4 ms·

What do you mean by 2? Monitors and TV screens fit that range, no?

by j88439h84 6y ago

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.
- reificator 6y ago
  I'd be ecstatic with a monochrome 20"+ eink monitor for use after 8:00PM or so. With the F.lux settings I use on my normal monitor it's practically monochrome anyway. 7FPS is probably not quite high enough, but I've seen 10-13" displays with 15-20FPS, and that would be fine for normal computing. I'd probably swap my scrollwheel for PageUp/PageDown to make full page refreshes a little more pleasant though.
  - andai 6y ago
    There was a brief interest in transflective LCD technology in the 2000s and early 2010s but it seems to have died off (at least for consumer products), which means sunlight-readable (or candle-readable, for the evenings) LCD with high refresh rates. There was even one company (edit: Pixel Qi) putting solar cells in the displays themselves, so the device recharged while being used in sunlight. YouTube video comparing Pixel Qi in sunlight with normal backlit LCD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1mD6vhp3U8#t=1m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1mD6vhp3U8#t=1m45s (around 01:45)
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  7 pfs are not a showstopper for a console I don't know why one would want a huge daylight visible console, but it's one of those things where I'm just not creative enough.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    I don't know why one would want a huge daylight visible console, but it's one of those things where I'm just not creative enough. Not exactly a command line terminal, but there was an ambient signage project on HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323 Also https://onezero.medium.com/meet-accent-352cfa95813a https://onezero.medium.com/meet-accent-352cfa95813a
- LeifCarrotson 6y ago
  Because I use that monitor to read and write text. Lots and lots of text, very little video. 7 fps is abundantly adequate for reading text if you only interact with it by hitting 'page down' every 30 seconds, and if your typing is accurate enough that 150ms delay between hitting the key and seeing the character doesn't cause errors it's fine for writing text. I don't need 30, 60, 120, or 144 Hz refresh rates to work with text. It would probably be impossible to see the difference. What I need is contrast and brightness settings to limit eye fatigue, and that's where e-ink would be great.
nemo 6y ago
A monitor sized e-ink display would be unusable as, say, a PC display. E-ink refresh rates makes e-ink useless for video, scrolling, etc. I have a feeling one's really come up with applications where a monitor/TV sized very slowly refreshing screen was useful so there's no demand.
- duskwuff 6y ago
  > E-ink refresh rates makes e-ink useless for video, scrolling, etc. Or even simpler -- a mouse cursor is essentially unusable on an e-ink display. Much like an old passive-matrix LCD, you'd need to implement nasty workarounds like cursor trails to restore any semblance of usability.
  - totony 6y ago
    I use a tilling window manager and would love to just pop a window into an external eink display. Works for other types of wms too, just use a main display to browse and the eink to read.
  - Funes- 6y ago
    I use Dasung's e-ink monitor (Paperlike Pro) daily. A mouse cursor is fully usable. You can even watch videos on that thing. Of course, the refresh rate is far from perfect, but its performance is acceptable. I code on it, mainly.

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.

reificator 6y ago
I'd be ecstatic with a monochrome 20"+ eink monitor for use after 8:00PM or so. With the F.lux settings I use on my normal monitor it's practically monochrome anyway. 7FPS is probably not quite high enough, but I've seen 10-13" displays with 15-20FPS, and that would be fine for normal computing. I'd probably swap my scrollwheel for PageUp/PageDown to make full page refreshes a little more pleasant though.
- andai 6y ago
  There was a brief interest in transflective LCD technology in the 2000s and early 2010s but it seems to have died off (at least for consumer products), which means sunlight-readable (or candle-readable, for the evenings) LCD with high refresh rates. There was even one company (edit: Pixel Qi) putting solar cells in the displays themselves, so the device recharged while being used in sunlight. YouTube video comparing Pixel Qi in sunlight with normal backlit LCD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1mD6vhp3U8#t=1m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1mD6vhp3U8#t=1m45s (around 01:45)
marcosdumay 6y ago
7 pfs are not a showstopper for a console I don't know why one would want a huge daylight visible console, but it's one of those things where I'm just not creative enough.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  I don't know why one would want a huge daylight visible console, but it's one of those things where I'm just not creative enough. Not exactly a command line terminal, but there was an ambient signage project on HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323 Also https://onezero.medium.com/meet-accent-352cfa95813a https://onezero.medium.com/meet-accent-352cfa95813a
LeifCarrotson 6y ago
Because I use that monitor to read and write text. Lots and lots of text, very little video. 7 fps is abundantly adequate for reading text if you only interact with it by hitting 'page down' every 30 seconds, and if your typing is accurate enough that 150ms delay between hitting the key and seeing the character doesn't cause errors it's fine for writing text. I don't need 30, 60, 120, or 144 Hz refresh rates to work with text. It would probably be impossible to see the difference. What I need is contrast and brightness settings to limit eye fatigue, and that's where e-ink would be great.

nemo 6y ago

A monitor sized e-ink display would be unusable as, say, a PC display. E-ink refresh rates makes e-ink useless for video, scrolling, etc. I have a feeling one's really come up with applications where a monitor/TV sized very slowly refreshing screen was useful so there's no demand.

duskwuff 6y ago
> E-ink refresh rates makes e-ink useless for video, scrolling, etc. Or even simpler -- a mouse cursor is essentially unusable on an e-ink display. Much like an old passive-matrix LCD, you'd need to implement nasty workarounds like cursor trails to restore any semblance of usability.
- totony 6y ago
  I use a tilling window manager and would love to just pop a window into an external eink display. Works for other types of wms too, just use a main display to browse and the eink to read.
- Funes- 6y ago
  I use Dasung's e-ink monitor (Paperlike Pro) daily. A mouse cursor is fully usable. You can even watch videos on that thing. Of course, the refresh rate is far from perfect, but its performance is acceptable. I code on it, mainly.