9 ms·

Perhaps someone more familiar with the technology can help me understand. Why are e-ink displays either tiny (tablet-sized or smaller) or huge (for digital sign

Perhaps someone more familiar with the technology can help me understand. Why are e-ink displays either tiny (tablet-sized or smaller) or huge (for digital signage)? I always thought it would be cool to have an x-teen or 20 something inch e-ink monitor to make reading docs, specs, etc. much easier. I realize the refresh rate on these things is pretty low, but I've read accounts of some screens being clocked to around 20hz which may not be enough to watch videos or play games, but it would be ok for reading and scrolling. OTOH I did see a 30 something inch e-ink development board for sale once and wondered if I could hack one together. It was expensive, but that didn't particularly matter because the company made it clear they wouldn't sell to consumers or hobbyists.

caleb-allen 6y ago
I found this 10.3 inch monitor on their site, it's quite expensive though https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/eink-disp-103.htm?sku=17615 https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/eink-disp...
- ianai 6y ago
  I wonder how well that works in practice. At 15hz refresh I think it’d be fine for vi.
  - 6c696e7578 6y ago
    Somehow as I'm very used to respsonsiveness in vi, anything less would feel quite sluggish.
    - nathancahill 6y ago
      Typing at 15hz would be miserable (personally).
  - jalgos_eminator 6y ago
    Not for me. I regularly have vi sessions running over 3-4 cascaded ssh sessions (and a couple VPN connections in there too). Its usable, but the delay messes with your brain if you are an experienced vi user.
    - toast0 6y ago
      If the delay is consistent, it shouldn't be too bad. I spent 3 weeks on a business trip to Europe, when my devserver was in Sunnyvale, and did all my editing via ssh as I usually do (in joe, not vi, but pretty similar) and it was mostly fine --- I do recall doing some tunneling to reduce the latency a bit though. It was not as fine when they sent me to India with the same development setup, so there's a limit... But it's closer to 200ms than 100ms, so 15hz should be ok in my mind.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    In contrast with sibling comments, I think it would be just fine. VIM was designed for high latency, and even the modern versions do pretty well with a second or two of lag. Issue a command, wait for the response. The big thing is not depending on the screen keeping in perfect sync with your typing. I know this causes an issue for me when it's related to talking - an echo off by a hundred or more milliseconds will absolutely throw me off the rails - but it doesn't bother me so much when typing. A mental relic of writing code in terminals connected to distant servers, I'm sure.
- mavhc 6y ago
  https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch-e-paper-module.htm https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch... screen without the hdmi interface is much cheaper
lowdose 6y ago
> because the company made it clear they wouldn't sell to consumers or hobbyists. But if you have a business address it always allowed to request a sample.
csours 6y ago
I've been wondering that for a while myself ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13771203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13771203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22827833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22827833
sparker72678 6y ago
There're a few things going on that contribute to this. 1) The rumors are that some of the display manufacturers have contracts with big device makers to not sell panels direct to consumer. I don't have evidence to verify this, though. 2) There aren't a lot of displays that exist _at all_ outside of the small/eReader/Big Sign categories. So there probably just aren't the production lines out there to push those out. 3) Since refresh rates in even the best cases aren't great, it's unlikely to get a lot of traction in most markets, so I don't think anyone is pursuing it heavily. 4) eInk (the company) seems very uninterested in the hobby market at all. They seem to want a few big contracts, and that's all they're interested in.
- j88439h84 6y ago
  What do you mean by 2? Monitors and TV screens fit that range, no?
  - sparker72678 6y ago
    I meant no one is currently making E-ink displays of those sizes in bulk. Sorry for the confusion.
    - austhrow743 6y ago
      I believe the question you were answering was asking why that is.
      - sparker72678 6y ago
        My point was that there's no current wide-spread use of low-refresh displays in that size category, because all the obvious use cases slide around it, so there isn't going to be spillover into a new use-case when there's nothing there to spill out of. I'm probably just muddying the waters at this point.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    Why would you want a monitor or a tv screen with a refresh rate of 7 fps? And that's monochrome. For actual RGB output, you need three refreshes, and the RGB ones are slower, so you might get a frame per second.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cosmie 6y ago
> It was expensive, but that didn't particularly matter because the company made it clear they wouldn't sell to consumers or hobbyists. I created an LLC a few years ago to route my moonlighting consulting work through. Even if my need for it dries up eventually, I'd still probably keep it around. Single greatest benefit of having it is ease of access to the commercial and industrial supply chain and slipping through these sorts of "no consumer or hobbyists allowed" sales positions.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Groxx 6y ago
Dasung has been selling a 13-inch-ish for a while: https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Paperlike-Front-Light-Touch-Monitor/dp/B07SKS6CS7 https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Paperlike-Front-Light-Touch-Mo... But that's still within the "arguably a tablet screen" size range.
tanjtanjtanj 6y ago
The Onyx Boox line has a 13.3" display version. They mainly cater to musicians using them for sheet music but I have a friend that consumes textbook PDFs at a pace of about 3 per week that swears by his.
- owenshen24 6y ago
  I also have one of these and I really like the 13" screen. Recommended, though pricey.
- kps 6y ago
  For those who care, there have been recent reports that Onyx are actively and deliberately violating GPL. https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_using_recent_antichina_movement_as_excuse_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin...
- Jolter 6y ago
  Sony makes one, too, but it seems to hobbled by not running a real OS to make it useful. All it does is read PDF files.
- ptman 6y ago
  The remarkable isn't quite that big, but nice for PDFs (and annotating them as well) https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/
orcasauce 6y ago
I've very much wanted to tile them across a wall of my house to make a virtual/dynamic "smart wall" for quite a while. Even a B/W version would be sufficient. Last time I checked in was late 2018 and at that time there wasn't a good sub-six-figure solution. It'd also require a lot of manual work on each cell since the cells didn't have a zero width bezel for gapless tiling.

caleb-allen 6y ago

I found this 10.3 inch monitor on their site, it's quite expensive though https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/eink-disp-103.htm?sku=17615 https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/eink-disp...

ianai 6y ago
I wonder how well that works in practice. At 15hz refresh I think it’d be fine for vi.
- 6c696e7578 6y ago
  Somehow as I'm very used to respsonsiveness in vi, anything less would feel quite sluggish.
  - nathancahill 6y ago
    Typing at 15hz would be miserable (personally).
- jalgos_eminator 6y ago
  Not for me. I regularly have vi sessions running over 3-4 cascaded ssh sessions (and a couple VPN connections in there too). Its usable, but the delay messes with your brain if you are an experienced vi user.
  - toast0 6y ago
    If the delay is consistent, it shouldn't be too bad. I spent 3 weeks on a business trip to Europe, when my devserver was in Sunnyvale, and did all my editing via ssh as I usually do (in joe, not vi, but pretty similar) and it was mostly fine --- I do recall doing some tunneling to reduce the latency a bit though. It was not as fine when they sent me to India with the same development setup, so there's a limit... But it's closer to 200ms than 100ms, so 15hz should be ok in my mind.
- falcolas 6y ago
  In contrast with sibling comments, I think it would be just fine. VIM was designed for high latency, and even the modern versions do pretty well with a second or two of lag. Issue a command, wait for the response. The big thing is not depending on the screen keeping in perfect sync with your typing. I know this causes an issue for me when it's related to talking - an echo off by a hundred or more milliseconds will absolutely throw me off the rails - but it doesn't bother me so much when typing. A mental relic of writing code in terminals connected to distant servers, I'm sure.
mavhc 6y ago
https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch-e-paper-module.htm https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch... screen without the hdmi interface is much cheaper

lowdose 6y ago

> because the company made it clear they wouldn't sell to consumers or hobbyists. But if you have a business address it always allowed to request a sample.

csours 6y ago

I've been wondering that for a while myself ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13771203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13771203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22827833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22827833

sparker72678 6y ago

There're a few things going on that contribute to this. 1) The rumors are that some of the display manufacturers have contracts with big device makers to not sell panels direct to consumer. I don't have evidence to verify this, though. 2) There aren't a lot of displays that exist _at all_ outside of the small/eReader/Big Sign categories. So there probably just aren't the production lines out there to push those out. 3) Since refresh rates in even the best cases aren't great, it's unlikely to get a lot of traction in most markets, so I don't think anyone is pursuing it heavily. 4) eInk (the company) seems very uninterested in the hobby market at all. They seem to want a few big contracts, and that's all they're interested in.

j88439h84 6y ago
What do you mean by 2? Monitors and TV screens fit that range, no?
- sparker72678 6y ago
  I meant no one is currently making E-ink displays of those sizes in bulk. Sorry for the confusion.
  - austhrow743 6y ago
    I believe the question you were answering was asking why that is.
    - sparker72678 6y ago
      My point was that there's no current wide-spread use of low-refresh displays in that size category, because all the obvious use cases slide around it, so there isn't going to be spillover into a new use-case when there's nothing there to spill out of. I'm probably just muddying the waters at this point.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  Why would you want a monitor or a tv screen with a refresh rate of 7 fps? And that's monochrome. For actual RGB output, you need three refreshes, and the RGB ones are slower, so you might get a frame per second.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cosmie 6y ago

> It was expensive, but that didn't particularly matter because the company made it clear they wouldn't sell to consumers or hobbyists. I created an LLC a few years ago to route my moonlighting consulting work through. Even if my need for it dries up eventually, I'd still probably keep it around. Single greatest benefit of having it is ease of access to the commercial and industrial supply chain and slipping through these sorts of "no consumer or hobbyists allowed" sales positions.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Groxx 6y ago

Dasung has been selling a 13-inch-ish for a while: https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Paperlike-Front-Light-Touch-Monitor/dp/B07SKS6CS7 https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Paperlike-Front-Light-Touch-Mo... But that's still within the "arguably a tablet screen" size range.

tanjtanjtanj 6y ago

The Onyx Boox line has a 13.3" display version. They mainly cater to musicians using them for sheet music but I have a friend that consumes textbook PDFs at a pace of about 3 per week that swears by his.

owenshen24 6y ago
I also have one of these and I really like the 13" screen. Recommended, though pricey.
kps 6y ago
For those who care, there have been recent reports that Onyx are actively and deliberately violating GPL. https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_using_recent_antichina_movement_as_excuse_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin...
Jolter 6y ago
Sony makes one, too, but it seems to hobbled by not running a real OS to make it useful. All it does is read PDF files.
ptman 6y ago
The remarkable isn't quite that big, but nice for PDFs (and annotating them as well) https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/

orcasauce 6y ago

I've very much wanted to tile them across a wall of my house to make a virtual/dynamic "smart wall" for quite a while. Even a B/W version would be sufficient. Last time I checked in was late 2018 and at that time there wasn't a good sub-six-figure solution. It'd also require a lot of manual work on each cell since the cells didn't have a zero width bezel for gapless tiling.