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I strongly believe there is a market for a large, thin, slow-to-update e-ink display to hang on the wall, connect to your phone, and display stuff. I'd pay it f

I strongly believe there is a market for a large, thin, slow-to-update e-ink display to hang on the wall, connect to your phone, and display stuff. I'd pay it for it, wouldn't you? I'm talking about an end-user product, not just a component for tinkering.

gjs278 6y ago
there isn’t. it doesn’t even look better than a normal monitor or phone
zhoujianfu 6y ago
Yep, I’ve been dreaming about this for years.. for me the critical component of it is no power cable.. just some (C?) batteries in the frame, and then it updates via infrared across the hall like grocery store eink price tags do. Bonus points if it’s color eink. Somebody please?
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  I read a thing on HN the other day that was about being able to change an eink display off of wireless power (not sure if it was "ambient" energy like wifi signals or a directed thing like Qi); it's slow but apparently possible to incrementally change an e-ink screen like that. Could work with solar panels, and I'm sure that could be integrated into the screen.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
There's https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%CB%9D-monochrome-epaper-display-ed420tt1/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%CB%9D-monochrome-epaper..., a 42" monochrome display module, but it costs $2500 and it's a component, not a full solution. But, it could be made into a product, the components are all present. It'd likely retail at an easy $5000 - $10000 though, and I don't know if that is competitive with e.g. the Surface Hub (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/business/surface-hub-2); https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/business/surface-hub... only found one price for it but it's $10K, but you get a full computer, high resolution color touch screen, etc.
psandersen 6y ago
Yeah definitely, I'd stick a few around the house if it was easy to create a nice dashboard from multiple data sources. Current top tasks on to-do list, habbitrpg overview, last nights sleep quality, exercise amount/progress, weight status, indoor air quality, time and weather would be great.
luka-birsa 6y ago
So far 100% of HN articles re: E Ink contain a comment like this. Sadly it is highly unlikely that you will get something like this at an acceptable price point. We (https://www.visionect.com/ https://www.visionect.com/) have been making non-ebook based E Ink solutions for a decade now. Except for Joan, our room booking solution (https://getjoan.com https://getjoan.com), we have not found a customer application that could survive the low-volume incurred high price of an E Ink solution (beyond E book readers and Note taking to some extent). LCDs are simply too cheap and when customers get the option of going for a 75" color LCD display for a price of a 32" E Ink, it's a really tough sell to the consumer. The application really needs to make sense. If you consider yourself as an outlier from the general feedback we got from the market, then do let me know - the 13" devices we offer come with a years worth of battery, have WiFi built in and our software allows you to display any web-based content or upload images. They even mount to the wall using a magnet. You can buy one on our online store.
- coob 6y ago
  Love what you guys are doing with Joan. I strongly believe there's a place in the market for displays that don't feel like displays. I don't think there's much need for interaction, but passive emitters of relevant, useful, hyper local information that feel like a wall feature or design piece rather than screen could have high success rate. I built a Smart Mirror for this purpose. It was mostly a mirror, in a nice wooden frame, but it also subtly told me when the next bus running down my road would be and whether or not I needed an umbrella that day. The only reason it's not back up on the wall yet is because it uses a backlit LCD which is fine during daylight as the half mirrored glass hides this with enough light, but at night it's all lit up. If it were backed by OLED instead (impossible at a 24" size) it would feel much more magical. There's lots of other ways of taking the same approach - furniture / feature first, display second, that I think could succeed as a popular product.
  - godelski 6y ago
    I have a few solutions for you: 1) Your monitor doesn't need to be the size of your mirror. Just the size of the display content. 2) Add a motion control or other type of sensor to turn on and off the backlight.

gjs278 6y ago

there isn’t. it doesn’t even look better than a normal monitor or phone

zhoujianfu 6y ago

Yep, I’ve been dreaming about this for years.. for me the critical component of it is no power cable.. just some (C?) batteries in the frame, and then it updates via infrared across the hall like grocery store eink price tags do. Bonus points if it’s color eink. Somebody please?

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I read a thing on HN the other day that was about being able to change an eink display off of wireless power (not sure if it was "ambient" energy like wifi signals or a directed thing like Qi); it's slow but apparently possible to incrementally change an e-ink screen like that. Could work with solar panels, and I'm sure that could be integrated into the screen.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

There's https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%CB%9D-monochrome-epaper-display-ed420tt1/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%CB%9D-monochrome-epaper..., a 42" monochrome display module, but it costs $2500 and it's a component, not a full solution. But, it could be made into a product, the components are all present. It'd likely retail at an easy $5000 - $10000 though, and I don't know if that is competitive with e.g. the Surface Hub (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/business/surface-hub-2); https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/business/surface-hub... only found one price for it but it's $10K, but you get a full computer, high resolution color touch screen, etc.

psandersen 6y ago

Yeah definitely, I'd stick a few around the house if it was easy to create a nice dashboard from multiple data sources. Current top tasks on to-do list, habbitrpg overview, last nights sleep quality, exercise amount/progress, weight status, indoor air quality, time and weather would be great.

luka-birsa 6y ago

So far 100% of HN articles re: E Ink contain a comment like this. Sadly it is highly unlikely that you will get something like this at an acceptable price point. We (https://www.visionect.com/ https://www.visionect.com/) have been making non-ebook based E Ink solutions for a decade now. Except for Joan, our room booking solution (https://getjoan.com https://getjoan.com), we have not found a customer application that could survive the low-volume incurred high price of an E Ink solution (beyond E book readers and Note taking to some extent). LCDs are simply too cheap and when customers get the option of going for a 75" color LCD display for a price of a 32" E Ink, it's a really tough sell to the consumer. The application really needs to make sense. If you consider yourself as an outlier from the general feedback we got from the market, then do let me know - the 13" devices we offer come with a years worth of battery, have WiFi built in and our software allows you to display any web-based content or upload images. They even mount to the wall using a magnet. You can buy one on our online store.

coob 6y ago
Love what you guys are doing with Joan. I strongly believe there's a place in the market for displays that don't feel like displays. I don't think there's much need for interaction, but passive emitters of relevant, useful, hyper local information that feel like a wall feature or design piece rather than screen could have high success rate. I built a Smart Mirror for this purpose. It was mostly a mirror, in a nice wooden frame, but it also subtly told me when the next bus running down my road would be and whether or not I needed an umbrella that day. The only reason it's not back up on the wall yet is because it uses a backlit LCD which is fine during daylight as the half mirrored glass hides this with enough light, but at night it's all lit up. If it were backed by OLED instead (impossible at a 24" size) it would feel much more magical. There's lots of other ways of taking the same approach - furniture / feature first, display second, that I think could succeed as a popular product.
- godelski 6y ago
  I have a few solutions for you: 1) Your monitor doesn't need to be the size of your mirror. Just the size of the display content. 2) Add a motion control or other type of sensor to turn on and off the backlight.