-ink reader which can display the whole page at its original size, so roughly A4 sized. Even the 12.9" iPad Pro is a bit small for that, but at least it can quickly zoom and scroll.
  - pfortuny 7y ago
    Well, margins do not need to exist when reading on a tablet (unless for margin notes but these are usually scant). I have an iPad 2019 which I think is 10’3’’ and honestly, math papers (my area) are pretty much equal to the “real thing”.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Personally I'm fine with reading PDFs on the 11". I have a 12.9" I bought mostly as an experiment in creating videos. For drawing and so forth the larger screen is nice. But I find it's too big/heavy to read on.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    There was the Kindle DX which was 12.6" on the diagonal IIRC. I guess that's still a bit too small though, and the last model of that came out a decade ago.. I'm guessing it didn't sell well because I've never seen anybody using one.
    - ajford 7y ago
      I knew some professors in college that had the DX and that was exactly why they used it. They could download a bunch of newly published papers/references frequently and only have to carry the DX. You'd see them roaming about the campus reading them. Eventually I think that swapped out for iPads since they could be used for non-paper things.
bmelton 7y ago
It should probably not be lost on us that the E-ink display[1] he's using in the prototype costs $1500. That's a lot for what basically amounts to a one color display, and if we ignore all the other features of E-ink, you could replicate this for less cost with other tech. I recently experienced the Samsung Frame[2] which - to be clear - is NOT an E-ink panel, doesn't have the power savings, etc., but it's larger, cheaper, and has a very believable art mode. I was one of those guys who tried mounting an old flat panel to the wall to display art that I liked before realizing that it just wasn't believable. It was a nice enough effect in a well lit room, but turn the lights down in the slightest, and it's very obviously a television set, and just didn't feel at all arty. On the other hand, the Frame is extremely believable as a framed art print, to the extent that it fooled me the first time I saw one. I haven't bought one yet, but it's much easier to imagine spending the $1000 for a Frame, mounting it vertically, and hacking out a way to format a newspaper graphic into its art mode than it is for me to imagine spending $1500 on an E-Ink display. Aside from being cheaper, if the project doesn't work out, then I can at least use the Frame for its intended purpose. [1] - https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epaper-display-ed312tt2/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epap... [2] - https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/the-frame/highlights/ https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/the-...
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  Actually the display he used was a color eInk display but he chose to use it in greyscale mode as an aesthetic decision.
  - stouset 7y ago
    > E Ink’s 31.2-inch monochrome display fit the bill. The 31.2-inch color display gives you colors, but not at any satisfying resolution or contrast ratio. I
- detaro 7y ago
  Question about the Samsung Frame that I didn't find answered in reviews: Does the adjusting brightness etc to look natural also work with external signals, or only when showing images in "art mode"?
Taniwha 7y ago
Back around maybe 1988-9 I worked with a company that built the first big screen video card for the Mac 2. They went to Sony and said "we want to buy 15,000 monitors", they were humorously heavy 19 inch 1kx768 monitors, cost something like $5-10k. Sony laughed at us, we'd never sell that many, besides (unlike TVs) they essentially made them by hand on a minimalist assembly line - we sold 25k that year. It's the same chicken and egg thing there's not a lot of incentive to optimise the production costs until the volumes spike and that wont happen until the prices drop
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Sounds like a valid use for burning VC. Rather than subsidize bicycle sharing or cheap car rides, VC could bootstrap scaled production lines for new risky tech.
  - rkangel 7y ago
    China has basically sorted the scaling of production lines. A large part of the VC money for bicycle sharing should be capex in a large number of bicycles, but that's a lot cheaper than it used to be due to the available manufacturing capability. That's true for general electronic and mechanical stuff and obviously not true for everything. Semiconductor, batteries etc. are much more specialised.
_ph_ 7y ago
The Place and Play looks very much like what I am looking for, but indeed, the prices are not exactly consumer-level. I really wonder, whether there would not be more consumer interest in these devices, if there were actual offerings. What about offering the 13" display in a plastic housing with a software more crafted to the consumer/hobbyist? Perhaps powered and controlled by USB-C or optimized for the Raspberry Pi. How low could the prices go, especially with larger volumes? Of course, it could be just me, and there is not much interest in the wider audience.
- taude 7y ago
  For me the ideal size would be like a 10 or 11" device I could use for text-based things. (Think Emacs-ish only type of device, or something)....super light weight, long battery life.
- luka-birsa 7y ago
  The components cost too much. Perhaps if this was some open source play where everybody did everything for free. We tried different pricing, different positioning and we could not breakthrough into large volumes with a platform play. Everybody in the end tries to haggle you on the price / cut you out and unless you have Google-deep pockets you can't afford to lose money for a couple years to launch this wide. I'd say that it's pretty much impossible to do a platform play in hardware if you're a startup. Even when talking about IOT, which is arguably the simplest hardware I don't remember of a platform play that went really well. Most of them are meh or random successes like the ESP WiFI (again not started by a small startup, but still could be argued that is a proper hacker platform). If you want to play with some of our solutions, hit me up at luka dot birsa [at] visionect dot com and I'll see what I can do.
umvi 7y ago
You don't have to convince me to use eink, you just have to convince me it is worth the price. For example, I've been dying for one of these: https://www.padformusician.com/en/ https://www.padformusician.com/en/ Imagine having my entire music library in an eink tablet. Then, when I go to my parents' house I can play any of my music on their piano. But I'm not willing to spend $900+. I'd be willing to spend up to $200
- jrockway 7y ago
  I think you've hit the nail on the head here. An e-ink tablet needs the same SoC, battery, metal case, and software engineering that an LCD tablet needs. So if an e-ink display cost the same as an LCD, the tablet would cost the same. But because of the limitations of the display technology, the device would do less than the equivalent tablet. You can't play games on it. You can't watch Netflix on it. Browsing the web would be a chore that nobody would do except in an emergency. For that reason, the devices don't exist.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Something like a Kindle Paperwhite works, especially for people who read a lot of fiction. It's small, light, easy to read outside, and fairly cheap.But upsize it and now you have a very limited function tablet. OK, it works for reading PDFs of things like scientific papers (which I understand is something people like the Remarkable tablet for). And it's easier to read outside. (Might be a bit cheaper too because you don't need as powerful a processor.) But you're mostly trading off a pretty general purpose device--which is getting even more so--for something that has a really narrow set of use cases. And isn't really as good as the smaller models for just reading text.
  - webmaven 7y ago
    Not quite the same; battery needs are a fraction even with front lighting, CPU can be slower due to lower display refresh rate, displays are less fragile so you can have a less robust case, etc. Unfortunately, this doesn't overcome the higher display cost. Perhaps an e-ink feature phone would have a high enough volume to do so.
jerrysievert 7y ago
just a heads up, the page you linked seems to hijack the scroll bar on safari and is generally unusable (clicks not working, etc). it appears to be your bundle.js coming from assets.ubembed.com that is causing all sorts of issues. might be something to look at.
echelon 7y ago
I would pay $2 - $5k for a poster sized, high-dpi black and white E Ink display that had wifi and a bunch of readily available art. Especially if it could be battery powered so I could mount it on brick wall. The technology and novelty is incredibly cool.
baybal2 7y ago
Eink cost comes mostly from lockin by Eink, Epson and few other parties. The technology is ridiculously low tech by the industry standards in comparison to any tft screen
bradgessler 7y ago
Could you sell a home Joan? We have those at work and I find myself wanting that form factor with WiFi, but instead of scheduling I’d put my own content on there.
- Shank 7y ago
  They sell this now! https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home
rakoo 7y ago
I've been looking for a replacement for my smartphone, mainly because I don't want to be addicted to apps anymore, but also because I'm tired of charging it every 1/2 days even though I barely use it. I stumbled upon the Lightphone II (https://www.thelightphone.com/ https://www.thelightphone.com/), a gorgeous slab-looking phone, with an eink display, and I realized this was the way for me: battery life for days/weeks, minimal functionality, good looks.... unfortunately the price (350$) is way too high at the moment, I can't afford to put that much money into something that ultimately isn't that important. I wish technology would improve though, because I'd really love to have a simple phone like that. No need for Android, only something like KaiOS would be more than enough.

ghaff 7y ago

And even E Ink Kindle is a bit niche. It's great for reading flowing text as in most fiction. However, for things with a lot of graphics/photographs a tablet or even a phone tends to be a lot better. To say nothing of all the other things you can do with a tablet. As a result, when I travel, I almost never take my Kindle because a tablet is so much more versatile.

_ph_ 7y ago
Right. E-ink ist really only for mostly static display. Thats why I think that for proper pdf-reading you would need an e-ink reader which can display the whole page at its original size, so roughly A4 sized. Even the 12.9" iPad Pro is a bit small for that, but at least it can quickly zoom and scroll.
- pfortuny 7y ago
  Well, margins do not need to exist when reading on a tablet (unless for margin notes but these are usually scant). I have an iPad 2019 which I think is 10’3’’ and honestly, math papers (my area) are pretty much equal to the “real thing”.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Personally I'm fine with reading PDFs on the 11". I have a 12.9" I bought mostly as an experiment in creating videos. For drawing and so forth the larger screen is nice. But I find it's too big/heavy to read on.
- catalogia 7y ago
  There was the Kindle DX which was 12.6" on the diagonal IIRC. I guess that's still a bit too small though, and the last model of that came out a decade ago.. I'm guessing it didn't sell well because I've never seen anybody using one.
  - ajford 7y ago
    I knew some professors in college that had the DX and that was exactly why they used it. They could download a bunch of newly published papers/references frequently and only have to carry the DX. You'd see them roaming about the campus reading them. Eventually I think that swapped out for iPads since they could be used for non-paper things.

bmelton 7y ago

It should probably not be lost on us that the E-ink display[1] he's using in the prototype costs $1500. That's a lot for what basically amounts to a one color display, and if we ignore all the other features of E-ink, you could replicate this for less cost with other tech. I recently experienced the Samsung Frame[2] which - to be clear - is NOT an E-ink panel, doesn't have the power savings, etc., but it's larger, cheaper, and has a very believable art mode. I was one of those guys who tried mounting an old flat panel to the wall to display art that I liked before realizing that it just wasn't believable. It was a nice enough effect in a well lit room, but turn the lights down in the slightest, and it's very obviously a television set, and just didn't feel at all arty. On the other hand, the Frame is extremely believable as a framed art print, to the extent that it fooled me the first time I saw one. I haven't bought one yet, but it's much easier to imagine spending the $1000 for a Frame, mounting it vertically, and hacking out a way to format a newspaper graphic into its art mode than it is for me to imagine spending $1500 on an E-Ink display. Aside from being cheaper, if the project doesn't work out, then I can at least use the Frame for its intended purpose. [1] - https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epaper-display-ed312tt2/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epap... [2] - https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/the-frame/highlights/ https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/the-...

ComputerGuru 7y ago
Actually the display he used was a color eInk display but he chose to use it in greyscale mode as an aesthetic decision.
- stouset 7y ago
  > E Ink’s 31.2-inch monochrome display fit the bill. The 31.2-inch color display gives you colors, but not at any satisfying resolution or contrast ratio. I
detaro 7y ago
Question about the Samsung Frame that I didn't find answered in reviews: Does the adjusting brightness etc to look natural also work with external signals, or only when showing images in "art mode"?

Taniwha 7y ago

Back around maybe 1988-9 I worked with a company that built the first big screen video card for the Mac 2. They went to Sony and said "we want to buy 15,000 monitors", they were humorously heavy 19 inch 1kx768 monitors, cost something like $5-10k. Sony laughed at us, we'd never sell that many, besides (unlike TVs) they essentially made them by hand on a minimalist assembly line - we sold 25k that year. It's the same chicken and egg thing there's not a lot of incentive to optimise the production costs until the volumes spike and that wont happen until the prices drop

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Sounds like a valid use for burning VC. Rather than subsidize bicycle sharing or cheap car rides, VC could bootstrap scaled production lines for new risky tech.
- rkangel 7y ago
  China has basically sorted the scaling of production lines. A large part of the VC money for bicycle sharing should be capex in a large number of bicycles, but that's a lot cheaper than it used to be due to the available manufacturing capability. That's true for general electronic and mechanical stuff and obviously not true for everything. Semiconductor, batteries etc. are much more specialised.

_ph_ 7y ago

The Place and Play looks very much like what I am looking for, but indeed, the prices are not exactly consumer-level. I really wonder, whether there would not be more consumer interest in these devices, if there were actual offerings. What about offering the 13" display in a plastic housing with a software more crafted to the consumer/hobbyist? Perhaps powered and controlled by USB-C or optimized for the Raspberry Pi. How low could the prices go, especially with larger volumes? Of course, it could be just me, and there is not much interest in the wider audience.

taude 7y ago
For me the ideal size would be like a 10 or 11" device I could use for text-based things. (Think Emacs-ish only type of device, or something)....super light weight, long battery life.
luka-birsa 7y ago
The components cost too much. Perhaps if this was some open source play where everybody did everything for free. We tried different pricing, different positioning and we could not breakthrough into large volumes with a platform play. Everybody in the end tries to haggle you on the price / cut you out and unless you have Google-deep pockets you can't afford to lose money for a couple years to launch this wide. I'd say that it's pretty much impossible to do a platform play in hardware if you're a startup. Even when talking about IOT, which is arguably the simplest hardware I don't remember of a platform play that went really well. Most of them are meh or random successes like the ESP WiFI (again not started by a small startup, but still could be argued that is a proper hacker platform). If you want to play with some of our solutions, hit me up at luka dot birsa [at] visionect dot com and I'll see what I can do.

umvi 7y ago

You don't have to convince me to use eink, you just have to convince me it is worth the price. For example, I've been dying for one of these: https://www.padformusician.com/en/ https://www.padformusician.com/en/ Imagine having my entire music library in an eink tablet. Then, when I go to my parents' house I can play any of my music on their piano. But I'm not willing to spend $900+. I'd be willing to spend up to $200

jrockway 7y ago
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. An e-ink tablet needs the same SoC, battery, metal case, and software engineering that an LCD tablet needs. So if an e-ink display cost the same as an LCD, the tablet would cost the same. But because of the limitations of the display technology, the device would do less than the equivalent tablet. You can't play games on it. You can't watch Netflix on it. Browsing the web would be a chore that nobody would do except in an emergency. For that reason, the devices don't exist.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Something like a Kindle Paperwhite works, especially for people who read a lot of fiction. It's small, light, easy to read outside, and fairly cheap.But upsize it and now you have a very limited function tablet. OK, it works for reading PDFs of things like scientific papers (which I understand is something people like the Remarkable tablet for). And it's easier to read outside. (Might be a bit cheaper too because you don't need as powerful a processor.) But you're mostly trading off a pretty general purpose device--which is getting even more so--for something that has a really narrow set of use cases. And isn't really as good as the smaller models for just reading text.
- webmaven 7y ago
  Not quite the same; battery needs are a fraction even with front lighting, CPU can be slower due to lower display refresh rate, displays are less fragile so you can have a less robust case, etc. Unfortunately, this doesn't overcome the higher display cost. Perhaps an e-ink feature phone would have a high enough volume to do so.

jerrysievert 7y ago

just a heads up, the page you linked seems to hijack the scroll bar on safari and is generally unusable (clicks not working, etc). it appears to be your bundle.js coming from assets.ubembed.com that is causing all sorts of issues. might be something to look at.

echelon 7y ago

I would pay $2 - $5k for a poster sized, high-dpi black and white E Ink display that had wifi and a bunch of readily available art. Especially if it could be battery powered so I could mount it on brick wall. The technology and novelty is incredibly cool.

baybal2 7y ago

Eink cost comes mostly from lockin by Eink, Epson and few other parties. The technology is ridiculously low tech by the industry standards in comparison to any tft screen

bradgessler 7y ago

Could you sell a home Joan? We have those at work and I find myself wanting that form factor with WiFi, but instead of scheduling I’d put my own content on there.

Shank 7y ago
They sell this now! https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home

rakoo 7y ago

I've been looking for a replacement for my smartphone, mainly because I don't want to be addicted to apps anymore, but also because I'm tired of charging it every 1/2 days even though I barely use it. I stumbled upon the Lightphone II (https://www.thelightphone.com/ https://www.thelightphone.com/), a gorgeous slab-looking phone, with an eink display, and I realized this was the way for me: battery life for days/weeks, minimal functionality, good looks.... unfortunately the price (350$) is way too high at the moment, I can't afford to put that much money into something that ultimately isn't that important. I wish technology would improve though, because I'd really love to have a simple phone like that. No need for Android, only something like KaiOS would be more than enough.