3 ms·

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.
  - asoneth 3y ago
    > Maybe that's a good thing, I am not sure. If you are young or if you are old with eyestrain issues it may be worth your while to learn about things like bias lighting, blue filters, PWM dimming, etc. If you are old with good vision then I guess just keep doing what works :)
- CharlesW 3y ago
  > Reading on an e-ink screen is so much more comfortable than on any emissive monitor. E-ink vendors tout this, but the jury's still out. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/
ant6n 3y ago
Cuz eye strain.
kojiromike 3y ago
I have a Dasung e-ink monitor (by the power of grayscale). I find a lot of interesting reading on my work computer, but getting those links onto e-ink devices like my Boox has been irksome. Reading on the e-ink monitor was _almost_ worth the price. Ultimately, however, I retired it because the desktop real-estate, macOS's limited multi-monitor capabilities, and if I'm going to buckle down and read something long form I need to get away from my desk anyway.
asoneth 3y ago
Many folks in my office have an ancillary monitor or two to the side of their main monitors, often in portrait mode, just for keeping docs, diagrams, and other reference material. But having so many backlit monitors in your field of view can become a little fatiguing. An e-ink display with sharp text and without a backlight could be useful for such a use case. But agreed that mobile contexts seem more broadly useful.
ajdude 3y ago
It's also easier on the eyes and can be used in sunny conditions. With that being said, I would love to see one in a smart phone or laptop.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  There are many "smartphones" available with EPD display, and some of them use colour EPD displays. Check e.g. the Hisense.
stronglikedan 3y ago
I print everything to read it (if it's more than a couple of pages) because I have a hard time reading with a backlight, so I'm seriously considering backing this, if for nothing else than to reduce my paper consumption (even though I do religiously recycle).
- mdp2021 3y ago
  Mate, why don't you "print" on an EPD tablet - an advanced "E-Reader"? There are already plenty around. If you need to read a long document, transfer it to the tablet in its best format (PDF, markup etc). If you need to browse a lot of documents, create a VNC connection and use the tablet as a display.
scandum 3y ago
There's likely a market for office workers since there's a significant reduction of stress on the eyes. You'd save about 0.5 kwh a day in electricity, more if the AC is running. So I could see them becoming popular once the price comes down. People who run 2 monitors might be interested as well.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  > There's likely a market for office workers since there's a significant reduction of stress on the eyes. There may be, but some studies have shown there's little difference. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/ Methods: Participants read for several hours on either e-Ink or LCD, and different measures of reading behaviour and visual strain were regularly recorded. These dependent measures included subjective (visual) fatigue, a letter search task, reading speed, oculomotor behaviour and the pupillary light reflex. Results: Results suggested that reading on the two display types is very similar in terms of both subjective and objective measures.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  There is a significant reduction in color depth and refresh rate, plus a need to provide external lighting to make up for the lack of built-in lighting, which, depending on the office environment may cancel out any power savings.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > lack of built-in lighting That depends on the environment. Natural light fights against the functioning of light-emitting displays. Reflective displays cooperate with natural light. You in the dark? Use OLED. Under the sun? Use EPD.
    - no_wizard 3y ago
      As kindle devices have shown though, you can backlight an e-ink display too
Pet_Ant 3y ago
Well it is arguably easier on the eyes for reading so it'd me great for terminals or for browsing documentation, content with little movement but lots of reading. I'd like to see this on a netbook to get better battery life and still be able to use emacs and remotely logging into systems. Just to carry around in a backpack while being on call.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  Yeah netbooks and tablets I totally get the use case for e-ink in those cases.

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.
- asoneth 3y ago
  > Maybe that's a good thing, I am not sure. If you are young or if you are old with eyestrain issues it may be worth your while to learn about things like bias lighting, blue filters, PWM dimming, etc. If you are old with good vision then I guess just keep doing what works :)
CharlesW 3y ago
> Reading on an e-ink screen is so much more comfortable than on any emissive monitor. E-ink vendors tout this, but the jury's still out. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/

ant6n 3y ago

Cuz eye strain.

kojiromike 3y ago

I have a Dasung e-ink monitor (by the power of grayscale). I find a lot of interesting reading on my work computer, but getting those links onto e-ink devices like my Boox has been irksome. Reading on the e-ink monitor was _almost_ worth the price. Ultimately, however, I retired it because the desktop real-estate, macOS's limited multi-monitor capabilities, and if I'm going to buckle down and read something long form I need to get away from my desk anyway.

asoneth 3y ago

Many folks in my office have an ancillary monitor or two to the side of their main monitors, often in portrait mode, just for keeping docs, diagrams, and other reference material. But having so many backlit monitors in your field of view can become a little fatiguing. An e-ink display with sharp text and without a backlight could be useful for such a use case. But agreed that mobile contexts seem more broadly useful.

ajdude 3y ago

It's also easier on the eyes and can be used in sunny conditions. With that being said, I would love to see one in a smart phone or laptop.

mdp2021 3y ago
There are many "smartphones" available with EPD display, and some of them use colour EPD displays. Check e.g. the Hisense.

stronglikedan 3y ago

I print everything to read it (if it's more than a couple of pages) because I have a hard time reading with a backlight, so I'm seriously considering backing this, if for nothing else than to reduce my paper consumption (even though I do religiously recycle).

mdp2021 3y ago
Mate, why don't you "print" on an EPD tablet - an advanced "E-Reader"? There are already plenty around. If you need to read a long document, transfer it to the tablet in its best format (PDF, markup etc). If you need to browse a lot of documents, create a VNC connection and use the tablet as a display.

scandum 3y ago

There's likely a market for office workers since there's a significant reduction of stress on the eyes. You'd save about 0.5 kwh a day in electricity, more if the AC is running. So I could see them becoming popular once the price comes down. People who run 2 monitors might be interested as well.

CharlesW 3y ago
> There's likely a market for office workers since there's a significant reduction of stress on the eyes. There may be, but some studies have shown there's little difference. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/ Methods: Participants read for several hours on either e-Ink or LCD, and different measures of reading behaviour and visual strain were regularly recorded. These dependent measures included subjective (visual) fatigue, a letter search task, reading speed, oculomotor behaviour and the pupillary light reflex. Results: Results suggested that reading on the two display types is very similar in terms of both subjective and objective measures.
chrisco255 3y ago
There is a significant reduction in color depth and refresh rate, plus a need to provide external lighting to make up for the lack of built-in lighting, which, depending on the office environment may cancel out any power savings.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > lack of built-in lighting That depends on the environment. Natural light fights against the functioning of light-emitting displays. Reflective displays cooperate with natural light. You in the dark? Use OLED. Under the sun? Use EPD.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    As kindle devices have shown though, you can backlight an e-ink display too

Pet_Ant 3y ago

Well it is arguably easier on the eyes for reading so it'd me great for terminals or for browsing documentation, content with little movement but lots of reading. I'd like to see this on a netbook to get better battery life and still be able to use emacs and remotely logging into systems. Just to carry around in a backpack while being on call.

chrisco255 3y ago
Yeah netbooks and tablets I totally get the use case for e-ink in those cases.