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"E Ink is part of a consortium that owns all the patents around the technology used in their ePaper displays." That appears to be nonsense as far as I know. An

"E Ink is part of a consortium that owns all the patents around the technology used in their ePaper displays." That appears to be nonsense as far as I know. And I'm actively involved in the display industry. I keep seeing this kind of comment in HN which is surprising and each time I always ask give us some evidence or links we can read to verify and I get no answer. Same when I ask what patents are apparently blocking innovation or keeping EInk displays expensive, no answer or non-verifiable answers like patent thicket, secret conspiracy. As a person actually involved with displays, the biggest problem with E-Ink displays is they can't get to the next level of scale because they can't solve yield issues and they can't solve those because they can't get higher volumes. If someone like Apple suddenly put in a pre-paid order for 10 million E Ink displays, I bet you they could get to the next level.

AshamedCaptain 6y ago
> they can't get to the next level of scale because they can't solve yield issues and they can't solve those because they can't get higher volumes I really doubt that theory, either. This world has just way too much money completely idle waiting. It would be extremely easy for them to get really big money if they really had anything that would be world-changing. The problem is that, once you really look into it, there is absolutely nothing in eInk that is world changing. Consumers have problems distinguishing the supposedly better contrast from cheap reflective+monochrome LCD displays (like the Pebble or stuff sold in amazon for $10 these days). But they can easily recognize it the moment the slow refresh comes in. So your average customer only sees disadvantages and high price. They will choose reflective LCD any day over pure eInk. And thus all use cases where eInk might have succeeded are perfectly covered with plain old reflective LCDs (e.g. week-long battery life, primarily outside use such as smartwatches). So your only other benefit about eInk is the passive power usage when not refreshing. Which is why they are making some in-roads into this type of market, e.g. sales price tags, signs, etc. But consumer market? There is just no interest whatsoever from consumers. None whatsoever. Only a handful of geeks know what benefits eInk brings over reflective LCDs (angles, polarity), and out of them only a handful care enough about them to buy.

AshamedCaptain 6y ago

> they can't get to the next level of scale because they can't solve yield issues and they can't solve those because they can't get higher volumes I really doubt that theory, either. This world has just way too much money completely idle waiting. It would be extremely easy for them to get really big money if they really had anything that would be world-changing. The problem is that, once you really look into it, there is absolutely nothing in eInk that is world changing. Consumers have problems distinguishing the supposedly better contrast from cheap reflective+monochrome LCD displays (like the Pebble or stuff sold in amazon for $10 these days). But they can easily recognize it the moment the slow refresh comes in. So your average customer only sees disadvantages and high price. They will choose reflective LCD any day over pure eInk. And thus all use cases where eInk might have succeeded are perfectly covered with plain old reflective LCDs (e.g. week-long battery life, primarily outside use such as smartwatches). So your only other benefit about eInk is the passive power usage when not refreshing. Which is why they are making some in-roads into this type of market, e.g. sales price tags, signs, etc. But consumer market? There is just no interest whatsoever from consumers. None whatsoever. Only a handful of geeks know what benefits eInk brings over reflective LCDs (angles, polarity), and out of them only a handful care enough about them to buy.