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Challenges Building an Open-Source E Ink Laptop

261 points by alex-a-soto 6y ago

alex-a-soto 6y ago
Hey HN, I'm the project lead at EI2030, and we are working on building an open-source eink laptop. From the day-to-day conversations with community members from EI2030, we've identified some challenges with building an eink laptop. We've decided to write an article to introduce EI2030, discuss the challenges of building an open-source eink laptop, and hear from others. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please feel free to reach out.
- mntmn 6y ago
  Hi, I'm the project lead of MNT Reform, an open hardware laptop that just started shipping (link: https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform)! We would be interested in an e-Ink experiment. During the initial prototyping this was one of the options we considered, but back then it would have been prohibitively expensive and we decided to focus on an IPS display and to get to ship a viable product as quickly as possible -- with a tiny team. Adapting an e-Ink display to MNT Reform would mostly be about designing/adapting the screen housing and introducing a signal path to an e-Ink driver: options could be MIPI-DSI, eDP, USB, or SPI, for example. Edit: My email is lukas@mntre.com if you want to get in touch directly. We also have a community over here: https://community.mnt.re/ https://community.mnt.re/
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Wow, such people here. Hello Lukas, I will say MNT reform was probably the best shot at "artisanal laptop" I've ever seen. It's a good, good balance on ones ambitions, and reasonable expectations of what a small team can manufacture, while still feeling very unique, and original.
  - alex-a-soto 6y ago
    Hey Lukas, Thank you for your comment and for reaching out. I'm a big fan of MNT Reform, and it's great to hear of your interest in doing an e-ink experiment. We are interested. I'll send you an email later today to talk further.
    - ryukafalz 6y ago
      This is awesome! As someone with a Reform on the way, I'd be very interested in a conversion kit to install a daylight-readable display. :)
  - drewzero1 6y ago
    I just want to say that I love your work! I have been following on Mastodon and watching the MNT Reform project with considerable interest, and the possibility of an E-Ink option really helps sweeten the pot. At this point I'm pretty certain I want my next new laptop to be a Reform.
    - tyler109 6y ago
      +1
- marcodiego 6y ago
  What I'd love: a common chassis that includes: - Some usb devices: keyboard, touchpad, camera and internal usb hub for additional devices and external ports. - HDMI screen with amplified speakers. - Battery charger and internal power source for internal devices. - Internal space for HD, SSD, eMMC, WiFi antenna adapter and most common ARM SBCs. This would allow me to buy a cheap ARM SBC and "build" my own laptop. Except for the battery and internal hub, CrowPi2 is almost like that[0] but CrowPi2 is a toy. We need something that is a tad better than CrowPi2 and not a toy. [0] https://www.elecrow.com/crowpi2-raspberry-pi-portable-laptop.html https://www.elecrow.com/crowpi2-raspberry-pi-portable-laptop...
  - mntmn 6y ago
    I am thinking to adopt a SOM standard like Qseven or COMExpress etc. in the (a bit more far) future. What do you think about that? SBCs are not really a good fit for laptops in my opinion because you have to adapt everything with individual cables that are meant for external use. And: are there any SBCs you would like to use except for the Raspberry Pi?
    - marcodiego 6y ago
      >What do you think about that? I understand that the Raspi form factor is not the most adequate for a laptop, but it is a very common form factor. Anything else doesn't even comes close to its popularity. So I think we have to adopt what we have. The only other possibility I can think of is the 96boards standard. >SBCs are not really a good fit for laptops in my opinion because you have to adapt everything with individual cables that are meant for external use The CrowPi2 seems to work well around that. Never seen one personally but it seems good enough for me. >are there any SBCs you would like to use except for the Raspberry Pi? Yes. I want to use a Rock-Pi-4. AFAIK it is the only ARM SBC that is 100% functional without any proprietary blob.
      - jbotz 6y ago
        I think the same is true for the Rock64 from Pine64 and the Libre Computer Board ROC-RK3328-CC. And probably others based on the Rockchip SOCs.
- baybal2 6y ago
  I feel the project outline is very idealised, without any much regard to how manufacturing will be done. Massive component shortages are a life, and death matter for small companies now, and it's not only about IC shortage. What we had in the industry for last 5-6 year is a chronic shortages, and interruptions of supplies of passives for example. Redesigning entire power supply circuit, and re-layouting the PCB because one can't find a high spec capacitor? Happened many times on my watch. Doing design is only like 10% of time one spends to manufacture anything, and because of that it's not rational to obsess over it. For an enthusiast team, just getting anything, even a prototype run coming out of a factory is where 9 out of 10 projects stall. People run out of the financial runway thinking the factory gate being the finish point... and then they get an email like "Please redesign all your design, and do it 1 week or loose the manufacturing time slot"
  - rrmm 6y ago
    Yeah,the technical challenge of getting something working usually end up being the easier part. Manufacturing ends up being very difficult: at a small scale, it's super expensive and at a medium to large scale, logistics becomes difficult. At every scale changes to the design (either for enhancements or EOL parts) is expensive. Injection molding dies require significant engineering, setup, and futzing-with to bring to production. More recent innovations in mfr'ing can be helpful (speed up prototyping and lower the cost of spinning molds or dies) but can't completely liberate you from the difficulties. I would love to see stuff like this succeed, but the difficulty can't be underestimated.
  - alex-a-soto 6y ago
    Thank you for your feedback. I agree with your points; manufacturing is an essential part of the process that I neglected to include in the article. Thank you for bringing it up. When we are at that stage, I would appreciate your feedback and suggestions.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      Can only tell there is no easy way. Either you have lots of trial, and error yourself, or you pay somebody for a bit less of it, but still nowhere near a complete assurance. An experienced contractor may keep burning your money, but deliver something in the end. If you yourself is not confident in your experience, there is a risk your team just running out of enthusiasm, and patience, if not money without seeing the light in the end of the tunnel.
- ddevault 6y ago
  Hi Alex! Please, please, please do not use Discord to organize your open source project's community. Open source projects should rely on open source infrastructure. Discord is a proprietary platform, with a proprietary client, using a proprietary protocol, and has no business being involved in FOSS projects. Please consider using IRC or Matrix.
  - alex-a-soto 6y ago
    Hi, we are working on setting up a Matrix server with bridges to other platforms. If you have suggestions or experience in this, I would appreciate your support.
    - ddevault 6y ago
      I don't have any specific experience with Matrix to share suggestions from, unfortunately. But that's a good solution! Thanks for looking into it.
    - neolog 6y ago
      Imho, the best chat platform is Zulip. It has channels, named threads, good search, and persistent history. It's also open source. IME, it's way better for communities than Discord, IRC, Slack.
      - initramfs 6y ago
        I've seen Zulip in action and think it's great. I also think Element.io can be helpful (for Matrix)
  - zepto 6y ago
    > Open source projects should rely on open source infrastructure. Can you say why?
    - ddevault 6y ago
      It seems tautologically obvious, but I can elaborate anyway. The benefits that led this project to choose an open source approach applies to other domains as well. If they believe in those merits, then they should naturally be apparent in the other systems that they would rely on, such as their collaboration tools. If you want the advantages of open source to proliferate, you have to cast your lot with more open source tools. They're equally suited to the task as, say, Discord. Choosing proprietary tools and platforms can also easily serve to reduce your pool of potential contributors who don't want to use proprietary tools, and especially those who don't want to install proprietary software on their own computers, like the Discord client. Some people simply cannot use something like Discord at all - it has a high hardware requirements floor, poor to mediocre Linux support and completely absent support for systems like BSD, not to mention grave accessibility problems. Only an open protocol enables anyone to build the clients that suit their needs, and are not dependent on the whims of some corporate board of director's determination of your merit (i.e. financial exploitability) as a participant.
- hasmanean 6y ago
  Is the display fast enough to be used as a laptop? I wonder if using an eink display as a detachable auxiliary display to show static data such as calendars, todo lists, chats and system monitoring would be more useful.
  - IshKebab 6y ago
    Dasung makes e-ink monitors and it looks like they can get something like 20 fps, which is pretty good. Probably just enough to use a mouse without going mad. Maybe. https://youtu.be/AeC3LIFTaho?t=208 https://youtu.be/AeC3LIFTaho?t=208
    - Qwertious 6y ago
      Please note that: 1. There is such thing as an e-ink screen that doesn't hold its image (and that the fastest-refreshing screens in R&D are this type). In other words, beware if someone says "this e-ink screen can refresh at 60FPS" as it might have sacrificed its power usage in order to achieve this (those screens are still useful if you only care about eyestrain/sunlight readability though). 2. 'Good Ereader' makes all his money selling the devices he reviews, which is a HUGE conflict of interest, AND HE IS NOT TRANSPARENT ABOUT THIS. Seriously, the dude generally either mentions it at the end of the video/article or not at all. Usually not at all. That's super scummy, and as such you shouldn't trust him or his videos. 3. Note that technically fast-refresh mode isn't getting 20 frames so much as refreshing a fraction of the screen at a time, so you have 10 pixels at 2Hz rather than each pixel refreshing at 20Hz. You could call it an interlaced refresh or dithered refresh, I'm not sure what the exact technical term is. The reason this matters is that we can't actually make electrophoretic pixels refresh any faster and they probably won't ever refresh the same pixel repeatedly at e.g. 60Hz - you're working against physics when you're shaking your ink up and down that fast, and you're talking about at least an order of magnitude more than you're getting right now.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Using a Mobius e-Ink device, a bigger issue is the ghosting. The discussion of RLCD with up to 60 fps refresh is interesting. For console work, the ghosting is acceptable. For full-screen GUI, it would likely become distracting if windows are moved frequently or contain animated graphics. For reading text, the quality of e-Ink displays is excellent. And outdoor visibility is incorrectly discounted in the article. As a standalone display, such as you describe, e-Ink should be quite well suited.
- an_opabinia 6y ago
  How do you know you are succeeding?
  - initramfs 6y ago
    i guess it depends on how you define succeeding:) We reached 210+ Discord members today.
tyler109 6y ago
Direct invite link to EI2030 community discord for anyone that doesn't want to search: https://discord.gg/nnxKnxh https://discord.gg/nnxKnxh
jrrrr 6y ago
This is great! For years when discussing displays and computing ergonomics, I've claimed that I look forward to the day when my screen doesn't need to emit light, and maybe using it can feel more like paper. Reading this makes it seem less sci-fi future, and possible today if we can get enough interest/momentum. I'm trying to think of practical places to start for a sellable product. I love the Paperterm idea, but recognize that it's super niche. Maybe something focused on distraction-free writing?
- initramfs 6y ago
  Hi jrrr! I am co-developer of PaperTerm- I agree it is very niche right now. The Pomera DM30 is a distraction free typewriter- it is relatively new (there is also much older options like the AlphaSmart Neo2)- I hope to develop something similar to that with a laptop and some more office apps. I also research solar power managers, as the low power is definitely feasible with e-ink.
  - jfim 6y ago
    > Pomera DM30 Wow, thanks for the heads-up that they actually released this! I backed their Kickstarter a few years ago (which didn't raise enough money), but you'd think they'd send an update after releasing the actual device.
  - jseliger 6y ago
    There is also https://getfreewrite.com https://getfreewrite.com.
- tyler109 6y ago
  That's a good point, what is the first adressable market for such a product to gain first momentum before it can become mainstream. Those seem to be low hanging fruits: -Writers -Coders/Terminal Users like sysadmins -DIY/Hardware Hackers/Raspberry PI/ESP32/Cyberdeck folks -Productivity Hackers -Health Tech folks -Gadget Lovers -Limited Functionality Devices for Education -Folks with medical pre-conditions who need to use eink (e.g. https://dasung-tech.myshopify.com/blogs/news/how-dasungs-e-ink-monitor-assists-a-syndome-triple-a-patient https://dasung-tech.myshopify.com/blogs/news/how-dasungs-e-i...) I think there is a market, I am just surprised that we take usual monitor like eye-strain as well as the blue light for granted and haven't done anything against it for years. Even though we are having more display usage than ever.
solarkraft 6y ago
A friend and I have had somewhat concrete plans for a Linux (Pine64 SOPINE SoM) based e-Ink tablet for a while, but aren't as involved in supply chain stuff. Are the prices you get for orders of new screens in the same ball park as the old Kindle DX display stock? Are my fears that supply will dry up soon (in part due to new popularity) unfounded?
- devmor 6y ago
  I've been trying to do some E-Ink stuff lately and prices seem to get higher the bigger you go and then drop off. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but my experience is something like: 2.5 inch display - $1 6 inch display - $400 12 inch display: $1200 36 inch display: $1400
  - grogenaut 6y ago
    Where have you seen a 36" screen for $1400
    - devmor 6y ago
      I don't remember exactly which one, but one of the big Chinese wholesalers. Alibaba, DHGate, etc.
  - jonathonlui 6y ago
    Waveshare sells 1 to 13-inch panels for 7 to 540 USD: https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm Pixel density isn't as good as say a nice Kindle, but they are usable. I've played around with one of their 1.5 inch module You can buy old 6" e-reader panels for ~22+ USD https://www.ebay.com/b/ed060sc4/bn_7024905630 https://www.ebay.com/b/ed060sc4/bn_7024905630 See https://spritesmods.com/?art=einkdisplay https://spritesmods.com/?art=einkdisplay for how to drive them.
    - devmor 6y ago
      Oh the e-reader panels and that link are a godsend. Thank you!
babyshake 6y ago
I've been looking for a good color e-Ink picture frame with WiFi to hack on. It seems like with component shortages this would not be possible with my target price point of $200?
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  AFAIK Inkplate (https://inkplate.io/ https://inkplate.io/) is supposed to get a color version later this year.
MrJagil 6y ago
Is it possible that an e-ink monitor could be an incidental offspring product of this project? I’m super eager to get one but most are either terribly small or prohibitively expensive. I’m a sound designer. I just need to see the meters bouncing in my DAW and a reasonably updating zoom function and mouse movement. I dont need awesome fps and i dont need amazing colors. I think there’s an abundance of similar professionals. E-ink is not just for writers and coders as many seem to claim :)
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  That's a rather poor use case for e-ink screens. Bouncing meters would be pretty confusing when they blink between white and black while being updated (and an LCD would likely consume less power for that anyway), and mouse movement is pretty much the worst thing to handle for e-ink screens. I'd say that this use case is on the opposite end of usefulness spectrum for those screens than writing text or coding.
  - MrJagil 6y ago
    Ah, the refresh rate is that bad? I recently watched the preview video for dasungs new monitor and was hoping we’d be there soon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRvlJ2HjH30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRvlJ2HjH30
    - seba_dos1 6y ago
      While that is certainly impressive, try writing a simple app that hides the system cursor and renders its own one with such low FPS - you'll get tired of it very quickly (and I'm sure all game developers out there will agree without second thoughts :)). It may be good for occasionally clicking something to change the screen, but surely not for working with mouse in a DAW. You'll even have troubles with accurate targeting unless you move really slowly.
      - MrJagil 6y ago
        Yeah, just saw someone playing call of duty on e-ink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RQFYVfIgz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RQFYVfIgz0 Despite looking plausible, I think it would actually end up more straining on the eyes than just an lcd. Maybe in a few years... Edit: it’s interesting, it looks great when he’s writing on the screen with a stylus. Wonder why a mouse would be so much worse. Edit 2: this is what a dasung monitor looks like scrolling, mouse cursor etc: https://youtu.be/5pevlmk5kQs?t=655 https://youtu.be/5pevlmk5kQs?t=655
skerit 6y ago
Yes, please! (I just want any laptop that lets me actually use it outside and not be priced ridiculously.)
tppiotrowski 6y ago
I heard e-ink displays use virtually no power except when they are refreshing. Say you’re running an e-ink display that refreshes 60 times per second, is it still significantly more energy efficient than an LCD?
- input_sh 6y ago
  Refresh rate on e-ink displays is still nowhere near 60x/second, so we can only guess. Also in e-inks there's a difference between refreshing the entire screen and a part of it, depending on the implementation.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  >Say you’re running an e-ink display that refreshes 60 times per second, is it still significantly more energy efficient than an LCD? No. E-ink displays are more efficient because if they refresh e.g. 1 time a minute instead of 60 times a second, then they are refreshing 3600x less often. Even if they took 100x more power per refresh, they'd still end up using 36x less power overall. It gets even nuttier when you go to e.g. refreshing once a day instead of 60Hz (60 * 3600 * 24 = 5 184 000 refreshes, over FIVE MILLION). Please note that "e-ink" is basically a blanket term and contains a dozen different technologies (although almost all the screens that are actually sold at actual stores are electrophoretic displays), it's basically a genericized term based on E-Ink Corp so anything I say here is a sweeping summary.
offtop5 6y ago
I'd have no problem paying 1500$ for this. As many of us age , EInk feels much better to read.
tediousdemise 6y ago
I’m looking forward to the day we get 60Hz and 120Hz e-ink panels.
mg 6y ago
I wonder if it would be possible to build a "Mobile outdoor e-ink workstation" by combining some of the shelf components: - A Raspberry Pi - A keyboard - A mobile E Ink monitor - A USB power bar I imagine the Raspberry and the power bar in a case with two USB ports. Then one cable goes to the monitor and another to the keyboard. This might have the additional benefit that one can put the monitor on something when working. So it is more ergonomic than looking down to a laptop.
- RealStickman_ 6y ago
  IIRC pine64 aim to provide an e-ink display to accompany their next SBC.
- skykooler 6y ago
  The Raspberry Pi may be a poor choice as it does not support power management; there are other SBCs which would get significantly improved battery life when not at 100% utilization, with similar performance.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  I just want a kindle with a much larger screen. I don't care how thick or heavy it is. I would just buy a Sony if the software was better.
Solocomplex 6y ago
A mouse based interface is a non-starter for sure.
- thescriptkiddie 6y ago
  E Ink can do 15-30 Hz refresh rates as long as you are only updating a small portion of the screen every frame.
  - bogwog 6y ago
    There's a company called Dasung which sells eink computer monitors that refresh fast enough for full-screen video playback: https://youtu.be/AeC3LIFTaho?t=249 https://youtu.be/AeC3LIFTaho?t=249
    - sarabad2021 6y ago
      $1000+ price tag O-o -- Hopefully there will be enough demand to eventually make e-ink monitors mainstream so we can see the prices come down
  - ece 6y ago
    This seems perfect for editing/programming, but I'm wondering what the limitation is?
    - tyler109 6y ago
      They are quite expensive
      - ece 5y ago
        I was wondering about further technical limitations, but that's definitely one as well.
neolog 6y ago
Is that a solar panel on top? Can it power the computer?
- initramfs 6y ago
  Hi, neolog! I lead the solar/low-power OS group. The picture in the article is from a Samsung NC215S from 2011, though few, if any laptops have been made to run solar. I am researching ways to use microcontrollers to run a limited form of linux as well as drive a basic e-ink display like a solar calculator, rather than long recharging times as in the Samsung, which used an Atom cpu. In this video I was able to power a microcontroller on just indoor light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ztj_MDNRcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ztj_MDNRcI I've tried to put together a laptop with a solar panel, but of course it is not yet practical: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1784621#p1784621 https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1784621#p... Our discord group is here: https://discord.com/invite/nnxKnxh https://discord.com/invite/nnxKnxh Feel free to check out our #solar & #paperterm projects!
  - neolog 5y ago
    > I was able to power a microcontroller on just indoor light Wow!
mitchs 6y ago
From what I've seen working on an e-reader, a big problem for any open source e ink product is the things EIH wants to keep secret about their displays. If you want to use the nice partial refresh waveform, the open source aspect of this is going to run face first into secrecy requirements. The company selling you the display controller may be willing to build you an out of tree kernel module, and you can totally figure out what it does, but it won't be open source at that point.
- robinsoh 5y ago
  > From what I've seen working on an e-reader, > f you want to use the nice partial refresh waveform, the open source aspect of this is going to run face first into secrecy requirements. The company selling you the display controller may be willing to build you an out of tree kernel module, and you can totally figure out what it does, but it won't be open source at that point. I'm sorry but you're making rather clearly incorrect statements which makes me suspicious of the veracity of your other comments. I'm quite familiar with their current and past technologies. You used the term "Partial refresh waveform". First of all, E Ink's active matrix electrophoretic displays like the ones in the Kindle don't need to be refreshed. That's a fundamental property. Secondly, in case you meant "partial update", that's a property of the display controller, not of the waveform. You can google this and easily see that it in fact open source and commonly utilized. https://github.com/UDOOboard/Kernel_Unico/blob/master/drivers/video/mxc/mxc_epdc_fb.c https://github.com/UDOOboard/Kernel_Unico/blob/master/driver... . Most modern EPDC even the hardware ones contain that feature and it is exposed as open source. > run face first into secrecy requirements. I'd like to see an elaboration of your claims. Please share what evidence you have about all this "secrecy". I work in the display industry, not for E Ink, and I've never heard of these things going on so it would be quite interesting for me to learn about it.
  - mitchs 5y ago
    Refresh, as in transitioning from one image to another on the display. Partial refresh as in not running the waveform on pixels that don't change color, which dramatically reduces the visual noise for the user. The problem with partial refreshes is the accumulated errors on pixels, and the effects of updating a pixel on the neighboring pixels. The longer you go between full refreshes, the more ghosted cruft you end up with on screen. There is a waveform that specifically maintains image quality over many partial refreshes. (Interestingly it only works for black text on white backgrounds, and not the other way around, though I'd hope they would have fixed that by now.) It required quite a bit of pre-processing before you slam the frame buffers into the hardware. That logic came to us as a pre-baked kernel module from our hardware vendor, and EIH did not want us to know what was in it, though it wasn't too hard for us to figure out what it did. And, to some extent, you can just say screw them, I'm making my own waveforms. However, a junk waveform can damage the display if they aren't correctly built to prevent static charge build up. Also, each batch of displays comes out different enough that EIH provides slightly tuned versions of the waveform on a per batch basis. I'm not sure how well the open source model will work when people don't have equivalent hardware. If someone is tuning the waveforms for their panel, that may not work for all users. The static build up is interesting. I've seen pictures return to the display minutes after it was cleared to white because the charge built up on the display was still affecting the pigments. Never seen a display break due to it, but it was described to us as a theoretical possibility if a waveform wasn't roughly balanced in its actions. Do I get my nerd cred now? Have I satisfied you, all knowing hacker news poster?
milkey_mouse 5y ago
I have thought about building an E-ink laptop for a long time but eventually I bit the bullet and bought a reMarkable[1]. They've figured out all the difficult stuff about e-ink (did you know that to flip pixels, e-ink displays require annoyingly proprietary lookup tables of waveforms that can be up to 5-dimensional?) and worked with E-ink directly to implement said waveform table, very low-latency partial updates, and other e-ink "secrets" that could very well be worked out via reverse engineering but are otherwise under NDA. The device is also very thin, if you care about that sort of thing. The main downside is the hardware is closed source (and rather expensive, but any e-ink product not made of recycled Kindles will be). The device comes with SSH enabled by default, with a randomly-generated password in the settings menu. Its main UI is a proprietary app, but there is a vibrant community of open-source "hacks"[2] ranging from binary patches adding features to the stock UI to a fully libre replacement OS based on Parabola[3]. Its USB port works in host mode, so you can plug in a keyboard and use it as a terminal. I've been meaning to make a nice cover for it with a built-in keyboard like the MS Surface devices. [1]: https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/ [2]: https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable [3]: http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/ http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/
- robinsoh 5y ago
  > They've figured out all the difficult stuff about e-ink They meaning Remarkable? If so, then that's marketing-speak. The simple truth is that Remarkable's products all use NXP (formerly Freescale) controllers. The Remarkable2 uses i.mx7D. That has a built-in hardware EPDC. You can google it. The driver is open source. https://github.com/UDOOboard/Kernel_Unico/blob/master/drivers/video/mxc/mxc_epdc_fb.c https://github.com/UDOOboard/Kernel_Unico/blob/master/driver... That's what does all the "difficult stuff". Not Remarkable. > did you know that to flip pixels, e-ink displays require annoyingly proprietary lookup tables of waveforms that can be up to 5-dimensional? Yes. But you realize tables are each panel specific. Meaning every single panel you see requires a custom waveform. Nowadays they (E Ink and their partners)'re getting better and have some increased level of consistency so some waveforms can achieve the same result on whole batches of panels. But you'll still see it being batch specific. Take a waveform for one batch and try to use it on another and you'll get lousy ghosty results or maybe even damage the panel permanently. > and worked with E-ink directly to implement said waveform table, very low-latency partial updates, and other e-ink "secrets" that could very well be worked out via reverse engineering but are otherwise under NDA. That's more marketing speak. If you look at their code which they published, https://github.com/remarkable https://github.com/remarkable , it is just minor patches to NXP's driver. All the hard work was done by NXP.

261 points by alex-a-soto 6y ago

Hey HN, I'm the project lead at EI2030, and we are working on building an open-source eink laptop. From the day-to-day conversations with community members from EI2030, we've identified some challenges with building an eink laptop. We've decided to write an article to introduce EI2030, discuss the challenges of building an open-source eink laptop, and hear from others. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please feel free to reach out.

mntmn 6y ago
Hi, I'm the project lead of MNT Reform, an open hardware laptop that just started shipping (link: https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform)! We would be interested in an e-Ink experiment. During the initial prototyping this was one of the options we considered, but back then it would have been prohibitively expensive and we decided to focus on an IPS display and to get to ship a viable product as quickly as possible -- with a tiny team. Adapting an e-Ink display to MNT Reform would mostly be about designing/adapting the screen housing and introducing a signal path to an e-Ink driver: options could be MIPI-DSI, eDP, USB, or SPI, for example. Edit: My email is lukas@mntre.com if you want to get in touch directly. We also have a community over here: https://community.mnt.re/ https://community.mnt.re/
- baybal2 6y ago
  Wow, such people here. Hello Lukas, I will say MNT reform was probably the best shot at "artisanal laptop" I've ever seen. It's a good, good balance on ones ambitions, and reasonable expectations of what a small team can manufacture, while still feeling very unique, and original.
- alex-a-soto 6y ago
  Hey Lukas, Thank you for your comment and for reaching out. I'm a big fan of MNT Reform, and it's great to hear of your interest in doing an e-ink experiment. We are interested. I'll send you an email later today to talk further.
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    This is awesome! As someone with a Reform on the way, I'd be very interested in a conversion kit to install a daylight-readable display. :)
- drewzero1 6y ago
  I just want to say that I love your work! I have been following on Mastodon and watching the MNT Reform project with considerable interest, and the possibility of an E-Ink option really helps sweeten the pot. At this point I'm pretty certain I want my next new laptop to be a Reform.
  - tyler109 6y ago
    +1
marcodiego 6y ago
What I'd love: a common chassis that includes: - Some usb devices: keyboard, touchpad, camera and internal usb hub for additional devices and external ports. - HDMI screen with amplified speakers. - Battery charger and internal power source for internal devices. - Internal space for HD, SSD, eMMC, WiFi antenna adapter and most common ARM SBCs. This would allow me to buy a cheap ARM SBC and "build" my own laptop. Except for the battery and internal hub, CrowPi2 is almost like that[0] but CrowPi2 is a toy. We need something that is a tad better than CrowPi2 and not a toy. [0] https://www.elecrow.com/crowpi2-raspberry-pi-portable-laptop.html https://www.elecrow.com/crowpi2-raspberry-pi-portable-laptop...
- mntmn 6y ago
  I am thinking to adopt a SOM standard like Qseven or COMExpress etc. in the (a bit more far) future. What do you think about that? SBCs are not really a good fit for laptops in my opinion because you have to adapt everything with individual cables that are meant for external use. And: are there any SBCs you would like to use except for the Raspberry Pi?
  - marcodiego 6y ago
    >What do you think about that? I understand that the Raspi form factor is not the most adequate for a laptop, but it is a very common form factor. Anything else doesn't even comes close to its popularity. So I think we have to adopt what we have. The only other possibility I can think of is the 96boards standard. >SBCs are not really a good fit for laptops in my opinion because you have to adapt everything with individual cables that are meant for external use The CrowPi2 seems to work well around that. Never seen one personally but it seems good enough for me. >are there any SBCs you would like to use except for the Raspberry Pi? Yes. I want to use a Rock-Pi-4. AFAIK it is the only ARM SBC that is 100% functional without any proprietary blob.
    - jbotz 6y ago
      I think the same is true for the Rock64 from Pine64 and the Libre Computer Board ROC-RK3328-CC. And probably others based on the Rockchip SOCs.
baybal2 6y ago
I feel the project outline is very idealised, without any much regard to how manufacturing will be done. Massive component shortages are a life, and death matter for small companies now, and it's not only about IC shortage. What we had in the industry for last 5-6 year is a chronic shortages, and interruptions of supplies of passives for example. Redesigning entire power supply circuit, and re-layouting the PCB because one can't find a high spec capacitor? Happened many times on my watch. Doing design is only like 10% of time one spends to manufacture anything, and because of that it's not rational to obsess over it. For an enthusiast team, just getting anything, even a prototype run coming out of a factory is where 9 out of 10 projects stall. People run out of the financial runway thinking the factory gate being the finish point... and then they get an email like "Please redesign all your design, and do it 1 week or loose the manufacturing time slot"
- rrmm 6y ago
  Yeah,the technical challenge of getting something working usually end up being the easier part. Manufacturing ends up being very difficult: at a small scale, it's super expensive and at a medium to large scale, logistics becomes difficult. At every scale changes to the design (either for enhancements or EOL parts) is expensive. Injection molding dies require significant engineering, setup, and futzing-with to bring to production. More recent innovations in mfr'ing can be helpful (speed up prototyping and lower the cost of spinning molds or dies) but can't completely liberate you from the difficulties. I would love to see stuff like this succeed, but the difficulty can't be underestimated.
- alex-a-soto 6y ago
  Thank you for your feedback. I agree with your points; manufacturing is an essential part of the process that I neglected to include in the article. Thank you for bringing it up. When we are at that stage, I would appreciate your feedback and suggestions.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Can only tell there is no easy way. Either you have lots of trial, and error yourself, or you pay somebody for a bit less of it, but still nowhere near a complete assurance. An experienced contractor may keep burning your money, but deliver something in the end. If you yourself is not confident in your experience, there is a risk your team just running out of enthusiasm, and patience, if not money without seeing the light in the end of the tunnel.
ddevault 6y ago
Hi Alex! Please, please, please do not use Discord to organize your open source project's community. Open source projects should rely on open source infrastructure. Discord is a proprietary platform, with a proprietary client, using a proprietary protocol, and has no business being involved in FOSS projects. Please consider using IRC or Matrix.
- alex-a-soto 6y ago
  Hi, we are working on setting up a Matrix server with bridges to other platforms. If you have suggestions or experience in this, I would appreciate your support.
  - ddevault 6y ago
    I don't have any specific experience with Matrix to share suggestions from, unfortunately. But that's a good solution! Thanks for looking into it.
  - neolog 6y ago
    Imho, the best chat platform is Zulip. It has channels, named threads, good search, and persistent history. It's also open source. IME, it's way better for communities than Discord, IRC, Slack.
    - initramfs 6y ago
      I've seen Zulip in action and think it's great. I also think Element.io can be helpful (for Matrix)
- zepto 6y ago
  > Open source projects should rely on open source infrastructure. Can you say why?
  - ddevault 6y ago
    It seems tautologically obvious, but I can elaborate anyway. The benefits that led this project to choose an open source approach applies to other domains as well. If they believe in those merits, then they should naturally be apparent in the other systems that they would rely on, such as their collaboration tools. If you want the advantages of open source to proliferate, you have to cast your lot with more open source tools. They're equally suited to the task as, say, Discord. Choosing proprietary tools and platforms can also easily serve to reduce your pool of potential contributors who don't want to use proprietary tools, and especially those who don't want to install proprietary software on their own computers, like the Discord client. Some people simply cannot use something like Discord at all - it has a high hardware requirements floor, poor to mediocre Linux support and completely absent support for systems like BSD, not to mention grave accessibility problems. Only an open protocol enables anyone to build the clients that suit their needs, and are not dependent on the whims of some corporate board of director's determination of your merit (i.e. financial exploitability) as a participant.
hasmanean 6y ago
Is the display fast enough to be used as a laptop? I wonder if using an eink display as a detachable auxiliary display to show static data such as calendars, todo lists, chats and system monitoring would be more useful.
- IshKebab 6y ago
  Dasung makes e-ink monitors and it looks like they can get something like 20 fps, which is pretty good. Probably just enough to use a mouse without going mad. Maybe. https://youtu.be/AeC3LIFTaho?t=208 https://youtu.be/AeC3LIFTaho?t=208
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    Please note that: 1. There is such thing as an e-ink screen that doesn't hold its image (and that the fastest-refreshing screens in R&D are this type). In other words, beware if someone says "this e-ink screen can refresh at 60FPS" as it might have sacrificed its power usage in order to achieve this (those screens are still useful if you only care about eyestrain/sunlight readability though). 2. 'Good Ereader' makes all his money selling the devices he reviews, which is a HUGE conflict of interest, AND HE IS NOT TRANSPARENT ABOUT THIS. Seriously, the dude generally either mentions it at the end of the video/article or not at all. Usually not at all. That's super scummy, and as such you shouldn't trust him or his videos. 3. Note that technically fast-refresh mode isn't getting 20 frames so much as refreshing a fraction of the screen at a time, so you have 10 pixels at 2Hz rather than each pixel refreshing at 20Hz. You could call it an interlaced refresh or dithered refresh, I'm not sure what the exact technical term is. The reason this matters is that we can't actually make electrophoretic pixels refresh any faster and they probably won't ever refresh the same pixel repeatedly at e.g. 60Hz - you're working against physics when you're shaking your ink up and down that fast, and you're talking about at least an order of magnitude more than you're getting right now.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Using a Mobius e-Ink device, a bigger issue is the ghosting. The discussion of RLCD with up to 60 fps refresh is interesting. For console work, the ghosting is acceptable. For full-screen GUI, it would likely become distracting if windows are moved frequently or contain animated graphics. For reading text, the quality of e-Ink displays is excellent. And outdoor visibility is incorrectly discounted in the article. As a standalone display, such as you describe, e-Ink should be quite well suited.
an_opabinia 6y ago
How do you know you are succeeding?
- initramfs 6y ago
  i guess it depends on how you define succeeding:) We reached 210+ Discord members today.

tyler109 6y ago

Direct invite link to EI2030 community discord for anyone that doesn't want to search: https://discord.gg/nnxKnxh https://discord.gg/nnxKnxh

jrrrr 6y ago

This is great! For years when discussing displays and computing ergonomics, I've claimed that I look forward to the day when my screen doesn't need to emit light, and maybe using it can feel more like paper. Reading this makes it seem less sci-fi future, and possible today if we can get enough interest/momentum. I'm trying to think of practical places to start for a sellable product. I love the Paperterm idea, but recognize that it's super niche. Maybe something focused on distraction-free writing?

initramfs 6y ago
Hi jrrr! I am co-developer of PaperTerm- I agree it is very niche right now. The Pomera DM30 is a distraction free typewriter- it is relatively new (there is also much older options like the AlphaSmart Neo2)- I hope to develop something similar to that with a laptop and some more office apps. I also research solar power managers, as the low power is definitely feasible with e-ink.
- jfim 6y ago
  > Pomera DM30 Wow, thanks for the heads-up that they actually released this! I backed their Kickstarter a few years ago (which didn't raise enough money), but you'd think they'd send an update after releasing the actual device.
- jseliger 6y ago
  There is also https://getfreewrite.com https://getfreewrite.com.
tyler109 6y ago
That's a good point, what is the first adressable market for such a product to gain first momentum before it can become mainstream. Those seem to be low hanging fruits: -Writers -Coders/Terminal Users like sysadmins -DIY/Hardware Hackers/Raspberry PI/ESP32/Cyberdeck folks -Productivity Hackers -Health Tech folks -Gadget Lovers -Limited Functionality Devices for Education -Folks with medical pre-conditions who need to use eink (e.g. https://dasung-tech.myshopify.com/blogs/news/how-dasungs-e-ink-monitor-assists-a-syndome-triple-a-patient https://dasung-tech.myshopify.com/blogs/news/how-dasungs-e-i...) I think there is a market, I am just surprised that we take usual monitor like eye-strain as well as the blue light for granted and haven't done anything against it for years. Even though we are having more display usage than ever.

solarkraft 6y ago

A friend and I have had somewhat concrete plans for a Linux (Pine64 SOPINE SoM) based e-Ink tablet for a while, but aren't as involved in supply chain stuff. Are the prices you get for orders of new screens in the same ball park as the old Kindle DX display stock? Are my fears that supply will dry up soon (in part due to new popularity) unfounded?

devmor 6y ago
I've been trying to do some E-Ink stuff lately and prices seem to get higher the bigger you go and then drop off. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but my experience is something like: 2.5 inch display - $1 6 inch display - $400 12 inch display: $1200 36 inch display: $1400
- grogenaut 6y ago
  Where have you seen a 36" screen for $1400
  - devmor 6y ago
    I don't remember exactly which one, but one of the big Chinese wholesalers. Alibaba, DHGate, etc.
- jonathonlui 6y ago
  Waveshare sells 1 to 13-inch panels for 7 to 540 USD: https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm Pixel density isn't as good as say a nice Kindle, but they are usable. I've played around with one of their 1.5 inch module You can buy old 6" e-reader panels for ~22+ USD https://www.ebay.com/b/ed060sc4/bn_7024905630 https://www.ebay.com/b/ed060sc4/bn_7024905630 See https://spritesmods.com/?art=einkdisplay https://spritesmods.com/?art=einkdisplay for how to drive them.
  - devmor 6y ago
    Oh the e-reader panels and that link are a godsend. Thank you!

babyshake 6y ago

I've been looking for a good color e-Ink picture frame with WiFi to hack on. It seems like with component shortages this would not be possible with my target price point of $200?

seba_dos1 6y ago
AFAIK Inkplate (https://inkplate.io/ https://inkplate.io/) is supposed to get a color version later this year.

MrJagil 6y ago

Is it possible that an e-ink monitor could be an incidental offspring product of this project? I’m super eager to get one but most are either terribly small or prohibitively expensive. I’m a sound designer. I just need to see the meters bouncing in my DAW and a reasonably updating zoom function and mouse movement. I dont need awesome fps and i dont need amazing colors. I think there’s an abundance of similar professionals. E-ink is not just for writers and coders as many seem to claim :)

seba_dos1 6y ago
That's a rather poor use case for e-ink screens. Bouncing meters would be pretty confusing when they blink between white and black while being updated (and an LCD would likely consume less power for that anyway), and mouse movement is pretty much the worst thing to handle for e-ink screens. I'd say that this use case is on the opposite end of usefulness spectrum for those screens than writing text or coding.
- MrJagil 6y ago
  Ah, the refresh rate is that bad? I recently watched the preview video for dasungs new monitor and was hoping we’d be there soon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRvlJ2HjH30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRvlJ2HjH30
  - seba_dos1 6y ago
    While that is certainly impressive, try writing a simple app that hides the system cursor and renders its own one with such low FPS - you'll get tired of it very quickly (and I'm sure all game developers out there will agree without second thoughts :)). It may be good for occasionally clicking something to change the screen, but surely not for working with mouse in a DAW. You'll even have troubles with accurate targeting unless you move really slowly.
    - MrJagil 6y ago
      Yeah, just saw someone playing call of duty on e-ink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RQFYVfIgz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RQFYVfIgz0 Despite looking plausible, I think it would actually end up more straining on the eyes than just an lcd. Maybe in a few years... Edit: it’s interesting, it looks great when he’s writing on the screen with a stylus. Wonder why a mouse would be so much worse. Edit 2: this is what a dasung monitor looks like scrolling, mouse cursor etc: https://youtu.be/5pevlmk5kQs?t=655 https://youtu.be/5pevlmk5kQs?t=655

skerit 6y ago

Yes, please! (I just want any laptop that lets me actually use it outside and not be priced ridiculously.)

tppiotrowski 6y ago

I heard e-ink displays use virtually no power except when they are refreshing. Say you’re running an e-ink display that refreshes 60 times per second, is it still significantly more energy efficient than an LCD?

input_sh 6y ago
Refresh rate on e-ink displays is still nowhere near 60x/second, so we can only guess. Also in e-inks there's a difference between refreshing the entire screen and a part of it, depending on the implementation.
Qwertious 6y ago
>Say you’re running an e-ink display that refreshes 60 times per second, is it still significantly more energy efficient than an LCD? No. E-ink displays are more efficient because if they refresh e.g. 1 time a minute instead of 60 times a second, then they are refreshing 3600x less often. Even if they took 100x more power per refresh, they'd still end up using 36x less power overall. It gets even nuttier when you go to e.g. refreshing once a day instead of 60Hz (60 * 3600 * 24 = 5 184 000 refreshes, over FIVE MILLION). Please note that "e-ink" is basically a blanket term and contains a dozen different technologies (although almost all the screens that are actually sold at actual stores are electrophoretic displays), it's basically a genericized term based on E-Ink Corp so anything I say here is a sweeping summary.

offtop5 6y ago

I'd have no problem paying 1500$ for this. As many of us age , EInk feels much better to read.

tediousdemise 6y ago

I’m looking forward to the day we get 60Hz and 120Hz e-ink panels.

mg 6y ago

I wonder if it would be possible to build a "Mobile outdoor e-ink workstation" by combining some of the shelf components: - A Raspberry Pi - A keyboard - A mobile E Ink monitor - A USB power bar I imagine the Raspberry and the power bar in a case with two USB ports. Then one cable goes to the monitor and another to the keyboard. This might have the additional benefit that one can put the monitor on something when working. So it is more ergonomic than looking down to a laptop.

RealStickman_ 6y ago
IIRC pine64 aim to provide an e-ink display to accompany their next SBC.
skykooler 6y ago
The Raspberry Pi may be a poor choice as it does not support power management; there are other SBCs which would get significantly improved battery life when not at 100% utilization, with similar performance.
chaostheory 6y ago
I just want a kindle with a much larger screen. I don't care how thick or heavy it is. I would just buy a Sony if the software was better.

Solocomplex 6y ago

A mouse based interface is a non-starter for sure.

thescriptkiddie 6y ago
E Ink can do 15-30 Hz refresh rates as long as you are only updating a small portion of the screen every frame.
- bogwog 6y ago
  There's a company called Dasung which sells eink computer monitors that refresh fast enough for full-screen video playback: https://youtu.be/AeC3LIFTaho?t=249 https://youtu.be/AeC3LIFTaho?t=249
  - sarabad2021 6y ago
    $1000+ price tag O-o -- Hopefully there will be enough demand to eventually make e-ink monitors mainstream so we can see the prices come down
- ece 6y ago
  This seems perfect for editing/programming, but I'm wondering what the limitation is?
  - tyler109 6y ago
    They are quite expensive
    - ece 5y ago
      I was wondering about further technical limitations, but that's definitely one as well.

neolog 6y ago

Is that a solar panel on top? Can it power the computer?

initramfs 6y ago
Hi, neolog! I lead the solar/low-power OS group. The picture in the article is from a Samsung NC215S from 2011, though few, if any laptops have been made to run solar. I am researching ways to use microcontrollers to run a limited form of linux as well as drive a basic e-ink display like a solar calculator, rather than long recharging times as in the Samsung, which used an Atom cpu. In this video I was able to power a microcontroller on just indoor light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ztj_MDNRcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ztj_MDNRcI I've tried to put together a laptop with a solar panel, but of course it is not yet practical: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1784621#p1784621 https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1784621#p... Our discord group is here: https://discord.com/invite/nnxKnxh https://discord.com/invite/nnxKnxh Feel free to check out our #solar & #paperterm projects!
- neolog 5y ago
  > I was able to power a microcontroller on just indoor light Wow!

mitchs 6y ago

From what I've seen working on an e-reader, a big problem for any open source e ink product is the things EIH wants to keep secret about their displays. If you want to use the nice partial refresh waveform, the open source aspect of this is going to run face first into secrecy requirements. The company selling you the display controller may be willing to build you an out of tree kernel module, and you can totally figure out what it does, but it won't be open source at that point.

robinsoh 5y ago
> From what I've seen working on an e-reader, > f you want to use the nice partial refresh waveform, the open source aspect of this is going to run face first into secrecy requirements. The company selling you the display controller may be willing to build you an out of tree kernel module, and you can totally figure out what it does, but it won't be open source at that point. I'm sorry but you're making rather clearly incorrect statements which makes me suspicious of the veracity of your other comments. I'm quite familiar with their current and past technologies. You used the term "Partial refresh waveform". First of all, E Ink's active matrix electrophoretic displays like the ones in the Kindle don't need to be refreshed. That's a fundamental property. Secondly, in case you meant "partial update", that's a property of the display controller, not of the waveform. You can google this and easily see that it in fact open source and commonly utilized. https://github.com/UDOOboard/Kernel_Unico/blob/master/drivers/video/mxc/mxc_epdc_fb.c https://github.com/UDOOboard/Kernel_Unico/blob/master/driver... . Most modern EPDC even the hardware ones contain that feature and it is exposed as open source. > run face first into secrecy requirements. I'd like to see an elaboration of your claims. Please share what evidence you have about all this "secrecy". I work in the display industry, not for E Ink, and I've never heard of these things going on so it would be quite interesting for me to learn about it.
- mitchs 5y ago
  Refresh, as in transitioning from one image to another on the display. Partial refresh as in not running the waveform on pixels that don't change color, which dramatically reduces the visual noise for the user. The problem with partial refreshes is the accumulated errors on pixels, and the effects of updating a pixel on the neighboring pixels. The longer you go between full refreshes, the more ghosted cruft you end up with on screen. There is a waveform that specifically maintains image quality over many partial refreshes. (Interestingly it only works for black text on white backgrounds, and not the other way around, though I'd hope they would have fixed that by now.) It required quite a bit of pre-processing before you slam the frame buffers into the hardware. That logic came to us as a pre-baked kernel module from our hardware vendor, and EIH did not want us to know what was in it, though it wasn't too hard for us to figure out what it did. And, to some extent, you can just say screw them, I'm making my own waveforms. However, a junk waveform can damage the display if they aren't correctly built to prevent static charge build up. Also, each batch of displays comes out different enough that EIH provides slightly tuned versions of the waveform on a per batch basis. I'm not sure how well the open source model will work when people don't have equivalent hardware. If someone is tuning the waveforms for their panel, that may not work for all users. The static build up is interesting. I've seen pictures return to the display minutes after it was cleared to white because the charge built up on the display was still affecting the pigments. Never seen a display break due to it, but it was described to us as a theoretical possibility if a waveform wasn't roughly balanced in its actions. Do I get my nerd cred now? Have I satisfied you, all knowing hacker news poster?

milkey_mouse 5y ago

I have thought about building an E-ink laptop for a long time but eventually I bit the bullet and bought a reMarkable[1]. They've figured out all the difficult stuff about e-ink (did you know that to flip pixels, e-ink displays require annoyingly proprietary lookup tables of waveforms that can be up to 5-dimensional?) and worked with E-ink directly to implement said waveform table, very low-latency partial updates, and other e-ink "secrets" that could very well be worked out via reverse engineering but are otherwise under NDA. The device is also very thin, if you care about that sort of thing. The main downside is the hardware is closed source (and rather expensive, but any e-ink product not made of recycled Kindles will be). The device comes with SSH enabled by default, with a randomly-generated password in the settings menu. Its main UI is a proprietary app, but there is a vibrant community of open-source "hacks"[2] ranging from binary patches adding features to the stock UI to a fully libre replacement OS based on Parabola[3]. Its USB port works in host mode, so you can plug in a keyboard and use it as a terminal. I've been meaning to make a nice cover for it with a built-in keyboard like the MS Surface devices. [1]: https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/ [2]: https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable [3]: http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/ http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/

robinsoh 5y ago
> They've figured out all the difficult stuff about e-ink They meaning Remarkable? If so, then that's marketing-speak. The simple truth is that Remarkable's products all use NXP (formerly Freescale) controllers. The Remarkable2 uses i.mx7D. That has a built-in hardware EPDC. You can google it. The driver is open source. https://github.com/UDOOboard/Kernel_Unico/blob/master/drivers/video/mxc/mxc_epdc_fb.c https://github.com/UDOOboard/Kernel_Unico/blob/master/driver... That's what does all the "difficult stuff". Not Remarkable. > did you know that to flip pixels, e-ink displays require annoyingly proprietary lookup tables of waveforms that can be up to 5-dimensional? Yes. But you realize tables are each panel specific. Meaning every single panel you see requires a custom waveform. Nowadays they (E Ink and their partners)'re getting better and have some increased level of consistency so some waveforms can achieve the same result on whole batches of panels. But you'll still see it being batch specific. Take a waveform for one batch and try to use it on another and you'll get lousy ghosty results or maybe even damage the panel permanently. > and worked with E-ink directly to implement said waveform table, very low-latency partial updates, and other e-ink "secrets" that could very well be worked out via reverse engineering but are otherwise under NDA. That's more marketing speak. If you look at their code which they published, https://github.com/remarkable https://github.com/remarkable , it is just minor patches to NXP's driver. All the hard work was done by NXP.