6 ms·

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 comfortabl

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.
    - thelazyone 3y ago
      That is true, but this doesn't pose a theoretical limit to a 30 fps monitor. I suspect that the current technology works by "setting" in place whole regions of the screen at once, and that this kind of process is inherently slow. Maybe in a (not so distant) future it'll be possible to have individual pixels changing, in a similar way as an mp4 doesn't update all the image when not necessary. Or not. So many technologies just embank somewhere and find their niche.
      - Brian_K_White 3y ago
        They do that already, and it results in ghosting and leftover artifacts. It's all tradeoffs, improving one number only to a limited extent and only at the expense of other numbers. Ie, faster action at the expense of worse image. No free lunch or getting around it by handwaving 'advancement'.
        thelazyone 3y ago
        If the update was truly pixel based there should be no ghosting/artifact whatsoever. Looks like global refreshes or cleanup are still relevant, while ideally each pixel could be completely independent. Trade-offs are a problem, but in this case i don't see any physical reason for this to be a theoretical trade-off. More like a limit of the current technology.
        Brian_K_White 3y ago
        It is pixel based logically, which comes out only imperfectly physically. Believe what you will.
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    >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 This is a common myth that's echoed without a source. It's not patent, it's scale - there are literally 6 billion (LCD) smartphone users out in the world (it might be up to 7B by now), with lots of those users owning multiple smartphones. And of course, there are loads of other devices with LCDs: laptops, desktop monitors, TVs, self-checkout kiosks at supermarkets, smartwatches, tablets, LCDs on a fridge for some reason, etc etc etc. E-ink is orders of magnitude lower in production scale, without a clear way of expanding the market beyond just ereaders/enotes (which are a luxury; you can read ebooks on a smartphone/tablet and most people own one of those already), and possibly supermarket smart-pricetags. So, does that mean E-ink faces zero competition? No! DES screens are competing against e-ink with their cofferdam tech (where instead of sprinkling on microcapsules, they capsule structure is built directly onto the substrate; it reduces thickness and theoretically increases pixel density, but loses the "grain" effect of E-Ink's MED in favor of a less-aesthetic regular grid shape). If E-Ink could improve refresh rates then they absolutely would - it's the most visible feature they could possibly add, and is directly applicable to e-readers, which are currently their biggest market. And their biggest buyer is Amazon, who have poured a whole lot of money into the tech (and who sell Kindles at-cost or below) and if it really were patents blocking faster-refreshing screens then Amazon would just buy E-Ink, outright. It's not new - look up LiquaVista; they were bought up by Amazon, Amazon's not afraid to buy up companies. Plus, E-Ink still have to compete against second-hand e-readers they've already sold; there are E-readers from 2012 that will read a .epub just fine, and that's all you really need for an e-reader. If you're wondering why Amazon killed LiquaVista, BTW, apparently it's because shrinking the pixels horizontally causes a chromatic aberration effect when the vertical color-layers are viewed from an angle, so shrinking the pixels horizontally also requires shrinking them vertically, which makes it extremely difficult to manufacture the pixels without them leaking and causing a terribly low yield rate. Also it didn't help that a bunch of the original company's VC raising was done just before 2008.
  - braunboffel 3y ago
    > e-ink is still governed under a patent you must license and pay royalties to if I recall correctly Recall correctly meaning you were involved and have direct knowledge or meaning you read it as an unsubstantiated comment somewhere here?
- shortrounddev2 3y ago
  This monochrome output claims to have a 60hz refresh rate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds38T8wVuDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds38T8wVuDg
  - avivo 3y ago
    Fascinating, this led to this projects which is pretty interesting. https://www.modos.tech/blog/modos-paper-monitor https://www.modos.tech/blog/modos-paper-monitor Seems like a very exciting effort and product but I'm not sure if it's still active.
nashashmi 3y ago
I cannot understand the fascination behind seeing e-ink displays play video. The tech is a "display once, use forever" kind of display. Otoh, video needs bright vivid screens, gaming level quality. Quite the opposite of what a "display once use forever" tech would be suitable for.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  Because you want to see content for its effect. Others may want to use content for its information. And different video effects are optimal for different environments (e.g. lightning).
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > lightning (This is what happens when you say to yourself, "You mean lighting, do not write lightning".)
- Groxx 3y ago
  While I agree it's a poor fit and pretty much just a crappy but flashy tech demo... the display is what it is, it doesn't have mandated suitable uses. Other reflective display tech exists. For the most part they suffer from screen-dooring, extremely bad visibility angles, much worse contrast in bright light, or complete unavailability in the size or resolution that you want. Eink may not have many options, but it is an option, in a market with few or zero competitors depending on what you want (largely because it's niche), and refresh rate is often a thing you can bend on. I would love to see more, but many of the companies I've seen trying to do this in the past no longer exist, or they're selling even more niche ruggedized laptops and nothing else (and they still look much worse than eink, though they have color and refresh rate). It seems to be slowly ramping back up though, so hopefully within the next few years we'll see more.
ZiiS 3y ago
Dasung have managed watchable video on their monochrome devices (unlike most of their competitors). The fast modes loose effective resolution, and contrast, and build up artifacts that need clearing. These compromises are very hard to bare at the sticker price.
sisve 3y ago
Yes, i have the gray-scale version of this. Its really really good. You do not want to watch a movie on it.but if you need to see a 30 sec movie to understand something it ok. The biggest problem with the greyscale is how much color has to say on everything. Its so hard to see terminal errors etc. Yes you can customize a lot. And I do have use custom vs code themes and terminal themes. Buti need to switch each day when i work. Because of some website where darkmode is default or similar. Darkmode is a disaster for a greyscale eink monitor. Im def going to buy this device. Have a rm2 and the 13" dasung screen also. I would def recommend the manufacturer
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > darkmode You need a contrast enhancing browser, or a shortcut for colour inversion (e.g. `xcalib -a -i` )
  - sisve 3y ago
    Thanks. Will try that. It's not that much stress to switch. But def a shortcut will be even lower barrier to use.

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.
  - thelazyone 3y ago
    That is true, but this doesn't pose a theoretical limit to a 30 fps monitor. I suspect that the current technology works by "setting" in place whole regions of the screen at once, and that this kind of process is inherently slow. Maybe in a (not so distant) future it'll be possible to have individual pixels changing, in a similar way as an mp4 doesn't update all the image when not necessary. Or not. So many technologies just embank somewhere and find their niche.
    - Brian_K_White 3y ago
      They do that already, and it results in ghosting and leftover artifacts. It's all tradeoffs, improving one number only to a limited extent and only at the expense of other numbers. Ie, faster action at the expense of worse image. No free lunch or getting around it by handwaving 'advancement'.
      - thelazyone 3y ago
        If the update was truly pixel based there should be no ghosting/artifact whatsoever. Looks like global refreshes or cleanup are still relevant, while ideally each pixel could be completely independent. Trade-offs are a problem, but in this case i don't see any physical reason for this to be a theoretical trade-off. More like a limit of the current technology.
        Brian_K_White 3y ago
        It is pixel based logically, which comes out only imperfectly physically. Believe what you will.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  >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 This is a common myth that's echoed without a source. It's not patent, it's scale - there are literally 6 billion (LCD) smartphone users out in the world (it might be up to 7B by now), with lots of those users owning multiple smartphones. And of course, there are loads of other devices with LCDs: laptops, desktop monitors, TVs, self-checkout kiosks at supermarkets, smartwatches, tablets, LCDs on a fridge for some reason, etc etc etc. E-ink is orders of magnitude lower in production scale, without a clear way of expanding the market beyond just ereaders/enotes (which are a luxury; you can read ebooks on a smartphone/tablet and most people own one of those already), and possibly supermarket smart-pricetags. So, does that mean E-ink faces zero competition? No! DES screens are competing against e-ink with their cofferdam tech (where instead of sprinkling on microcapsules, they capsule structure is built directly onto the substrate; it reduces thickness and theoretically increases pixel density, but loses the "grain" effect of E-Ink's MED in favor of a less-aesthetic regular grid shape). If E-Ink could improve refresh rates then they absolutely would - it's the most visible feature they could possibly add, and is directly applicable to e-readers, which are currently their biggest market. And their biggest buyer is Amazon, who have poured a whole lot of money into the tech (and who sell Kindles at-cost or below) and if it really were patents blocking faster-refreshing screens then Amazon would just buy E-Ink, outright. It's not new - look up LiquaVista; they were bought up by Amazon, Amazon's not afraid to buy up companies. Plus, E-Ink still have to compete against second-hand e-readers they've already sold; there are E-readers from 2012 that will read a .epub just fine, and that's all you really need for an e-reader. If you're wondering why Amazon killed LiquaVista, BTW, apparently it's because shrinking the pixels horizontally causes a chromatic aberration effect when the vertical color-layers are viewed from an angle, so shrinking the pixels horizontally also requires shrinking them vertically, which makes it extremely difficult to manufacture the pixels without them leaking and causing a terribly low yield rate. Also it didn't help that a bunch of the original company's VC raising was done just before 2008.
- braunboffel 3y ago
  > e-ink is still governed under a patent you must license and pay royalties to if I recall correctly Recall correctly meaning you were involved and have direct knowledge or meaning you read it as an unsubstantiated comment somewhere here?
shortrounddev2 3y ago
This monochrome output claims to have a 60hz refresh rate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds38T8wVuDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds38T8wVuDg
- avivo 3y ago
  Fascinating, this led to this projects which is pretty interesting. https://www.modos.tech/blog/modos-paper-monitor https://www.modos.tech/blog/modos-paper-monitor Seems like a very exciting effort and product but I'm not sure if it's still active.

nashashmi 3y ago

I cannot understand the fascination behind seeing e-ink displays play video. The tech is a "display once, use forever" kind of display. Otoh, video needs bright vivid screens, gaming level quality. Quite the opposite of what a "display once use forever" tech would be suitable for.

mdp2021 3y ago
Because you want to see content for its effect. Others may want to use content for its information. And different video effects are optimal for different environments (e.g. lightning).
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > lightning (This is what happens when you say to yourself, "You mean lighting, do not write lightning".)
Groxx 3y ago
While I agree it's a poor fit and pretty much just a crappy but flashy tech demo... the display is what it is, it doesn't have mandated suitable uses. Other reflective display tech exists. For the most part they suffer from screen-dooring, extremely bad visibility angles, much worse contrast in bright light, or complete unavailability in the size or resolution that you want. Eink may not have many options, but it is an option, in a market with few or zero competitors depending on what you want (largely because it's niche), and refresh rate is often a thing you can bend on. I would love to see more, but many of the companies I've seen trying to do this in the past no longer exist, or they're selling even more niche ruggedized laptops and nothing else (and they still look much worse than eink, though they have color and refresh rate). It seems to be slowly ramping back up though, so hopefully within the next few years we'll see more.

ZiiS 3y ago

Dasung have managed watchable video on their monochrome devices (unlike most of their competitors). The fast modes loose effective resolution, and contrast, and build up artifacts that need clearing. These compromises are very hard to bare at the sticker price.

sisve 3y ago

Yes, i have the gray-scale version of this. Its really really good. You do not want to watch a movie on it.but if you need to see a 30 sec movie to understand something it ok. The biggest problem with the greyscale is how much color has to say on everything. Its so hard to see terminal errors etc. Yes you can customize a lot. And I do have use custom vs code themes and terminal themes. Buti need to switch each day when i work. Because of some website where darkmode is default or similar. Darkmode is a disaster for a greyscale eink monitor. Im def going to buy this device. Have a rm2 and the 13" dasung screen also. I would def recommend the manufacturer

mdp2021 3y ago
> darkmode You need a contrast enhancing browser, or a shortcut for colour inversion (e.g. `xcalib -a -i` )
- sisve 3y ago
  Thanks. Will try that. It's not that much stress to switch. But def a shortcut will be even lower barrier to use.