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31.2˝ Color EPaper Display
- dheera 6y agoWaiting for Waveshare to copy this and bring its price down to $500!
- ipsum2 6y agoWaveshare licenses from E-ink, it doesn't copy from them.
- robinsoh 6y agoI don't think waveshare manufactures panels. They're an integrator that sells lots of different stuff. I'm pretty sure they buy panels from different vendors and put them together with their kits. E-ink is like the liquid crystal supplier whose material then gets put into lots of different types of panels.
- dheera 6y agoThey're cheaper than E-ink though for the exact same specs, which is why I buy from them ... https://shopkits.eink.com/product/10-3%CB%9D-epaper-display-vb3300-kca/ https://shopkits.eink.com/product/10-3%CB%9D-epaper-display-... https://www.waveshare.com/10.3inch-e-paper-hat.htm https://www.waveshare.com/10.3inch-e-paper-hat.htm
- robinsoh 6y agoYes, of course. Shopkit is E-ink's devkit sales. They'd never undercut their own distributors. It would be like expecting Samsung to be selling LCD screens at a lower price to mom and pop buyers than to Apple.
- dvirsky 6y agoWhat would be a practical application for this?
- eightysixfour 6y agoFeels like a bit of a no-mans land size wise. Too small to be good menu boards or art displays, too big and expensive to be most of the other options I can think of.
- itronitron 6y agoI could see using one for proofing color print jobs of artwork, but I'd want more data on the actual pigment color profiles before purchasing one.
- ortusdux 6y agoIt sounds like it only has a color depth of 4096.
- robinsoh 6y ago4096 implies 4 bits per color. I don't think they can do that with their tech. Their tech is based on pigments. So I don't think they have 4096 pigments in each pixel. I think maybe 32 pigments at best and this isn't like LCD where they can control brightness so 32 is just 32, there's no 32 * 2^4 to get more.
- wcfields 6y agoOutdoor sun-light readable signage. A comparable high-brightness 1080p display is about the same price [1], but uses a lot more electricity and from my experience with them, they have definite lifespan (2-4yrs, despite the 100k hours light lifetime claim) if they're running 24/7. [1] https://www.compsource.com/buy/DS322LR41/Dynascan-4769 https://www.compsource.com/buy/DS322LR41/Dynascan-4769
- Shivetya 6y ago
- 0_____0 6y agoI wonder what the cost driver is for large eink displays. Low yield? Very expensive or time-consuming processes? Low volume?
- eightysixfour 6y agoGeneral argument seems to be that they're heavily patent encumbered and the e-ink company has no competition, so pricing and innovation have stalled.
- davemp 6y agoI wonder why the e-ink company company is using this strategy. I feel like there are a huge amount of embedded devices that would absolutely love to have a screen like this or cannot even exist without a such a screen. But the amount of NDAs, restricted dev tools, and unit costs kill most of these devices in their infancy.
- nickff 6y agoThere are two main issues (speaking as someone who has looked at e-ink for products): - e-ink is optimizing for maximum profits, using classic monopoly pricing - because they are optimizing for profits, their volumes are necessarily small, so their per-unit costs are actually relatively high
- davemp 6y agoI was thinking along the lines that someone will come along and eat their lunch once patents expire so they won't be able to reap the benefits of scaling. To me, it would make sense to invent in capturing a larger market if e-ink believed that they could compete at scale.
- wahern 6y agoE-Ink seems to spend all their time filing new patents: https://patents.justia.com/assignee/e-ink-holdings-inc https://patents.justia.com/assignee/e-ink-holdings-inc Because there's no real market, the only company "innovating" on the original technology is E-Ink. With a 20-year head start locking down iterative improvements, the technology may never get out of the tarpit.
- gnabgib 6y agoI wonder if it's 2560x1440 (as claimed in the upper section), or 1280x720 (as claimed lower). Given the lower resolution is 1/4 of the larger, and the product description diagram shows quarters.. perhaps it's 4 displays merged into the final project (perhaps it can be further embiggened). 4096 colours seems limited though.. the 13.3 linked in January [discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21996326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21996326) looks much more impressive - although the NDA and lack of definitive numbers makes it hard to compare.
- Ashanmaril 6y agoForgive me if I'm misremembering details, but I think the way color e-ink displays work is they have the black/white "ink" capsules that are pushed up/down by magnetic charges, just like a regular black/white e-ink display, except for in the colored ones, each "pixel" also has a red or green or blue color filter over it (one of each in a cluster). But that means the pixels per inch drops because now 3 black/white "pixels" have to work together to be one single color "pixel" I'm not really sure how they measure resolution with this, that could still just be a mistake. But I do know e-ink displays sacrifice resolution for that colour with current technology.
- ggm 6y agoAt least one HN story in the last month was an eInk type product, either them or a competitor, able to position the tiny cells into more than one pair of modes, the current ones is up or down this one had some colour space like rgb as well. So it wasn't 1/3 the pixel density for a colour pixel.
- colejohnson66 6y agoSo, assuming that’s what it is, subpixel resolution is now being advertised as the “true” resolution? Because when I buy a 1080p display, I’m expecting 1920x1080 addressable pixels. Whether that’s implemented as 3840x2160 (2x2 subpixel) or 5760x1080 (3x1 subpixel) is not my concern. And if I bought a display advertised as 3840x2160, and my computer told me it was 1920x1080 (because it’s a 2x2 subpixel layout), I’d be upset.
- unixhero 6y agoHow much is it? Retail price?
- avhon1 6y agoIt's right there on the page. $2,300.00 excluding tax
- SllX 6y agoThanks. Page was hugged to death so I came here to ask as well. :)
- qw3rty01 6y agoKeep in mind eink explicitly does not sell to consumers: > PLEASE NOTE: > (I) THE PRODUCTS ARE NOT CONSUMER PRODUCTS INTENDED FOR PERSONAL, FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLD PURPOSES; AND > (II) PURCHASER IS PURCHASING THE PRODUCTS FOR COMMERCIAL USE AND/OR IN A BUSINESS CAPACITY. ORDERS PLACED BY CONSUMERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
- userbinator 6y agoIn other words, just buy a ton of them and resell...
- nickff 6y agoE-ink already has authorized re-sellers who do this.
- solarkraft 6y agoWhere can I find them and what are their margins?
- ComputerGuru 6y agoNo one that actually means they won’t sell to random internet strangers has a price listed up front and center. This is likely a CYA from the legal department.
- encom 6y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20210217192404/https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2˝-color-epaper-display-sb1452-qab/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210217192404/https://shopkits....
- crazygringo 6y agoIs there any practical use for color ePaper yet though? From my understanding, the technology is still limited to extremely low-saturation colors with extremely low contrast as well, see [1] for example photos and how the tech works. It's certainly not ready for advertising -- instead of a vibrant color image, it looks like something printed on newspaper and left to fade in the sun for 5 years. And color e-readers have significantly worse contrast than black & white ones, which already aren't great. So if you truly need usable color, it seems like you're still always going to choose a traditional LCD/OLED display. Based on the fundamental limitations of the color filters used with eInk, I don't really see a future for it. At least not unless a new technology emerges that doesn't rely on using color filters on top of traditional black-and-white eInk? [1] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/color-e-paper-and-e-ink-kaleido-have-severe-limitations https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/color-e-pape...
- Jack_Hacker 6y agoEbooks with illustrations/graphs? Text books and graphic novels come to mind.
- kgwxd 6y agoAt 31.2" though?
- rodgerd 6y agoFor some specialized uses, sure: think about researchers wanting to look at illuminated manuscripts, especially wanting to see marginalia and the like. A large, low-eyestrain way of seeing high-quality scans would be very handy.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoI have Moss Roberts' translation of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms scanned to PDF. ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520224787/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520224787/ ) The product page doesn't advertise it, but the books are huge. I can't actually read my PDFs because my kindle display is much smaller than that. And yet the market for a reader with a bigger screen seems to be negligible. :(
- ralmidani 6y agoIf you're considering E-Ink for environmental/ethical reasons, keep in mind that electricity may eventually come from renewable resources, while materials that go into electronics like E-Ink devices and tablets are definitely finite (and people die every day in Africa because of that). If you need to reduce eye strain and headaches because you read a lot, that's another story (blue light filtering glasses help, BTW). But if you already have a decent tablet, you're not doing the planet or anyone else a favor when you also buy an E-Ink device. Edit: subaquamille raises great points about battery life and obsolescence which strengthen the argument for E-Ink.
- yayadarsh 6y agoConsumption decisions made by individuals will never solve this problem, as it is more of a problem with labor/industrial regulation and corporate governance.
- subaquamille 6y agoConsider also batterie life and how it's affected by load cycle numbers: ablets get charged one every second day and e-ink devices once a month. Consider also technologie obsolecsence: estimate the times it will take in 10 years for your devices to open a book, change pages, mark highlights. I hardly open a pdf now on my iPad mini and my e-ink device from the same period seems to do the same operation at lighting speed.
- ralmidani 6y agoI've never owned an E-Ink device, and didn't know they outlived tablets by such a wide margin. That's a sizable plus in the E-Ink column.
- input_sh 6y agoI mean there's no real innovation that will make your device anywhere near obsolete in a few years. My Paperwhite from 2015 is pretty identical to ones sold now, and unlike with phones and tablets, software support is still there. So unless you break it, it's probably gonna outlive your phone/tablet/laptop. Mine for sure did.
- blondie9x 6y agoDoes the website load for anyone? Cant get it to load and pings not working.
- cududa 6y agoTheir website always crashes when they announce a new product
- oblio 6y agoThat's such a crap approach to marketing a product.
- rexreed 6y agoLooks like that link is having problems, but you can read more scrolling down on this page: https://www.eink.com/color-technology.html https://www.eink.com/color-technology.html
- tomc1985 6y agoOh boy, another awesome e-Ink design we'll never actually see due to eInk's bullshit monopoly practices
- Krasnol 6y agoCan you elaborate on this?
- linux2647 6y agoFrom my understanding, they hold a large number of epaper patents and have made it difficult for other manufacturers to produce similar panels. EInk then also sets high prices their own panels, making it expensive for manufacturers to source EInk panels
- tomc1985 6y agoThere was a comment by a throwaway account on a recent HN article about e-Ink displays that describes how e-Ink company monopolizes its contribution to epaper device BOMs and how difficult it was to actually integrate their parts. I'm having difficulty finding it but it was posted in the last few days.
- sturadnidge 6y agoI believe it was this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779
- tomc1985 6y agoyup
- habitue 6y agoJust to clarify, if you have a problem with what eInk is doing here, then you basically have a problem with patents altogether. This is essentially the prototypical case for patents: * Invented a novel, physical device[1] * Granted monopoly from the government for 20 years to extract monopoly rent from sale of the product in exchange for making the design publicly available Now, personally, I bite the bullet here and say "maybe we should come up with a better incentive system than patents". But I find it hard to fault eInk specifically since this is exactly how patents are supposed to work. [1] I mention it's a physical device because there are other more controversial types of patents like software patents and patents on genes which are more widely understood to be bullshit.
- Shared404 6y agoI would get excited about this... if e-Ink weren't a horrible company.
- Enginerrrd 6y agoI'm unfamiliar with their criticisms. Can you elaborate?
- Shared404 6y agoThey're famous for patent-trolling and disrupting anyone elses effort's to do anything with the tech. Kind of like Halloween Document era Microsoft, but for e-ink display's instead of PC's.
- robinsoh 6y ago> They're famous for patent-trolling and disrupting anyone elses effort's to do anything with the tech I work in the display industry and have never heard of this. I don't see any data showing this either. Could you show us what you are basing your claims on? Am I missing something?
- notRobot 6y agoMaybe not patent trolling exactly, but: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779
- Shared404 6y agoThat is what I was referring to. I was inaccurate with my wording, my apologies.
- robinsoh 6y agoI challenged that post. You can see my reply asking for any proof and they never replied. I work in the industry. I've attended SID and hung out both with competitors and partners of EInk and I've never ever heard of any of the things that person is claiming. I'll repeat my request for evidence again. " Wow, that is a very serious allegation. But I googled and googled and googled, and found not even one such lawsuit. I also see competing tech like Clearink. Could you show us proof that what you claimed about "buried by their lawyers" is actually occurring? "
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- YeBanKo 6y agoRelated earlier discussion in why this may not be as exciting as it sounds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779
- samstave 6y agoSite is down
- ohazi 6y agoUgh, metacomment about this fucking page. This page implements its own custom scrolling behavior that tries (but fails) to mimic the smooth scrolling behavior that is default in most web browsers. It probably feels like something is slightly off if you have smooth scrolling enabled, but it's extremely and obviously jarring if you have it disabled. Why do people keep doing this?
- chrismorgan 6y agoI have concluded over the years that scrolljacking is always bad. It’s not possible to do it well, as the browser platform doesn’t provide the primitives needed to make it work. I have seen I think two implementations that were almost acceptable, but they still failed badly in the end. This page is made much nicer by disabling JavaScript and removing the nice-scroll class from the root element (they did that part badly too—without JavaScript, you can’t scroll at all until you remove that class).
- justaguy88 6y agoIs it responsive enough for VIM?
- rendaw 6y agoI think this is the last generation color from E-Ink, IIRC this kit has been available for a while.
- smusamashah 6y agoEink has very low refresh rate usually. How long does an eink last of used regularly with high refresh rate e.g. What is the lifespan of Dasung's eink monitor or the Onyx Boox paper tablets which you can even play games and watch videos on?
- rswail 6y agoeInk displays don't really have a "refresh rate". They refresh when they have to change the display.
- ressetera 6y agoWhat is the number of frames per second (fps) someone should expect from this?
- fuzzythinker 6y agoLet's hope clearink[1] and other competitors get funding and push their tech forward. Clearink seems to be targeting educational emerging markets fisrt though[2]. [1] https://www.clearinkdisplays.com/ https://www.clearinkdisplays.com/ [2] https://youtu.be/zjJ2-cdhwMQ?t=15 https://youtu.be/zjJ2-cdhwMQ?t=15
- solarkraft 6y agoI saw a few of the videos and the main points I noticed are - It looks really good - It can be updated quickly - Black is produced with particles attaching to tiny lenses - The faster you want to update ("video mode"), the slightly higher power consumption will be - It's cheap and easy to make with mostly LCD processes - It was supposed to launch in 2020 Unfortunately I haven't seen any update since then. Does anyone know what's holding them back?
- k_sze 6y agoThe spec says 4096 colours, but I think there is plenty of potential already. Given a high enough resolution, adjacent pixels could just perceptually blend together. With the right algorithm, one can simulate many more levels of colours.
- WalterBright 6y ago> PURCHASER IS PURCHASING THE PRODUCTS FOR COMMERCIAL USE AND/OR IN A BUSINESS CAPACITY. ORDERS PLACED BY CONSUMERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. How to fail at business. Not a surprise that I've never seen any of these e-Ink large or color screens anywhere.
- tyler109 6y agoReposted in Reddit Eink: https://www.reddit.com/r/eink https://www.reddit.com/r/eink