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Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

211 points by jahfer 3y ago

jdthedisciple 3y ago
The contrast looks terrible. What am I missing?
- mdp2021 3y ago
  It is a reflective display: you have to put it in proper ambient light. Like paper, it needs external light - but it can be much less contrasted than paper, so you will need in the direction of a "glorious day lightflood".
tromp 3y ago
I found the product page [1] [EDIT: older grayscale version] and this article [2] from June last year slightly more informative. [1] https://shop.dasung.com/products/dasung-25-3-e-ink-monitor-paperlike-253?variant=41553876844728 https://shop.dasung.com/products/dasung-25-3-e-ink-monitor-p... [2] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/first-look-at-the-dasung-253-25-inch-e-ink-monitor https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/first-look-a...
- ajdude 3y ago
  For an e-ink monitor, I was expecting it to cost much more.
  - discordance 3y ago
    so you don’t have to click through, it’s $1,748.00 USD
- elviejo 3y ago
  That page is for the black and white version. They released that product a couple of years ago.
- f001 3y ago
  I think that this is a greyscale predecessor to the one in the indiegogo link.
skerit 3y ago
Awesome, though I need this in a laptop.
- nashashmi 3y ago
  I think you would be better off having it in a portable monitor.
  - jsheard 3y ago
    Boox makes a portable 13" e-ink monitor but it's tough to swallow at $800 https://shop.boox.com/products/mira https://shop.boox.com/products/mira e-ink prices still shoot into the stratosphere if you want anything larger than 10"
- mdp2021 3y ago
  Do you need colour, and is 10'' enough for you? I just checked the current products from Onyx, and you can have e.g. a "Kaleido 3" 10.3'', 2480x1860 300 DPI (1240x930 150 DPI per tint) in the "Tab Ultra C", for ~600 coins. https://onyxboox.com/boox_tabultrac https://onyxboox.com/boox_tabultrac Very probably VNC or better Remote Desktop tech will work on it. Bring your laptop and your tablet, make the use you need. The problem: if you keep them cable connected, you'd be straining the laptop battery... -- Or, Linux on the tablet (maybe via Termux, you can also get a desktop environment). Or, Android directly, with a BT keyboard...
- rpozarickij 3y ago
  Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Twist[0] has been announced a while ago already. It should have a 12-inch color e-ink display in addition to a regular display. It was supposed to become available in June 2023, but there's only silence. [0]: https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/thinkbook-plus-reinvents-rotating-display-form-factor-twist-design/ https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/thinkbook-p...
bovermyer 3y ago
I'm curious about the refresh rate. From the video, it appears to be fast for an e-ink display. However, it still seems to be slower than what I'd be comfortable watching a video with. The other thing I'm curious about is the manufacturer. They seem to have a black-and-white version already available. Has anyone ever tried it?
- Pet_Ant 3y ago
  I don't think eInk will ever be capable of video-like refresh rates. It's had plenty of benefits, but refresh rates may never catch up. I have a secondary monitor dedicated to Slack, Teams, and Outlook. That would be perfect for this as it doesn't update often and the content is mostly static.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    I don’t know that there is any technical reason why e-ink can’t develop a better refresh rate to match what we are used to, at least theoretically. I don’t think its refresh rates are capped in that way. The real problem is cost of course. Part of that is e-ink is still governed under a patent you must license and pay royalties to if I recall correctly
    - ZiiS 3y ago
      The ink has to actually move; all sorts of physics sets hard caps to the refresh rate. Not saying they won't improve from what we have; but compared to the switch time of an OLED this isn't just lack of investment.
      - dirtyid 3y ago
        Whats the theoretical cap? Gen pop likely can live with 30fps if we eventually get there.
    - Brian_K_White 3y ago
      Eink works by physically moving bits of material around in a viscous liquid. You can refine that (use stronger electric field, stronger reacting pigments, less-viscous fluid, thinner layer for smaller travel distance) but never get around it.
chrisco255 3y ago
Why make this for a desktop? E-ink is mostly useful for wireless applications and anywhere power is limited or there's a need for always on, static display.
- Version467 3y ago
  To relieve eye strain. Reading on an e-ink screen is so much more comfortable than on any emissive monitor. With current tech the downside is of course reduced refresh rate as well as low color contrast. Depending on the workload, that might be a worthy trade off. I tried coding on a grayscale eink display for a while and noticed a big difference in eye strain and overall concentration levels after a long session. But the display I had was too small and I didn't like living without syntax highlighting, so I went back to a normal screen. This product would solve those issues. Authors and writers in general might be another target audience for this product. It's niche for sure, but eink has a lot of applications beyond price displays in a store.
  - mcny 3y ago
    > To relieve eye strain. I think this will expose another, possibly larger, problem. My room is too poorly lit other than the screen. If there is no light coming from the screen, I am forced to turn on a light to read the screen. Maybe that's a good thing, I am not sure.
    - bornfreddy 3y ago
      Some people have an inverse problem - it is difficult to position a monitor so that it doesn't reflect a window. This technology sounds perfect for that.
      - orbital-decay 3y ago
        EPD displays aren't magically paper-like; in fact they are far from looking like actual paper. There's either plastic or glass in front, and they give the same glare as any other matte or glossy display. If anything, active lighting (either backlight or frontlight) helps mitigate glares, shadows, and other external lighting non-uniformities.
cbeach 3y ago
Very impressive tech demo, but in practice, the lack of contrast and the slow (but impressive for e-ink) refresh rate would be a dealbreaker. Also, as others have said, what's the benefit of e-ink on the desktop where mains power is readily available?
- no_wizard 3y ago
  E-Ink can achieve “real color” better than LED / LCD for design that is used in non electronic mediums. Also glare. The eye strain on e-ink is much less than that of LED / LCD displays. Subjectively I like the realism color aspect
  - nashashmi 3y ago
    Would love to know more on the color accuracy of e-ink displays.
    - no_wizard 3y ago
      TechCrunch has a nice break down of the possibilities around this[0] I am not sure how the color e-ink performs in this particular scenario with the monitor advertised compared to something like P3 enabled displays, but the tech has advanced that Gallery 3 panels[1] can produce 50K CMYK scaled colors are 300 DPI which is great for color accuracy, esp. in regards to physical materials (brochures, T-Shirts etc). That said, they're likely using Kaledio displays here, Good Reads has a nice breakdown of them[2] [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/12/e-ink-color-tech-epaper-magazines/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/12/e-ink-color-tech-epaper-ma... [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/25/23041407/e-ink-color-gallery-3-announced\ https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/25/23041407/e-ink-color-gall... [2]: https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/e-ink-kaleido-2-vs-e-ink-kaleido-3 https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/e-ink-kaleid...
  - orbital-decay 3y ago
    > E-Ink can achieve “real color” better than LED / LCD for design that is used in non electronic mediums. Can it, though? What makes it able to, and what is the real color? When I hold a physical Pantone patch against my calibrated IPS display in proper viewing conditions, I fail to see any difference. > Also glare. My experience is that E-Ink readers have the same issues with glare as any other display, compared to paper which doesn't have it.
dbingham 3y ago
That refresh rate is pretty awesome. ...if that's real, and I'm a little skeptical, I kinda want a remarkable with one of these screens. That would be amazing. The poor refresh rate is one of the few things I don't love about my remarkable.
- packetlost 3y ago
  One of my coworkers has the grayscale version of that. The refresh rate goes up to maybe 20Hz on "fast mode" which sacrifices quality for speed. It looks pretty good regardless, but IMO the real benefit of these screens is in consuming long-form text content. My ReMarkable 2 has a perfectly fine refresh rate, especially for writing/drawing. Is yours the first gen maybe?
  - mrkeen 3y ago
    I have a remarkable 1. The refresh rate certainly keeps up with writing. It's just a bit slow if you want to hit next page a bunch of times in a row.
    - packetlost 3y ago
      Yeah, paging can be a little slow. I use mine for reading through PDFs and it's fine for the most part. I think it might partially be poorly optimized software, not necessarily the screen, but who knows.
      - sydon 3y ago
        I definitely wonder, the build is quite slim, I don't think the tech inside is that impressive.
        mdp2021 3y ago
        > impressive If electrophoretic displays were trivial to make, we would not be still developing the technology.
wnolens 3y ago
Work from Beach
otachack 3y ago
This is really cool. It does make me miss the Pebble watch though as they dove into color e-ink for certain models as well. They seemed way ahead of the time and it's such a shame they couldn't make it through.
- jadbox 3y ago
  It looks like it's under 30fps though to me... not sure if videos would be that watchable?
- jsheard 3y ago
  The Pebble wasn't e-ink, it used a transflective memory LCD which they branded as "e-paper". Garmin still makes smartwatches using that technology.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > memory LCD Interesting: ~5μW .. ~100μW. https://displaylogic.com/products-and-services/memory-lcd/ https://displaylogic.com/products-and-services/memory-lcd/
- joecool1029 3y ago
  Pebble did not use e-ink screens, it used a reflective memory in pixel LCD (I believe made by Sharp), refresh rates were never a problem using that technology, because it's just a LCD that has some tweaks for lower standby power usage. More on it: https://www.sharpsde.com/technologies-for/memory-in-pixels/miptechnology/ https://www.sharpsde.com/technologies-for/memory-in-pixels/m... It still requires a very small amount of power to keep the screen functioning. E-Ink uses a completely different technology that does not require energy to continue displaying an image on the screen. Only requires it to change it. Operates by moving charged polymers to make them go to the surface or fall away, similar to etch-a-sketch (edit: I was thinking magna doodle) toy, but charge/not magnetism.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Exactly. I recently retired my Pebble, after the battery life was reduced to 1-2 days. I wish there were more watches out there like this. I found the Garmins to be much dimmer, and the Fossil to be poorly laid out for displaying much text (and the UI/UX was awful). I would pay AWU prices for a next-generation Pebble Time Steel, even if only added HR and a few other updates.
Philorandroid 3y ago
0:28 of the promo video, "EVOLUTION OF HULK PREGNANT" is in the Youtube search results...
blizdiddy 3y ago
My unsolicited advice: turn on a lamp in your workspace, and turn down your monitor brightness. An app like twinkle tray makes adjusting screen brightness as easy as adjusting speaker volume. Your eyes really don't care about emissive or reflected light.
- ChrisRR 3y ago
  I do anecdotally find that the better ambient light causes less eye strain.
  - hoosieree 3y ago
    When your pupils are smaller, the image that hits your retina is sharper, just like with a pinhole camera. Sharper images lead to less eyestrain because you don't need to keep your eye still for as long. I use light color themes for this reason. Although I always add the caveat to "do what works for you", because everyone's body is different.
    - alanbernstein 3y ago
      As a dark mode user, this makes me want to reconsider. It seems to make sense, but is it supported by evidence or by personal experience? I have not noticed such a difference in eye strain myself.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - pepa65 3y ago
      The strain on my eyes is majorly caused by the lights shining into it. Dark mode helps, lower light emission helps. My eyes don't seem to strain so much keeping still...
- swyx 3y ago
  thanks for the prompt, i didnt realize i wanted a screen brightness ap. twinkle tray seems to be windows only so i googled and found quickshade for mac.
ekianjo 3y ago
wireless display? no HDMI?
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > Support HDMI, DP [and] Type-C input
jfax 3y ago
I'm laughing that the demo video features an adult in a suit sitting down at the computer to browse computer generated nursery rhymes on youtube.
siva7 3y ago
This product would make sense as a portable secondary monitor for your laptop rig. The demo video is weird. Watching youtube isn't a good use case for a color e-ink.
- LeoNatan25 3y ago
  They aren't watching videos, they are just lifelessly scrolling slowly a YouTube search results page with embarrassing search results.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > Watching youtube isn't a good use case for a color e-ink You may have not thought that part of the idea is using displays for education (video is an important format for educational material nowadays) in times where Countries are noting epidemics of eye difficulties (e.g. myopia) among students. This said, use of video (frequent refresh) on EPD is strongly inefficient - EPD is energy-optimal as bistable, and consumes a lot upon state updates. And, those EPD cells are not eternal, they have a lifespan of state switches.
mdp2021 3y ago
Do not miss an important detail: it is Kaleido. It means, it uses an overlaid colour filter matrix (RGBW, if I remember correctly). This allows for the comparatively high refresh rates of B/W EPD, but it is B/W EPD with a semi-transparent multi-tinted layer on top, which obviously impacts the brightness. (The alternative would be multi-pigmented EPD cells - "Advanced Color E-Paper"... Which suffers from dramatically low refresh rate.)
- ddingus 3y ago
  Dramatically low basically equals the single color refresh rate multiplied by the number of base colors used to form color images.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    You seem to be suggesting "a collection of pigmented subcells similar to the traditional B/W cell". ACeP works differently: the pigments are in a single cell, and it is a matter of different densities, size, speed, electrical sensitivity per material (per pigment) that determines the procedure ("waveform") to obtain the wanted colour in a pixel. So, it does not seem linear at all.
    - ddingus 3y ago
      That was based on my tests with color displays from Waveshare, and as we have seen in the comments here, advances have been made. I still see multiple refresh cycles being needed for colors. The metrics are shorter, smaller on the very latest displays, and in my view fall short of motion capable in color. We do have, and have had, motion capable monochrome for a while now, given users accept a few trade-offs.
  - dmitrygr 3y ago
    No. Much worse. Think 30 seconds for a 7-color display. (B&w can do under one second)
    - Qwertious 3y ago
chaosprint 3y ago
I owned lots of E-ink devices. I got a Boox Mira 13 inch screen and it works well on both Mac/Windows. On Windows I can even have some touchscreen interaction. But I have to warn you!!!! that your mouse is not going to work as it feels very different. So I use it only to read news, reply emails and messages. Coding, video, and gaming would be impossible! The same thing would 100% go to this new display. I have also got a Boox X 13 inch tablet. I was choosing between this and Boox Ultra C which is a coloured one. But then I decide the screen size is more important than the color, the the Boox X 13 inch is much lighter! It's fantastic to read HN news and PDF every day with it. I once ordered ReMarkable 2 but the experience was a disaster. The PDF is rendered as picture. I couldn't believe it! Basically unusable even if it's free to get one.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > your mouse ... feels very different Latency. It will work anyway, practically, through the right system, if you want to get used to it. > ... I can even have some touchscreen interaction An all systems, if you use remote desktop technologies (e.g. VNC).
  - chaosprint 3y ago
    windows seems to have some optimisation for touchscreen
- myself248 3y ago
  RM2 ex-pat club member here too! Beautiful design, bizarrely crippled user experience. They put a wifi+bt chip on the board, but didn't connect the bluetooth signals, so you couldn't use a bluetooth keyboard with it like any other tablet. And a zillion other frustrations. I sold it to a friend after making super sure he was okay with the limitations and wouldn't blame me for selling him a lemon.
  - jseliger 3y ago
    I've written about this on HN before, but the RM2 people don't make the device show up as a standard USB device, which makes file manipulations hard. I think this is an effort to sell their "cloud" server stuff for a few dollars a month. That's not been the effect on me; instead, I barely use mine, and complain about it on the Internet.
Puckettr3 3y ago
[flagged]
retrocryptid 3y ago
I'm trying to remember the last time I actually received anything I paid for on Indiegogo. Caveat Emptor.
- rvnx 3y ago
  I already ordered product from DASUNG before, it was technically working, just useless because of the Windows-specific drivers that were needed and the poor refresh-rate (it was the B&W 13"-ish version of the monitor). However, the team in China was cool to interact with and seemed reliable.
syntaxing 3y ago
Honestly looks awesome and Dasung is pretty consistent with their product delivery. Having color would be a game changer for coding. But the monochrome one is already an eye watering price ($1800 USD). This is probably going to be north of $2500.
5- 3y ago
speaking of passive screens on indiegogo, this launched recently: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-first-color-rlcd-epaper-with-front-light https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-first-color-rlcd-... in theory this should be much more interesting than e-ink (lcd refresh rates, similar to sharp mip displays in pebble/garmin/playdate, frontlight), but not so sure about the android tablet chassis.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  Unfortunately, with these technologies, it is the effect revealed by direct experience to determine whether "you would use it or not". Cpr. Mirasol, etc.
  - Groxx 3y ago
    Mirasol is such a neat technology. As far as I've seen though it's kinda awful at off-angle color/contrast/etc. I'm not sure if that's a product maturity thing or a fundamental tech limitation... but I kinda suspect tech limitation.
gnicholas 3y ago
Is it me, or are they hiding the price unless you sign up for their email list?
- rpozarickij 3y ago
  Hm, I still couldn't find the price after signing up for the newsletter.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Yeah, I suspected it was a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement. Probably pricing will be determined based in part on how many people show interest (and how their manufacturing process evolves). But I've never seen a crowdfunding campaign that had no advertised price — very strange!
ungruntled 3y ago
I have their 13in grayscale e-ink device. I assume the underlying tech is similar. What they carefully filter out is the significant ghosting of the device that builds up immediately and needs to be cleared with a button on the monitor. The contrast is also poor and blends with ghosted content so you need more time to tell what’s real or junk pixels. The front light on the device is still required in most lighting situations unless you are in sunlight. Glare from non overhead lighting is very bad and worsened by the lack of a backlight. Content on significant portions of the page will flicker as you move your mouse and corrupt content already displayed unless you press the clear button. Content will flicker on many settings even without any movement. Even on the lowest refresh rate the device is still not really usable. I originally bought this to help with eye strain, but the poor visibility of content, flickering, and clearing action make it substantially worse than a regular monitor. Edit: I’d also add that the device emits a coil whine when the display is updating like when moving mouse. Its audible enough to hear over my wall AC unit.
- sisve 3y ago
  Just wanted to point out as a alternative datapoint thay i havr both 13: and 25" greyscale. And 25 is a much better experience. 13" is just to small. Im happy with 25" and will buy this new with color. I do not have flicker, at least not like you. but you need strong lighting on the screen.
- tomcam 3y ago
  Very valuable feedback, thank you. Coil whine would drive me bananas. Username checks out.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    To be noted that EPD displays are in general completely silent. This exception...
    - throitallaway 3y ago
      Of course, there's more to a monitor than just the display. It could be the power supply, driver board, etc. that's the cause for coil whine. I've had it on one laptop that I owned; whenever there was I/O with the SSD I'd get a little bit of whine.
nerdjon 3y ago
I don't think I could ever see seriously using this as a general computing monitor. But I have been long wanting to replace a couple of screens I have mounted to the wall with e-ink variants (hooked up to raspberry pi's) but the existing solutions were.... not great. If the price is right for this, I might actually be into this.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > e-ink variants (hooked up to raspberry pi's) ... If the price is right for this, I might actually be into this At that point, you could just get the display and controller from E-Ink. The Kaleido of this monitor does not appear for me in the E-Ink shop, but there is the 13.3'' full AcEP on sale, 1600x1200, as-if 60,000 colours through pigments, for ~800$, «Hands-on experiment with Raspberry Pi #3». https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/AtelierWith13.3''GalleryPlusePaperDisplay https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/AtelierWith13.3'...
  - nerdjon 3y ago
    That is still a lot more than I would want to spend given I have working solutions with larger monitors. Plus I would need to figure out the mount for that, I currently just use a 3D printed VESA wall mount for what I have. But given that what you linked is $800 for a screen 10 inches smaller than what is being advertised here... this monitor is likely not going to be cheap.
    - mdp2021 3y ago
      > not going to be cheap Sure, that was part of the point I was making (get the part¹, not the 3rd party build). I thought you had an idea of the range: the B/W original costs 1,748 USD (links are in the page), this one has a few reasons to cost more... ¹(incidentally, technologically better in this case)
jaflo 3y ago
I’m confused about this page, is it just to sign up for updates for when the monitor ships? I don’t see any information on how much it costs or when it’s available.
jonplackett 3y ago
Can they just license the tech already and let someone make a laptop. Outside working in the sun is the killer app for color e-ink
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Tepix 3y ago
During the first year of Covid, i tried using a Boox Max Lumi 13.3" with HDMI in as an external monitor for working at home on the terrace. It didn't work: Too much ghosting. The video looks promising. But i'll wait until there are some reviews.
chx 3y ago
I have a not-eReader 078 (back then it was just called not-eReader before the 10" sibling came to be) and it's an incredible device for a super small niche: secondary screen for an emergency laptop. https://imgur.com/a/xmRmYSn https://imgur.com/a/xmRmYSn especially https://i.imgur.com/eV7qq8Y.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eV7qq8Y.jpg . Notably there has not been a successor to the One Mix Yoga 2S. Later devices are larger, the current crop of handhelds are gaming handhelds with appropriate controls without a keyboard. Even the Ayaneo Air 1S which only has a 5.5" screen is 224mm wide where the Yoga 2S was 182mm. It's a little narrower though. I might buy it and use it with the ancient Samsung NP-Q1 keyboard.
sharikous 3y ago
If some Remarkable 2 person is watching I would buy in a pinch a 2-color version. No need for the whole RGB experience but having, say, red and black available when I take notes would make a big difference.
dirtyid 3y ago
Looks... servicable. Is eink finally happening?

211 points by jahfer 3y ago

jdthedisciple 3y ago

The contrast looks terrible. What am I missing?

mdp2021 3y ago
It is a reflective display: you have to put it in proper ambient light. Like paper, it needs external light - but it can be much less contrasted than paper, so you will need in the direction of a "glorious day lightflood".

tromp 3y ago

I found the product page [1] [EDIT: older grayscale version] and this article [2] from June last year slightly more informative. [1] https://shop.dasung.com/products/dasung-25-3-e-ink-monitor-paperlike-253?variant=41553876844728 https://shop.dasung.com/products/dasung-25-3-e-ink-monitor-p... [2] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/first-look-at-the-dasung-253-25-inch-e-ink-monitor https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/first-look-a...

ajdude 3y ago
For an e-ink monitor, I was expecting it to cost much more.
- discordance 3y ago
  so you don’t have to click through, it’s $1,748.00 USD
elviejo 3y ago
That page is for the black and white version. They released that product a couple of years ago.
f001 3y ago
I think that this is a greyscale predecessor to the one in the indiegogo link.

skerit 3y ago

Awesome, though I need this in a laptop.

nashashmi 3y ago
I think you would be better off having it in a portable monitor.
- jsheard 3y ago
  Boox makes a portable 13" e-ink monitor but it's tough to swallow at $800 https://shop.boox.com/products/mira https://shop.boox.com/products/mira e-ink prices still shoot into the stratosphere if you want anything larger than 10"
mdp2021 3y ago
Do you need colour, and is 10'' enough for you? I just checked the current products from Onyx, and you can have e.g. a "Kaleido 3" 10.3'', 2480x1860 300 DPI (1240x930 150 DPI per tint) in the "Tab Ultra C", for ~600 coins. https://onyxboox.com/boox_tabultrac https://onyxboox.com/boox_tabultrac Very probably VNC or better Remote Desktop tech will work on it. Bring your laptop and your tablet, make the use you need. The problem: if you keep them cable connected, you'd be straining the laptop battery... -- Or, Linux on the tablet (maybe via Termux, you can also get a desktop environment). Or, Android directly, with a BT keyboard...
rpozarickij 3y ago
Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Twist[0] has been announced a while ago already. It should have a 12-inch color e-ink display in addition to a regular display. It was supposed to become available in June 2023, but there's only silence. [0]: https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/thinkbook-plus-reinvents-rotating-display-form-factor-twist-design/ https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/thinkbook-p...

bovermyer 3y ago

I'm curious about the refresh rate. From the video, it appears to be fast for an e-ink display. However, it still seems to be slower than what I'd be comfortable watching a video with. The other thing I'm curious about is the manufacturer. They seem to have a black-and-white version already available. Has anyone ever tried it?

Pet_Ant 3y ago
I don't think eInk will ever be capable of video-like refresh rates. It's had plenty of benefits, but refresh rates may never catch up. I have a secondary monitor dedicated to Slack, Teams, and Outlook. That would be perfect for this as it doesn't update often and the content is mostly static.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  I don’t know that there is any technical reason why e-ink can’t develop a better refresh rate to match what we are used to, at least theoretically. I don’t think its refresh rates are capped in that way. The real problem is cost of course. Part of that is e-ink is still governed under a patent you must license and pay royalties to if I recall correctly
  - ZiiS 3y ago
    The ink has to actually move; all sorts of physics sets hard caps to the refresh rate. Not saying they won't improve from what we have; but compared to the switch time of an OLED this isn't just lack of investment.
    - dirtyid 3y ago
      Whats the theoretical cap? Gen pop likely can live with 30fps if we eventually get there.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    Eink works by physically moving bits of material around in a viscous liquid. You can refine that (use stronger electric field, stronger reacting pigments, less-viscous fluid, thinner layer for smaller travel distance) but never get around it.

chrisco255 3y ago

Why make this for a desktop? E-ink is mostly useful for wireless applications and anywhere power is limited or there's a need for always on, static display.

Version467 3y ago
To relieve eye strain. Reading on an e-ink screen is so much more comfortable than on any emissive monitor. With current tech the downside is of course reduced refresh rate as well as low color contrast. Depending on the workload, that might be a worthy trade off. I tried coding on a grayscale eink display for a while and noticed a big difference in eye strain and overall concentration levels after a long session. But the display I had was too small and I didn't like living without syntax highlighting, so I went back to a normal screen. This product would solve those issues. Authors and writers in general might be another target audience for this product. It's niche for sure, but eink has a lot of applications beyond price displays in a store.
- mcny 3y ago
  > To relieve eye strain. I think this will expose another, possibly larger, problem. My room is too poorly lit other than the screen. If there is no light coming from the screen, I am forced to turn on a light to read the screen. Maybe that's a good thing, I am not sure.
  - bornfreddy 3y ago
    Some people have an inverse problem - it is difficult to position a monitor so that it doesn't reflect a window. This technology sounds perfect for that.
    - orbital-decay 3y ago
      EPD displays aren't magically paper-like; in fact they are far from looking like actual paper. There's either plastic or glass in front, and they give the same glare as any other matte or glossy display. If anything, active lighting (either backlight or frontlight) helps mitigate glares, shadows, and other external lighting non-uniformities.

cbeach 3y ago

Very impressive tech demo, but in practice, the lack of contrast and the slow (but impressive for e-ink) refresh rate would be a dealbreaker. Also, as others have said, what's the benefit of e-ink on the desktop where mains power is readily available?

no_wizard 3y ago
E-Ink can achieve “real color” better than LED / LCD for design that is used in non electronic mediums. Also glare. The eye strain on e-ink is much less than that of LED / LCD displays. Subjectively I like the realism color aspect
- nashashmi 3y ago
  Would love to know more on the color accuracy of e-ink displays.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    TechCrunch has a nice break down of the possibilities around this[0] I am not sure how the color e-ink performs in this particular scenario with the monitor advertised compared to something like P3 enabled displays, but the tech has advanced that Gallery 3 panels[1] can produce 50K CMYK scaled colors are 300 DPI which is great for color accuracy, esp. in regards to physical materials (brochures, T-Shirts etc). That said, they're likely using Kaledio displays here, Good Reads has a nice breakdown of them[2] [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/12/e-ink-color-tech-epaper-magazines/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/12/e-ink-color-tech-epaper-ma... [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/25/23041407/e-ink-color-gallery-3-announced\ https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/25/23041407/e-ink-color-gall... [2]: https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/e-ink-kaleido-2-vs-e-ink-kaleido-3 https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/e-ink-kaleid...
- orbital-decay 3y ago
  > E-Ink can achieve “real color” better than LED / LCD for design that is used in non electronic mediums. Can it, though? What makes it able to, and what is the real color? When I hold a physical Pantone patch against my calibrated IPS display in proper viewing conditions, I fail to see any difference. > Also glare. My experience is that E-Ink readers have the same issues with glare as any other display, compared to paper which doesn't have it.

dbingham 3y ago

That refresh rate is pretty awesome. ...if that's real, and I'm a little skeptical, I kinda want a remarkable with one of these screens. That would be amazing. The poor refresh rate is one of the few things I don't love about my remarkable.

packetlost 3y ago
One of my coworkers has the grayscale version of that. The refresh rate goes up to maybe 20Hz on "fast mode" which sacrifices quality for speed. It looks pretty good regardless, but IMO the real benefit of these screens is in consuming long-form text content. My ReMarkable 2 has a perfectly fine refresh rate, especially for writing/drawing. Is yours the first gen maybe?
- mrkeen 3y ago
  I have a remarkable 1. The refresh rate certainly keeps up with writing. It's just a bit slow if you want to hit next page a bunch of times in a row.
  - packetlost 3y ago
    Yeah, paging can be a little slow. I use mine for reading through PDFs and it's fine for the most part. I think it might partially be poorly optimized software, not necessarily the screen, but who knows.
    - sydon 3y ago
      I definitely wonder, the build is quite slim, I don't think the tech inside is that impressive.
      - mdp2021 3y ago
        > impressive If electrophoretic displays were trivial to make, we would not be still developing the technology.

wnolens 3y ago

Work from Beach

otachack 3y ago

This is really cool. It does make me miss the Pebble watch though as they dove into color e-ink for certain models as well. They seemed way ahead of the time and it's such a shame they couldn't make it through.

jadbox 3y ago
It looks like it's under 30fps though to me... not sure if videos would be that watchable?
jsheard 3y ago
The Pebble wasn't e-ink, it used a transflective memory LCD which they branded as "e-paper". Garmin still makes smartwatches using that technology.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > memory LCD Interesting: ~5μW .. ~100μW. https://displaylogic.com/products-and-services/memory-lcd/ https://displaylogic.com/products-and-services/memory-lcd/
joecool1029 3y ago
Pebble did not use e-ink screens, it used a reflective memory in pixel LCD (I believe made by Sharp), refresh rates were never a problem using that technology, because it's just a LCD that has some tweaks for lower standby power usage. More on it: https://www.sharpsde.com/technologies-for/memory-in-pixels/miptechnology/ https://www.sharpsde.com/technologies-for/memory-in-pixels/m... It still requires a very small amount of power to keep the screen functioning. E-Ink uses a completely different technology that does not require energy to continue displaying an image on the screen. Only requires it to change it. Operates by moving charged polymers to make them go to the surface or fall away, similar to etch-a-sketch (edit: I was thinking magna doodle) toy, but charge/not magnetism.
gnicholas 3y ago
Exactly. I recently retired my Pebble, after the battery life was reduced to 1-2 days. I wish there were more watches out there like this. I found the Garmins to be much dimmer, and the Fossil to be poorly laid out for displaying much text (and the UI/UX was awful). I would pay AWU prices for a next-generation Pebble Time Steel, even if only added HR and a few other updates.

Philorandroid 3y ago

0:28 of the promo video, "EVOLUTION OF HULK PREGNANT" is in the Youtube search results...

blizdiddy 3y ago

My unsolicited advice: turn on a lamp in your workspace, and turn down your monitor brightness. An app like twinkle tray makes adjusting screen brightness as easy as adjusting speaker volume. Your eyes really don't care about emissive or reflected light.

ChrisRR 3y ago
I do anecdotally find that the better ambient light causes less eye strain.
- hoosieree 3y ago
  When your pupils are smaller, the image that hits your retina is sharper, just like with a pinhole camera. Sharper images lead to less eyestrain because you don't need to keep your eye still for as long. I use light color themes for this reason. Although I always add the caveat to "do what works for you", because everyone's body is different.
  - alanbernstein 3y ago
    As a dark mode user, this makes me want to reconsider. It seems to make sense, but is it supported by evidence or by personal experience? I have not noticed such a difference in eye strain myself.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pepa65 3y ago
    The strain on my eyes is majorly caused by the lights shining into it. Dark mode helps, lower light emission helps. My eyes don't seem to strain so much keeping still...
swyx 3y ago
thanks for the prompt, i didnt realize i wanted a screen brightness ap. twinkle tray seems to be windows only so i googled and found quickshade for mac.

ekianjo 3y ago

wireless display? no HDMI?

mdp2021 3y ago
> Support HDMI, DP [and] Type-C input

jfax 3y ago

I'm laughing that the demo video features an adult in a suit sitting down at the computer to browse computer generated nursery rhymes on youtube.

siva7 3y ago

This product would make sense as a portable secondary monitor for your laptop rig. The demo video is weird. Watching youtube isn't a good use case for a color e-ink.

LeoNatan25 3y ago
They aren't watching videos, they are just lifelessly scrolling slowly a YouTube search results page with embarrassing search results.
mdp2021 3y ago
> Watching youtube isn't a good use case for a color e-ink You may have not thought that part of the idea is using displays for education (video is an important format for educational material nowadays) in times where Countries are noting epidemics of eye difficulties (e.g. myopia) among students. This said, use of video (frequent refresh) on EPD is strongly inefficient - EPD is energy-optimal as bistable, and consumes a lot upon state updates. And, those EPD cells are not eternal, they have a lifespan of state switches.

mdp2021 3y ago

Do not miss an important detail: it is Kaleido. It means, it uses an overlaid colour filter matrix (RGBW, if I remember correctly). This allows for the comparatively high refresh rates of B/W EPD, but it is B/W EPD with a semi-transparent multi-tinted layer on top, which obviously impacts the brightness. (The alternative would be multi-pigmented EPD cells - "Advanced Color E-Paper"... Which suffers from dramatically low refresh rate.)

ddingus 3y ago
Dramatically low basically equals the single color refresh rate multiplied by the number of base colors used to form color images.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  You seem to be suggesting "a collection of pigmented subcells similar to the traditional B/W cell". ACeP works differently: the pigments are in a single cell, and it is a matter of different densities, size, speed, electrical sensitivity per material (per pigment) that determines the procedure ("waveform") to obtain the wanted colour in a pixel. So, it does not seem linear at all.
  - ddingus 3y ago
    That was based on my tests with color displays from Waveshare, and as we have seen in the comments here, advances have been made. I still see multiple refresh cycles being needed for colors. The metrics are shorter, smaller on the very latest displays, and in my view fall short of motion capable in color. We do have, and have had, motion capable monochrome for a while now, given users accept a few trade-offs.
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  No. Much worse. Think 30 seconds for a 7-color display. (B&w can do under one second)
  - Qwertious 3y ago

chaosprint 3y ago

I owned lots of E-ink devices. I got a Boox Mira 13 inch screen and it works well on both Mac/Windows. On Windows I can even have some touchscreen interaction. But I have to warn you!!!! that your mouse is not going to work as it feels very different. So I use it only to read news, reply emails and messages. Coding, video, and gaming would be impossible! The same thing would 100% go to this new display. I have also got a Boox X 13 inch tablet. I was choosing between this and Boox Ultra C which is a coloured one. But then I decide the screen size is more important than the color, the the Boox X 13 inch is much lighter! It's fantastic to read HN news and PDF every day with it. I once ordered ReMarkable 2 but the experience was a disaster. The PDF is rendered as picture. I couldn't believe it! Basically unusable even if it's free to get one.

mdp2021 3y ago
> your mouse ... feels very different Latency. It will work anyway, practically, through the right system, if you want to get used to it. > ... I can even have some touchscreen interaction An all systems, if you use remote desktop technologies (e.g. VNC).
- chaosprint 3y ago
  windows seems to have some optimisation for touchscreen
myself248 3y ago
RM2 ex-pat club member here too! Beautiful design, bizarrely crippled user experience. They put a wifi+bt chip on the board, but didn't connect the bluetooth signals, so you couldn't use a bluetooth keyboard with it like any other tablet. And a zillion other frustrations. I sold it to a friend after making super sure he was okay with the limitations and wouldn't blame me for selling him a lemon.
- jseliger 3y ago
  I've written about this on HN before, but the RM2 people don't make the device show up as a standard USB device, which makes file manipulations hard. I think this is an effort to sell their "cloud" server stuff for a few dollars a month. That's not been the effect on me; instead, I barely use mine, and complain about it on the Internet.

Puckettr3 3y ago

[flagged]

retrocryptid 3y ago

I'm trying to remember the last time I actually received anything I paid for on Indiegogo. Caveat Emptor.

rvnx 3y ago
I already ordered product from DASUNG before, it was technically working, just useless because of the Windows-specific drivers that were needed and the poor refresh-rate (it was the B&W 13"-ish version of the monitor). However, the team in China was cool to interact with and seemed reliable.

syntaxing 3y ago

Honestly looks awesome and Dasung is pretty consistent with their product delivery. Having color would be a game changer for coding. But the monochrome one is already an eye watering price ($1800 USD). This is probably going to be north of $2500.

5- 3y ago

speaking of passive screens on indiegogo, this launched recently: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-first-color-rlcd-epaper-with-front-light https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-first-color-rlcd-... in theory this should be much more interesting than e-ink (lcd refresh rates, similar to sharp mip displays in pebble/garmin/playdate, frontlight), but not so sure about the android tablet chassis.

mdp2021 3y ago
Unfortunately, with these technologies, it is the effect revealed by direct experience to determine whether "you would use it or not". Cpr. Mirasol, etc.
- Groxx 3y ago
  Mirasol is such a neat technology. As far as I've seen though it's kinda awful at off-angle color/contrast/etc. I'm not sure if that's a product maturity thing or a fundamental tech limitation... but I kinda suspect tech limitation.

gnicholas 3y ago

Is it me, or are they hiding the price unless you sign up for their email list?

rpozarickij 3y ago
Hm, I still couldn't find the price after signing up for the newsletter.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Yeah, I suspected it was a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement. Probably pricing will be determined based in part on how many people show interest (and how their manufacturing process evolves). But I've never seen a crowdfunding campaign that had no advertised price — very strange!

ungruntled 3y ago

I have their 13in grayscale e-ink device. I assume the underlying tech is similar. What they carefully filter out is the significant ghosting of the device that builds up immediately and needs to be cleared with a button on the monitor. The contrast is also poor and blends with ghosted content so you need more time to tell what’s real or junk pixels. The front light on the device is still required in most lighting situations unless you are in sunlight. Glare from non overhead lighting is very bad and worsened by the lack of a backlight. Content on significant portions of the page will flicker as you move your mouse and corrupt content already displayed unless you press the clear button. Content will flicker on many settings even without any movement. Even on the lowest refresh rate the device is still not really usable. I originally bought this to help with eye strain, but the poor visibility of content, flickering, and clearing action make it substantially worse than a regular monitor. Edit: I’d also add that the device emits a coil whine when the display is updating like when moving mouse. Its audible enough to hear over my wall AC unit.

sisve 3y ago
Just wanted to point out as a alternative datapoint thay i havr both 13: and 25" greyscale. And 25 is a much better experience. 13" is just to small. Im happy with 25" and will buy this new with color. I do not have flicker, at least not like you. but you need strong lighting on the screen.
tomcam 3y ago
Very valuable feedback, thank you. Coil whine would drive me bananas. Username checks out.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  To be noted that EPD displays are in general completely silent. This exception...
  - throitallaway 3y ago
    Of course, there's more to a monitor than just the display. It could be the power supply, driver board, etc. that's the cause for coil whine. I've had it on one laptop that I owned; whenever there was I/O with the SSD I'd get a little bit of whine.

nerdjon 3y ago

I don't think I could ever see seriously using this as a general computing monitor. But I have been long wanting to replace a couple of screens I have mounted to the wall with e-ink variants (hooked up to raspberry pi's) but the existing solutions were.... not great. If the price is right for this, I might actually be into this.

mdp2021 3y ago
> e-ink variants (hooked up to raspberry pi's) ... If the price is right for this, I might actually be into this At that point, you could just get the display and controller from E-Ink. The Kaleido of this monitor does not appear for me in the E-Ink shop, but there is the 13.3'' full AcEP on sale, 1600x1200, as-if 60,000 colours through pigments, for ~800$, «Hands-on experiment with Raspberry Pi #3». https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/AtelierWith13.3''GalleryPlusePaperDisplay https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/AtelierWith13.3'...
- nerdjon 3y ago
  That is still a lot more than I would want to spend given I have working solutions with larger monitors. Plus I would need to figure out the mount for that, I currently just use a 3D printed VESA wall mount for what I have. But given that what you linked is $800 for a screen 10 inches smaller than what is being advertised here... this monitor is likely not going to be cheap.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > not going to be cheap Sure, that was part of the point I was making (get the part¹, not the 3rd party build). I thought you had an idea of the range: the B/W original costs 1,748 USD (links are in the page), this one has a few reasons to cost more... ¹(incidentally, technologically better in this case)

jaflo 3y ago

I’m confused about this page, is it just to sign up for updates for when the monitor ships? I don’t see any information on how much it costs or when it’s available.

jonplackett 3y ago

Can they just license the tech already and let someone make a laptop. Outside working in the sun is the killer app for color e-ink

deleted 3y ago

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Tepix 3y ago

During the first year of Covid, i tried using a Boox Max Lumi 13.3" with HDMI in as an external monitor for working at home on the terrace. It didn't work: Too much ghosting. The video looks promising. But i'll wait until there are some reviews.

chx 3y ago

I have a not-eReader 078 (back then it was just called not-eReader before the 10" sibling came to be) and it's an incredible device for a super small niche: secondary screen for an emergency laptop. https://imgur.com/a/xmRmYSn https://imgur.com/a/xmRmYSn especially https://i.imgur.com/eV7qq8Y.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eV7qq8Y.jpg . Notably there has not been a successor to the One Mix Yoga 2S. Later devices are larger, the current crop of handhelds are gaming handhelds with appropriate controls without a keyboard. Even the Ayaneo Air 1S which only has a 5.5" screen is 224mm wide where the Yoga 2S was 182mm. It's a little narrower though. I might buy it and use it with the ancient Samsung NP-Q1 keyboard.

sharikous 3y ago

If some Remarkable 2 person is watching I would buy in a pinch a 2-color version. No need for the whole RGB experience but having, say, red and black available when I take notes would make a big difference.

dirtyid 3y ago

Looks... servicable. Is eink finally happening?