5 ms·

Does high-refresh-rate (e.g. capable-of-scrolling) e-ink exist yet?

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Depends how you define high refresh rate. By regular e-paper standards the tech it has come quite far but still below the 60Hz you get in any cheapo LCD tech. Also, the faster you refresh a e-paper display, the power consumption can even surpass power efficient LCD tech so it's just not viable in that case unless the panel has the capability of partial refresh but even then it's not ideal for consuming fast moving content. E-paper displays are power efficient for static images (books, price tags, advertising, notifications, etc) but if you have to refresh them fully several times a second, the power consumption goes through the roof (moving the e-ink particles around in their pixel compartments requires more effort than rotating LCD crystals/OLED).
- alex-a-soto 4y ago
  One of the areas we are exploring is developing Wayland protocols that will offer native e-ink support to client applications. We hope this may partially address the power consumption/efficiency of static/dynamic content related to e-paper displays.
danjessen 4y ago
Isn't that kinda counter intuitive compared to what e-ink was originally made for?
- bluescrn 4y ago
  If you want to make an e-ink laptop (with more functionality than a Kindle), you're going to need to handle scrolling, cursors, or motion of some kind
- wakeupcall 4y ago
  For? It's more like "what can we do with this tech?"
- alex-a-soto 4y ago
  On the software side of things, we hope to work with a consultancy to develop Wayland protocols that will offer native e-ink support to client applications.
sprash 4y ago
There was "mirasol" which was full color high refresh rate passive display technology. It is unclear to this day why it never made it to market considering that E-Ink is a far inferior product.
- mekkkkkk 4y ago
  Had to read up on this, because it's very interesting. The short of it seems to be that production runs of Mirasol panels had very high fault rates, which lead to delays and losses. Qualcomm ultimately decided to abandon it and to fully focus on the Snapdragon processors which were perfectly aligned with the booming IoT space at the time. Mirasol was apparently very promising and ahead of its time, albeit immature. It was based on electro-mechanical mirror pixels rather than dye. The biggest technical downside seemed to have been that the colors were pretty washed out and bland. EDIT: It actually did make it to market. There was even a smartwatch powered by Mirasol (the Toq). It was never implemented by the big e-Reader brands though.
  - Wildgoose 4y ago
    I don't think these colours look washed out. They look sharp and bright to me, (mirasol on the right, colour e-ink on the left). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUGRlsKzai4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUGRlsKzai4
    - mekkkkkk 4y ago
      I just summarized what I read elsewhere. I have never seen one in real life. It does look good in the comparison you linked. It is being backlit though, while the E-ink is not. Maybe the mentioned blandness is more of a problem when used fully passively. It seemed to have been a good competitor regardless, and it's sad that it got mothballed.
- Wildgoose 4y ago
  I would love a mirasol screen on a laptop or tablet and actually be able to view/read a screen in bright sunlight. I really hope that either Amazon decide to resurrect the technology for their Kindle e-readers, or that smartwatch manufacturers adopt it en masse.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
vicda 4y ago
I bought an eink monitor. Overall great except I had to switch to light mode for everything since ghosting was an issue. It had a high enough refresh rate to be workable. (there were warnings though that using the higher refresh rate settings would greatly affect longevity of the screen though.) 7/10 would not recommend.
- mekkkkkk 4y ago
  > 7/10 would not recommend Why no recommendation? Seemed like a positive overall experience.
  - vicda 4y ago
    I greatly prefer dark mode for my normal monitors. I greatly prefer light mode for the eink monitor. My multi-monitor setup went exactly as well as you might imagine. Also the eink monitor I bought for $1k is quite small by today's standards, so I couldn't utilize as effectively as a vertical monitor which keeps more continuous text visible at a time. The tech on its own? 7/10. I love it and it only lost points because the driver documentation and accompanying tool interface wasn't fully translated from the original Chinese. Ghosting issues and a relatively slow refresh rate were known tradeoffs at purchase time. so can't fault it for that.

Depends how you define high refresh rate. By regular e-paper standards the tech it has come quite far but still below the 60Hz you get in any cheapo LCD tech. Also, the faster you refresh a e-paper display, the power consumption can even surpass power efficient LCD tech so it's just not viable in that case unless the panel has the capability of partial refresh but even then it's not ideal for consuming fast moving content. E-paper displays are power efficient for static images (books, price tags, advertising, notifications, etc) but if you have to refresh them fully several times a second, the power consumption goes through the roof (moving the e-ink particles around in their pixel compartments requires more effort than rotating LCD crystals/OLED).

alex-a-soto 4y ago
One of the areas we are exploring is developing Wayland protocols that will offer native e-ink support to client applications. We hope this may partially address the power consumption/efficiency of static/dynamic content related to e-paper displays.

danjessen 4y ago

Isn't that kinda counter intuitive compared to what e-ink was originally made for?

bluescrn 4y ago
If you want to make an e-ink laptop (with more functionality than a Kindle), you're going to need to handle scrolling, cursors, or motion of some kind
wakeupcall 4y ago
For? It's more like "what can we do with this tech?"
alex-a-soto 4y ago
On the software side of things, we hope to work with a consultancy to develop Wayland protocols that will offer native e-ink support to client applications.

sprash 4y ago

There was "mirasol" which was full color high refresh rate passive display technology. It is unclear to this day why it never made it to market considering that E-Ink is a far inferior product.

mekkkkkk 4y ago
Had to read up on this, because it's very interesting. The short of it seems to be that production runs of Mirasol panels had very high fault rates, which lead to delays and losses. Qualcomm ultimately decided to abandon it and to fully focus on the Snapdragon processors which were perfectly aligned with the booming IoT space at the time. Mirasol was apparently very promising and ahead of its time, albeit immature. It was based on electro-mechanical mirror pixels rather than dye. The biggest technical downside seemed to have been that the colors were pretty washed out and bland. EDIT: It actually did make it to market. There was even a smartwatch powered by Mirasol (the Toq). It was never implemented by the big e-Reader brands though.
- Wildgoose 4y ago
  I don't think these colours look washed out. They look sharp and bright to me, (mirasol on the right, colour e-ink on the left). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUGRlsKzai4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUGRlsKzai4
  - mekkkkkk 4y ago
    I just summarized what I read elsewhere. I have never seen one in real life. It does look good in the comparison you linked. It is being backlit though, while the E-ink is not. Maybe the mentioned blandness is more of a problem when used fully passively. It seemed to have been a good competitor regardless, and it's sad that it got mothballed.
Wildgoose 4y ago
I would love a mirasol screen on a laptop or tablet and actually be able to view/read a screen in bright sunlight. I really hope that either Amazon decide to resurrect the technology for their Kindle e-readers, or that smartwatch manufacturers adopt it en masse.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

vicda 4y ago

I bought an eink monitor. Overall great except I had to switch to light mode for everything since ghosting was an issue. It had a high enough refresh rate to be workable. (there were warnings though that using the higher refresh rate settings would greatly affect longevity of the screen though.) 7/10 would not recommend.

mekkkkkk 4y ago
> 7/10 would not recommend Why no recommendation? Seemed like a positive overall experience.
- vicda 4y ago
  I greatly prefer dark mode for my normal monitors. I greatly prefer light mode for the eink monitor. My multi-monitor setup went exactly as well as you might imagine. Also the eink monitor I bought for $1k is quite small by today's standards, so I couldn't utilize as effectively as a vertical monitor which keeps more continuous text visible at a time. The tech on its own? 7/10. I love it and it only lost points because the driver documentation and accompanying tool interface wasn't fully translated from the original Chinese. Ghosting issues and a relatively slow refresh rate were known tradeoffs at purchase time. so can't fault it for that.