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The truth is that most real consumers (as apposed to us technologists) don't want e-ink technology. It is monochrome, can't do video, limited interactive due t

The truth is that most real consumers (as apposed to us technologists) don't want e-ink technology. It is monochrome, can't do video, limited interactive due to refresh rate and ghosting... the only real thing it has going for it is low power usage. And that pairs well with applications where you spend a long time staring at the screen, and periodically initiating a compute burst to change the screen contents. In other words, e-readers and note-taking devices. And consumers are fairly satisfied with devices that get charged once every day, and can take a 15 minute quick-charge to add multiple hours of additional usage to them.

fortran77 6y ago
The "Patents are Bad!" trope always comes up in any e-ink thread. Not sure why. I love e-ink (I prefer to read books on a kindle), but I think if the demand were there the prices would come down, as you pointed out.
- coldtea 6y ago
  Demand doesn't bring prices down. Or not much anyway. Everybody would like a Ferrari/Rolex/etc., but they don't get cheaper because of it. In fact, high demand combined with a monopoly means you don't need to lower prices at all. (You lower price to raise demand, but you don't need to if you have strong demand at your current prices). Competition does lower prices. And with patents competition is impossible. As if for a competitor to make improvements to the process/technology, while still using parts of it (they would still infringe).
  - robinsoh 6y ago
    > Demand doesn't bring prices down. Or not much anyway. In my experience in the display industry, the main driver of price is cost and the main driver of cost is volume. If a customer puts in a signed escrowed order for a million displays lilke what Apple did, then processes get scaled, factories get built, and per-unit prices go down. That my understanding of how 6" matrix E-Ink displays went from costing thousands of dollars per display when they were being built in low volumes of hundreds of displays to costing sub-50 when they were being built for Sony, Amazon and others in volumes of hundreds of thousands of displays. The same is true of the LCD industry and the OLED industry. The same is true of the cellphone industry. > And with patents competition is impossible I can't understand what exactly you're talking about. Is this the E-Ink-is-expensive-because-of-patents trope? I've asked before whenever I see this trope on HN, what specific patent are you referring to? Patent thicket? This extraordinary claim requires evidence. I go to SID, never heard anyone claiming this kind of stuff. Tonnes of competition but physics, featureset, costs, volume, customer demand gets in the way. It is why even well funded companies like Liquavista-Amazon and Mirasol-Qualcom didn't make it.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      >I can't understand what exactly you're talking about. I'm talking about exactly this: if a company holds patents on a technology, other companies can't improve the same technology (using parts of the patented tech and improving specific aspects with inventions of their own) without licensing it. >This extraordinary claim requires evidence. Nothing extraordinary, and it's not about E-ink being cheap or expensive, it's just an invariant where there are patents.
      - robinsoh 6y ago
        > if a company holds patents on a technology, other companies can't improve the same technology You're making a claim equivalent to saying Microsoft holds patents on operating system technologies, other companies can't improve the same technology. I'm guessing you're not actually involved in the display industry because you chose not to reply with a clearly defined specific problem that is blocked by patents. I actually work in the display industry so I just see the repetition and self-citation claims (OP's article refers to yet another HN throwaway post) on HN as being disappointing.
        coldtea 6y ago
        >You're making a claim equivalent to saying Microsoft holds patents on operating system technologies, other companies can't improve the same technology. No, I'm stating the fact that other companies can't improve the same exact technology (as defined in the patent). If Microsoft has patents on aspects X, Y, Z of filesystems, other companies can still make filesystems, even improved ones. But they can't make a filesystem that also leverages X, Y, Z (or any combination of them) unless they license, and also can't make a filesystem with an improved version of X, Y, or Z lest they infringe on the X, Y, Z pattent. So this isn't about other companies still being able to make improved eg. OSes in the general sense, but if they can build improved OSes that also leverage the same patented techniques where needed (and they can't).
        robinsoh 6y ago
- _ph_ 6y ago
  From what I read, the way eInk conducts their business, it is very difficult to launch new eInk products. This limits the available offerings which means there is no competition to drive the market priced down. I bought a reMarkable 2 because it seems to be perhaps the only device on the market which doesn't require a jailbreak or such to do even the most basic customizations. The only other alternative I have seen so far are DIY projects attaching a raw eInk screen to a Rapberry Pi.
  - robinsoh 6y ago
    > From what I read, the way eInk conducts their business, it is very difficult to launch new eInk products. I have not read such claims. What I have read are individual small-scale customers approaching base layer producers like E-Ink and being disappointed after expecting assistance in getting their product ideas to market. That's analogous to a 10,000 unit/month or less customer approaching say a liquid crystal supplier, or AU Optronics and expecting any form of support or assistance. The outcome of such an interaction is pretty much guaranteed. Even the top tier distributors won't talk to you unless you're expected to order at least 100,000 units a year. Anything less and you go through the normal OEM development path of which there's tonnes of partners. You do what everybody else who has a display product idea does, which is go to SID or maybe just CES, and talk to OEM vendors. If you've got an E-Ink product idea, probably somebody like Netronix would be your OEM partner but even they probably won't talk to you unless you're putting down big NRE. That's just how it is. Volume drives the products. You can't have small volume and cheap unless you're reusing some component that someone else has driven the volume for. That's just as true in the display industry as it is in any other tech industry, eg: LCDs, OLEDs, CPUs, memory, sensors, even passives like resistors and capacitors!
    - stainforth 6y ago
      This sounds like a chicken or egg argument. Of course you'll give me wholesale pricing on volume in any market. But are product creators scared off when a big part of each unit's cost will go to license the screen technology?
      - 6y ago
- Kliment 6y ago
  I think it comes up whenever there's the opportunity because patents are legitimately bad. And I think it's the other way around - if prices were low and volumes were high lots of people would make cool marginal products with them.
polshaw 6y ago
Power consumption is not the only thing going for e-ink. The major win for e-ink IMO is readability in direct sunlight. If it's a nice day outside I have to stay indoors (or at least in shade) in order to do work. The only reason is that I can't see my display well. As noted, we already have e-ink phones that can do both colour and video[1], while there is some ghosting it's getting to the point of usable. Just need a big display to match it. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EakZQlPvgIY&t=9m35s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EakZQlPvgIY&t=9m35s
- retrac 6y ago
  A hybrid display, both e-ink, and either an OLED layer or an LCD layer sandwiched inside, seems like it could be done. It would be perfect for a tablet or phone format device. Active lit display when necessary, passive reflective display otherwise. It would be very expensive, but is probably already technically feasible today. I do hope something like that comes to the market affordably eventually.
  - vinay427 6y ago
    A transflective LCD already does both of these to a very large degree. They're used by many watch manufacturers that prioritize outdoor use (e.g. Garmin) and/or battery life (e.g. Pebble, now defunct). I've owned two devices with them so far, and quite frankly the newer one works just as well (if not better) than E-Ink outdoors but still has a backlight when necessary. Also, it can display color and smooth motion. The minor downside I see is the lack of an ability to display an image with zero battery consumption, such as on E-Ink, but the consumption is still so low that the transflective LCD watches can last weeks with an always-on display.
- AshamedCaptain 6y ago
  But other screen technologies have actually _better_ contrast than eInk in direct sunlight (e.g. reflective LCD, mirror-backed). State-of-the-art eInk technology these days has actually WORSE contrast than in the early days! -- https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2021/01/20/contrast-on-e-ink-devices-is-getting-worse-instead-of-better/ https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2021/01/20/contrast-on-e-i... (proving how much people care about it) eInk's primary advantages are power (and only if your idle period is long enough; if you have to update it with any frequence you're going to lose pretty soon to a memory LCD); and angles/polarity (specially compared to LCD), which some people also claim produces less headaches.
BohdanAnderson 6y ago
There is some new Eink phones out that have colour! But wihtout google play store, and they are still probably a long way off from having 10" + screens with colour. https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/hisense-pro-cc-color-e-ink-smartphone-hands-on-review https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/hisense-pro-cc-color-e-...
- coldtea 6y ago
  >But wihtout google play store With the refresh rate of e-ink, wouldn't the google play store be useless anyway? Most apps would be unbearable (games a non-starter, scrolling a no-no, etc).
jagger27 6y ago
The marketing material for the display used in TFA shows a video being played at (almost) acceptable frame rates with little ghosting, for what it’s worth.

fortran77 6y ago

The "Patents are Bad!" trope always comes up in any e-ink thread. Not sure why. I love e-ink (I prefer to read books on a kindle), but I think if the demand were there the prices would come down, as you pointed out.

coldtea 6y ago
Demand doesn't bring prices down. Or not much anyway. Everybody would like a Ferrari/Rolex/etc., but they don't get cheaper because of it. In fact, high demand combined with a monopoly means you don't need to lower prices at all. (You lower price to raise demand, but you don't need to if you have strong demand at your current prices). Competition does lower prices. And with patents competition is impossible. As if for a competitor to make improvements to the process/technology, while still using parts of it (they would still infringe).
- robinsoh 6y ago
  > Demand doesn't bring prices down. Or not much anyway. In my experience in the display industry, the main driver of price is cost and the main driver of cost is volume. If a customer puts in a signed escrowed order for a million displays lilke what Apple did, then processes get scaled, factories get built, and per-unit prices go down. That my understanding of how 6" matrix E-Ink displays went from costing thousands of dollars per display when they were being built in low volumes of hundreds of displays to costing sub-50 when they were being built for Sony, Amazon and others in volumes of hundreds of thousands of displays. The same is true of the LCD industry and the OLED industry. The same is true of the cellphone industry. > And with patents competition is impossible I can't understand what exactly you're talking about. Is this the E-Ink-is-expensive-because-of-patents trope? I've asked before whenever I see this trope on HN, what specific patent are you referring to? Patent thicket? This extraordinary claim requires evidence. I go to SID, never heard anyone claiming this kind of stuff. Tonnes of competition but physics, featureset, costs, volume, customer demand gets in the way. It is why even well funded companies like Liquavista-Amazon and Mirasol-Qualcom didn't make it.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >I can't understand what exactly you're talking about. I'm talking about exactly this: if a company holds patents on a technology, other companies can't improve the same technology (using parts of the patented tech and improving specific aspects with inventions of their own) without licensing it. >This extraordinary claim requires evidence. Nothing extraordinary, and it's not about E-ink being cheap or expensive, it's just an invariant where there are patents.
    - robinsoh 6y ago
      > if a company holds patents on a technology, other companies can't improve the same technology You're making a claim equivalent to saying Microsoft holds patents on operating system technologies, other companies can't improve the same technology. I'm guessing you're not actually involved in the display industry because you chose not to reply with a clearly defined specific problem that is blocked by patents. I actually work in the display industry so I just see the repetition and self-citation claims (OP's article refers to yet another HN throwaway post) on HN as being disappointing.
      - coldtea 6y ago
        >You're making a claim equivalent to saying Microsoft holds patents on operating system technologies, other companies can't improve the same technology. No, I'm stating the fact that other companies can't improve the same exact technology (as defined in the patent). If Microsoft has patents on aspects X, Y, Z of filesystems, other companies can still make filesystems, even improved ones. But they can't make a filesystem that also leverages X, Y, Z (or any combination of them) unless they license, and also can't make a filesystem with an improved version of X, Y, or Z lest they infringe on the X, Y, Z pattent. So this isn't about other companies still being able to make improved eg. OSes in the general sense, but if they can build improved OSes that also leverage the same patented techniques where needed (and they can't).
        robinsoh 6y ago
_ph_ 6y ago
From what I read, the way eInk conducts their business, it is very difficult to launch new eInk products. This limits the available offerings which means there is no competition to drive the market priced down. I bought a reMarkable 2 because it seems to be perhaps the only device on the market which doesn't require a jailbreak or such to do even the most basic customizations. The only other alternative I have seen so far are DIY projects attaching a raw eInk screen to a Rapberry Pi.
- robinsoh 6y ago
  > From what I read, the way eInk conducts their business, it is very difficult to launch new eInk products. I have not read such claims. What I have read are individual small-scale customers approaching base layer producers like E-Ink and being disappointed after expecting assistance in getting their product ideas to market. That's analogous to a 10,000 unit/month or less customer approaching say a liquid crystal supplier, or AU Optronics and expecting any form of support or assistance. The outcome of such an interaction is pretty much guaranteed. Even the top tier distributors won't talk to you unless you're expected to order at least 100,000 units a year. Anything less and you go through the normal OEM development path of which there's tonnes of partners. You do what everybody else who has a display product idea does, which is go to SID or maybe just CES, and talk to OEM vendors. If you've got an E-Ink product idea, probably somebody like Netronix would be your OEM partner but even they probably won't talk to you unless you're putting down big NRE. That's just how it is. Volume drives the products. You can't have small volume and cheap unless you're reusing some component that someone else has driven the volume for. That's just as true in the display industry as it is in any other tech industry, eg: LCDs, OLEDs, CPUs, memory, sensors, even passives like resistors and capacitors!
  - stainforth 6y ago
    This sounds like a chicken or egg argument. Of course you'll give me wholesale pricing on volume in any market. But are product creators scared off when a big part of each unit's cost will go to license the screen technology?
    - 6y ago
Kliment 6y ago
I think it comes up whenever there's the opportunity because patents are legitimately bad. And I think it's the other way around - if prices were low and volumes were high lots of people would make cool marginal products with them.

polshaw 6y ago

Power consumption is not the only thing going for e-ink. The major win for e-ink IMO is readability in direct sunlight. If it's a nice day outside I have to stay indoors (or at least in shade) in order to do work. The only reason is that I can't see my display well. As noted, we already have e-ink phones that can do both colour and video[1], while there is some ghosting it's getting to the point of usable. Just need a big display to match it. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EakZQlPvgIY&t=9m35s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EakZQlPvgIY&t=9m35s

retrac 6y ago
A hybrid display, both e-ink, and either an OLED layer or an LCD layer sandwiched inside, seems like it could be done. It would be perfect for a tablet or phone format device. Active lit display when necessary, passive reflective display otherwise. It would be very expensive, but is probably already technically feasible today. I do hope something like that comes to the market affordably eventually.
- vinay427 6y ago
  A transflective LCD already does both of these to a very large degree. They're used by many watch manufacturers that prioritize outdoor use (e.g. Garmin) and/or battery life (e.g. Pebble, now defunct). I've owned two devices with them so far, and quite frankly the newer one works just as well (if not better) than E-Ink outdoors but still has a backlight when necessary. Also, it can display color and smooth motion. The minor downside I see is the lack of an ability to display an image with zero battery consumption, such as on E-Ink, but the consumption is still so low that the transflective LCD watches can last weeks with an always-on display.
AshamedCaptain 6y ago
But other screen technologies have actually _better_ contrast than eInk in direct sunlight (e.g. reflective LCD, mirror-backed). State-of-the-art eInk technology these days has actually WORSE contrast than in the early days! -- https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2021/01/20/contrast-on-e-ink-devices-is-getting-worse-instead-of-better/ https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2021/01/20/contrast-on-e-i... (proving how much people care about it) eInk's primary advantages are power (and only if your idle period is long enough; if you have to update it with any frequence you're going to lose pretty soon to a memory LCD); and angles/polarity (specially compared to LCD), which some people also claim produces less headaches.

BohdanAnderson 6y ago

There is some new Eink phones out that have colour! But wihtout google play store, and they are still probably a long way off from having 10" + screens with colour. https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/hisense-pro-cc-color-e-ink-smartphone-hands-on-review https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/hisense-pro-cc-color-e-...

coldtea 6y ago
>But wihtout google play store With the refresh rate of e-ink, wouldn't the google play store be useless anyway? Most apps would be unbearable (games a non-starter, scrolling a no-no, etc).

jagger27 6y ago

The marketing material for the display used in TFA shows a video being played at (almost) acceptable frame rates with little ghosting, for what it’s worth.