5 ms·

Also, unless I'm mistaken, not e-ink.

by CarelessExpert 6y ago

fartcannon 6y ago
Yes, not e-ink. But it has a heart rate monitor.
- anotheryou 6y ago
  definitely not. And in the dev kit the halves are not even glued together yet :)
  - wavefunction 6y ago
    They're intentionally not glued together so devs can dev. Seems reasonable.
    - anotheryou 6y ago
      Totally :) Just different to the arduino one.
AshamedCaptain 6y ago
I keep thinking that e-Ink is way overrated, and the fact that a large chunk people do not seem to distinguish Pebble (which is an LCD) from actual e-Ink devices only reinforces it. Not saying that I like "backlight" watches (I don't), but there's a large selection of reflective LCD watches (e.g. most traditional sport/GPS ones, Garmin, Suunto, etc.) which are indistinguishable from the Pebble in terms of display. e-Ink at this point is just $$ and slow refresh. For most users, at least.
- wsinks 6y ago
  Interesting point here. I've recently been thinking about why e-ink hasn't gotten more market saturation, and you make a good point that LCD watches look the same as e-ink, but have more customizability. Just for example, do you have any specific watches that you like the most for their LCD look? And where would you go purchase small LCD screens? I'm not familiar with online marketplaces that do that, although I'm sure I can do some of my own research and find some.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    > why e-ink hasn't gotten more market saturation It's proprietary; patented by one company.
    - algernonf 6y ago
      Please try to explain yourself. Apple makes proprietary products and gets huge levels of market saturation. So it is unclear what you're saying. There was already a past discussion showing that e-ink being proprietary is not the reason why electrophoretic displays are more popular. In short, cost of development and market volume is the bigger reason why it has not gotten more saturation. There's no patent blocking development of electrophoretic displays and this can be seen by the many startup and larger entrants into the space like fujitsu, liquavista-amazon, qualcom/apple-mirasol who tried to scale up production and then failed.
  - joecool1029 6y ago
    Just wanted to add a nuance to the Pebble comment. Yes, it is a reflective LCD. But, it is also a pixel in memory LCD that has much lower standby power usage. Unless I'm wrong, I'm fairly certain this tech is patented by Sharp and isn't scaled up to larger screen sizes. This makes it sometimes difficult to source these screens (and oftentimes difficult to source large quantities)
- 99_00 6y ago
  Are these LCD watch display always?
  - blacksmith_tb 6y ago
    Some are transreflective, like the Amazfit Bip[1], which though it isn't perfect, is pretty decent overall. 1: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/amazfit-bip-review/ https://www.cnet.com/reviews/amazfit-bip-review/
  - AshamedCaptain 6y ago
    Yes they are. Just the backlight is not always on, putting them in reflective mode (again, exactly like the Pebble does).

Also, unless I'm mistaken, not e-ink.

fartcannon 6y ago

Yes, not e-ink. But it has a heart rate monitor.

anotheryou 6y ago
definitely not. And in the dev kit the halves are not even glued together yet :)
- wavefunction 6y ago
  They're intentionally not glued together so devs can dev. Seems reasonable.
  - anotheryou 6y ago
    Totally :) Just different to the arduino one.

AshamedCaptain 6y ago

I keep thinking that e-Ink is way overrated, and the fact that a large chunk people do not seem to distinguish Pebble (which is an LCD) from actual e-Ink devices only reinforces it. Not saying that I like "backlight" watches (I don't), but there's a large selection of reflective LCD watches (e.g. most traditional sport/GPS ones, Garmin, Suunto, etc.) which are indistinguishable from the Pebble in terms of display. e-Ink at this point is just $$ and slow refresh. For most users, at least.

wsinks 6y ago
Interesting point here. I've recently been thinking about why e-ink hasn't gotten more market saturation, and you make a good point that LCD watches look the same as e-ink, but have more customizability. Just for example, do you have any specific watches that you like the most for their LCD look? And where would you go purchase small LCD screens? I'm not familiar with online marketplaces that do that, although I'm sure I can do some of my own research and find some.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > why e-ink hasn't gotten more market saturation It's proprietary; patented by one company.
  - algernonf 6y ago
    Please try to explain yourself. Apple makes proprietary products and gets huge levels of market saturation. So it is unclear what you're saying. There was already a past discussion showing that e-ink being proprietary is not the reason why electrophoretic displays are more popular. In short, cost of development and market volume is the bigger reason why it has not gotten more saturation. There's no patent blocking development of electrophoretic displays and this can be seen by the many startup and larger entrants into the space like fujitsu, liquavista-amazon, qualcom/apple-mirasol who tried to scale up production and then failed.
- joecool1029 6y ago
  Just wanted to add a nuance to the Pebble comment. Yes, it is a reflective LCD. But, it is also a pixel in memory LCD that has much lower standby power usage. Unless I'm wrong, I'm fairly certain this tech is patented by Sharp and isn't scaled up to larger screen sizes. This makes it sometimes difficult to source these screens (and oftentimes difficult to source large quantities)
99_00 6y ago
Are these LCD watch display always?
- blacksmith_tb 6y ago
  Some are transreflective, like the Amazfit Bip[1], which though it isn't perfect, is pretty decent overall. 1: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/amazfit-bip-review/ https://www.cnet.com/reviews/amazfit-bip-review/
- AshamedCaptain 6y ago
  Yes they are. Just the backlight is not always on, putting them in reflective mode (again, exactly like the Pebble does).