6 ms·

I'd really like to have a large e-ink display on my wall showing various dashboards, but I can't justify the exorbitant cost. It would be really elegant to have

by imiric 3y ago

I'd really like to have a large e-ink display on my wall showing various dashboards, but I can't justify the exorbitant cost. It would be really elegant to have a low powered programmable setup with an Arduino and a battery, but I'm tempted to just buy a large LCD display and connect it to mains instead. It's a shame that this technology is kept artifically out of reach to hobbyists. I've seen the Waveshare displays, but they're too small and limited in features (monochrome or few colors, very high refresh rate, etc.).

echelon 3y ago
> It's a shame that this technology is kept artifically out of reach to hobbyists. This is still an issue where a single company controls the entire tech, right? When do the relevant patents expire?
- 3pt14159 3y ago
  Expiry isn't the issue. In America (and Canada I'm pretty sure) you have the right to use a patent at a fair cost determined by a court. Or you can try to just use the patent anyway and wait for the court case to come to you.
  - sjs382 3y ago
    Nope. A patent is an exclusive right yo an invention. They aren't forced to license it to you or anyone else.
    - generic92034 3y ago
      The exception would be standard essential patents, as far as I know.
      - stonogo 3y ago
        The standards bodies can encourage FRAND licensing, but there is no legal requirement backing it beyond the patent holder agreeing to it.
        generic92034 3y ago
        Thanks for the correction, I misremembered that, it seems. On the other hand, an SEP holder not licensing the patent with FRAND terms will have a hard time to establish any kind of standard, in some scenarios.
        stonogo 3y ago
        I agree with you, it would be counterproductive. The more common occurrance is that one of the patent-holding entities opts out of the FRAND agreement, holding all the implementors of the standard hostage. An example would be Forgent's acquisition of a patent they interpreted to be essential to JPEG. The patent was eventually invalidated in the courts, but it caused a lot of headaches for a few years in the early 2000s.
    - giaour 3y ago
      There are a few exceptions in US law (e.g., provisions in the Defense Production Act) that can allow a patent owner to be compelled to license their IP. IANAL but I believe this generally requires an officially declared emergency of some kind.
      - _delirium 3y ago
        There are additional exceptions short of a declared emergency, but rarely invoked. So in practice I agree this is unlikely to happen with e-ink displays. But for legal nerds I'll elaborate anyway. Some exceptions are obviously inapplicable here, e.g. special rules for plant varieties [1] and nuclear energy [2]. The one most likely to apply to e-ink displays is that, under the Bayh-Dole act, if an invention was funded by government grants, and the patent holder fails to make it widely available, the government has so-called "march-in rights" to license it to third parties themselves. However this has never been successfully used. Wikipedia summarizes: "Though this right is, in theory, quite powerful, it has not proven so in terms of its practical application" [3]. [1] Perhaps because it's controversial to allow plant varieties to be patented in the first place, the statute for them has an explicit compulsory license clause (see the last subsection): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/chapter-57/subchapter-II/part-D https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/chapter-57/subchap... [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2183 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2183 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act#Petitions_for_march-in_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act#Petition...
      - sjs382 3y ago
        Yeah, I initially threw in some caveats but removed them for brevity and because they don't really apply to the topic at hand (eink). I mean, someone can also compel you to license your IP using a hammer.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  The patents on the original black and white displays have already expired. They are just really hard to make at large size without defects. Newer versions that are easier to manufacture or have color are still under patents for a while.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  They don't - the Display Electronic Slurry (DES) is a competing 'e-paper' tech that E-Ink corp haven't patented. It has slightly different pros and cons (it has a more defined checkerboard pattern which isn't as nicely grainy as E-Ink corp's MED, but it let's them pour the 'ink' straight into the substrate which potentially has higher contrast and resolution as a result), but ultimately that's irrelevant nitpicking if patents are causing the price of E-Ink screens to be crazily high as people keep falsely claiming. If DES could deliver screens at half the price, then Wiwood (?) would eat E-Ink's lunch.
MayeulC 3y ago
Are you sure it's artificial and not related to yields? As in, it's more likely you get a dead pixel on a larger screen. The answer would be "chiplets" of course, assembling bigger screens out of smaller ones. At the hobby leven, I think something decent could be built out of a few second hand kindle screens, if you plan the seams as part of the aesthetic.
- hwillis 3y ago
  > As in, it's more likely you get a dead pixel on a larger screen. Aside from the ink capsules and higher voltage (though still very low), E ink is almost identical to LCD and probably slightly easier to make. There's a TFT (which can have a larger footprint, since it doesn't need to be transparent) on the back, an LC or E ink capsule layer, and an ITO electrode. Dead pixels are almost always caused by damage or defects in the TFT. I wouldn't say it's artificially out of reach, though- setting a line up to produce large panels is a high opportunity cost. If anything is artificial about it, it's that you presumably can't buy E ink capsules yourself. With enough effort you might be able to separate the top glass from an LCD TV, dissolve the LC, and replace it with E ink, but I have no idea how you'd do that. No promises it wouldn't burn out the TFT immediately.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >E ink is almost identical to LCD and probably slightly easier to make False. E-ink film, especially color, is definitely more complex to get right than LCDs. Sure, e-ink displays have the same TFT layer underneath just like LCD displays, but the e-ink pigment and film is tricky to make.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Acronym-expansion as a service: TFT: Thin-film transistor LC: Liquid crystal ITO: Indium-tin oxide LCD: Liquid crystal display (though this one's widely known). (Please expand acronyms on first use. Even, or especially, where they strike you as well-known or obvious.)
    - 3y ago
konschubert 3y ago
It’s true. Large eink displays get expensive really fast. I went with a 7.5 inch display for the eink calendar / smart display that I am selling. I am definitely feeling the limitations, but there is still a lot you can do at that size. Have a look: https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-calendar https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale... And maybe once the business grows, I’ll have the volumes needed to get better prices on the bigger displays.
- mmh0000 3y ago
  I’ve looked at your product multiple times and every time I think I wanna buy one. Then I go to the webpage and I see that it only works with Google which is not what I use so then I get sad and leave. I’d buy one in a heartbeat if there was support for iCalendar or other common/open standards.
  - konschubert 3y ago
    I have started working on more calendar integrations now. If you write me a short mail at info@invisible-computers.com and tell me what integration you need, I will make sure to let you know once it is out. In the meantime, there are often ways to sync other calendars (also iCalendar) with google calendar. It’s a bit of a detour but it might just work.
    - ekianjo 3y ago
      CalDAV is where the money is
      - konschubert 3y ago
        You think so? More important than outlook?
        abawany 3y ago
        If you get CalDAV working, you will support a ton of non-gmail/outlook providers for 'free' including those that are self-hosted. For e.g. runbox, mailbox.org, mailo, etc. all provide caldav to their users - some of these also support exchange but in my 'research', caldav was universal.
pmarreck 3y ago
I have had this bookmarked for a few years to do as a side project but the acquisition of a new son has put all this aside for the foreseeable future unfortunately, perhaps you can make use of it: https://alexanderklopping.medium.com/an-updated-daily-front-page-of-the-new-york-times-as-artwork-on-your-wall-3b28c3261478 https://alexanderklopping.medium.com/an-updated-daily-front-... Would strongly recommend using another language than PHP to make it work, but the LLM du jour would probably translate it to any other language for you. Here was the original post that inspired that one: https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-revisited-35b407822494 https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-revisited-35b40...
- cinntaile 3y ago
  OT but... Did you mean addition or can you actually say acquisition in English?
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    I was making a humorous reference to startup life. You don't normally say that in English, I was playing with the language. My son is actually awesome, and yes, he is an "addition" (sum of one total). =) Thank you for learning English! As a speaker of (to some extent) 3 other languages, I for one appreciate anyone who has struggled to learn English as an (N+1)th language.
- onurcel 3y ago
  same. I have these exact urls bookmarked for years
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Max-q 3y ago
The screens are expensive for everybody. For devices with e-ink display, the screen is often more than the rest of the BOM combined. That's why there are only premium device on the market, except Kindle, which is subsidized by Amazon. When they first appeared, I was sure the price would drop with increasing volumes, but that has not happened. Probably they can't get good enough yield, and it's not a product suitable to sell with dead pixels, like a TV, where cheap models have dead pixels while the premium models don't.
- chrisfosterelli 3y ago
  It possibly hasn't happened because, at least from what I've heard previously here on HN, the e-ink company has a monopoly on the patents needed to make them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 It sounds like they might have just recently expired but I imagine there is a catchup phase.
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    In the link you posted, please scroll down to the reply by Robinsoh - the "patent thicket" claim is bullshit, and people keep repeating the myth without a real source to back it up. E-ink is expensive because it's a niche product that lacks economy of scale, and it's a niche product because it does almost nothing that can't be done by LCDs (which are incredibly flexible). E-ink is amazing, but it doesn't have the best business case.
    - hakfoo 3y ago
      The big commercial selling point of E-ink is that it should be able to survive zero power. I assume that's why its first killer app has been pricetags. A store with 5000 items each requiring a LCD pricetag would be constantly replacing little batteries or having to reprogram units if they popped out of a plug or rail-basewd power system. I think some of the interest from the hobbyist brows is less about that and more about other aspects of the technology-- it has a bit of a distinct look and excellent full-sun readability. A hypothetical nonbacklit high res grayscale LCD would have some similar properties and might be more viable at small scale; I know they're making basically that in small sizes for use in resin 3D printers.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
malfist 3y ago
Not exactly what you're looking for, but check out dakboard. They even have a pi version
Qwertious 3y ago
>It's a shame that this technology is kept artifically out of reach to hobbyists. This is a myth. They're not artificially expensive, they just have low economy of scale because they're a niche product. As you yourself said, you're tempted to just buy a large LCD display instead.
Animats 3y ago
> exorbitant cost. Is that fundamental to the technology, or is it just it being a low-volume niche product?

by imiric 3y ago

echelon 3y ago

> It's a shame that this technology is kept artifically out of reach to hobbyists. This is still an issue where a single company controls the entire tech, right? When do the relevant patents expire?

3pt14159 3y ago
Expiry isn't the issue. In America (and Canada I'm pretty sure) you have the right to use a patent at a fair cost determined by a court. Or you can try to just use the patent anyway and wait for the court case to come to you.
- sjs382 3y ago
  Nope. A patent is an exclusive right yo an invention. They aren't forced to license it to you or anyone else.
  - generic92034 3y ago
    The exception would be standard essential patents, as far as I know.
    - stonogo 3y ago
      The standards bodies can encourage FRAND licensing, but there is no legal requirement backing it beyond the patent holder agreeing to it.
      - generic92034 3y ago
        Thanks for the correction, I misremembered that, it seems. On the other hand, an SEP holder not licensing the patent with FRAND terms will have a hard time to establish any kind of standard, in some scenarios.
        stonogo 3y ago
        I agree with you, it would be counterproductive. The more common occurrance is that one of the patent-holding entities opts out of the FRAND agreement, holding all the implementors of the standard hostage. An example would be Forgent's acquisition of a patent they interpreted to be essential to JPEG. The patent was eventually invalidated in the courts, but it caused a lot of headaches for a few years in the early 2000s.
  - giaour 3y ago
    There are a few exceptions in US law (e.g., provisions in the Defense Production Act) that can allow a patent owner to be compelled to license their IP. IANAL but I believe this generally requires an officially declared emergency of some kind.
    - _delirium 3y ago
      There are additional exceptions short of a declared emergency, but rarely invoked. So in practice I agree this is unlikely to happen with e-ink displays. But for legal nerds I'll elaborate anyway. Some exceptions are obviously inapplicable here, e.g. special rules for plant varieties [1] and nuclear energy [2]. The one most likely to apply to e-ink displays is that, under the Bayh-Dole act, if an invention was funded by government grants, and the patent holder fails to make it widely available, the government has so-called "march-in rights" to license it to third parties themselves. However this has never been successfully used. Wikipedia summarizes: "Though this right is, in theory, quite powerful, it has not proven so in terms of its practical application" [3]. [1] Perhaps because it's controversial to allow plant varieties to be patented in the first place, the statute for them has an explicit compulsory license clause (see the last subsection): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/chapter-57/subchapter-II/part-D https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/chapter-57/subchap... [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2183 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2183 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act#Petitions_for_march-in_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act#Petition...
    - sjs382 3y ago
      Yeah, I initially threw in some caveats but removed them for brevity and because they don't really apply to the topic at hand (eink). I mean, someone can also compel you to license your IP using a hammer.
pclmulqdq 3y ago
The patents on the original black and white displays have already expired. They are just really hard to make at large size without defects. Newer versions that are easier to manufacture or have color are still under patents for a while.
Qwertious 3y ago
They don't - the Display Electronic Slurry (DES) is a competing 'e-paper' tech that E-Ink corp haven't patented. It has slightly different pros and cons (it has a more defined checkerboard pattern which isn't as nicely grainy as E-Ink corp's MED, but it let's them pour the 'ink' straight into the substrate which potentially has higher contrast and resolution as a result), but ultimately that's irrelevant nitpicking if patents are causing the price of E-Ink screens to be crazily high as people keep falsely claiming. If DES could deliver screens at half the price, then Wiwood (?) would eat E-Ink's lunch.

MayeulC 3y ago

Are you sure it's artificial and not related to yields? As in, it's more likely you get a dead pixel on a larger screen. The answer would be "chiplets" of course, assembling bigger screens out of smaller ones. At the hobby leven, I think something decent could be built out of a few second hand kindle screens, if you plan the seams as part of the aesthetic.

hwillis 3y ago
> As in, it's more likely you get a dead pixel on a larger screen. Aside from the ink capsules and higher voltage (though still very low), E ink is almost identical to LCD and probably slightly easier to make. There's a TFT (which can have a larger footprint, since it doesn't need to be transparent) on the back, an LC or E ink capsule layer, and an ITO electrode. Dead pixels are almost always caused by damage or defects in the TFT. I wouldn't say it's artificially out of reach, though- setting a line up to produce large panels is a high opportunity cost. If anything is artificial about it, it's that you presumably can't buy E ink capsules yourself. With enough effort you might be able to separate the top glass from an LCD TV, dissolve the LC, and replace it with E ink, but I have no idea how you'd do that. No promises it wouldn't burn out the TFT immediately.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >E ink is almost identical to LCD and probably slightly easier to make False. E-ink film, especially color, is definitely more complex to get right than LCDs. Sure, e-ink displays have the same TFT layer underneath just like LCD displays, but the e-ink pigment and film is tricky to make.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Acronym-expansion as a service: TFT: Thin-film transistor LC: Liquid crystal ITO: Indium-tin oxide LCD: Liquid crystal display (though this one's widely known). (Please expand acronyms on first use. Even, or especially, where they strike you as well-known or obvious.)
  - 3y ago

konschubert 3y ago

It’s true. Large eink displays get expensive really fast. I went with a 7.5 inch display for the eink calendar / smart display that I am selling. I am definitely feeling the limitations, but there is still a lot you can do at that size. Have a look: https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-calendar https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale... And maybe once the business grows, I’ll have the volumes needed to get better prices on the bigger displays.

mmh0000 3y ago
I’ve looked at your product multiple times and every time I think I wanna buy one. Then I go to the webpage and I see that it only works with Google which is not what I use so then I get sad and leave. I’d buy one in a heartbeat if there was support for iCalendar or other common/open standards.
- konschubert 3y ago
  I have started working on more calendar integrations now. If you write me a short mail at info@invisible-computers.com and tell me what integration you need, I will make sure to let you know once it is out. In the meantime, there are often ways to sync other calendars (also iCalendar) with google calendar. It’s a bit of a detour but it might just work.
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    CalDAV is where the money is
    - konschubert 3y ago
      You think so? More important than outlook?
      - abawany 3y ago
        If you get CalDAV working, you will support a ton of non-gmail/outlook providers for 'free' including those that are self-hosted. For e.g. runbox, mailbox.org, mailo, etc. all provide caldav to their users - some of these also support exchange but in my 'research', caldav was universal.

pmarreck 3y ago

I have had this bookmarked for a few years to do as a side project but the acquisition of a new son has put all this aside for the foreseeable future unfortunately, perhaps you can make use of it: https://alexanderklopping.medium.com/an-updated-daily-front-page-of-the-new-york-times-as-artwork-on-your-wall-3b28c3261478 https://alexanderklopping.medium.com/an-updated-daily-front-... Would strongly recommend using another language than PHP to make it work, but the LLM du jour would probably translate it to any other language for you. Here was the original post that inspired that one: https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-revisited-35b407822494 https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-revisited-35b40...

cinntaile 3y ago
OT but... Did you mean addition or can you actually say acquisition in English?
- pmarreck 3y ago
  I was making a humorous reference to startup life. You don't normally say that in English, I was playing with the language. My son is actually awesome, and yes, he is an "addition" (sum of one total). =) Thank you for learning English! As a speaker of (to some extent) 3 other languages, I for one appreciate anyone who has struggled to learn English as an (N+1)th language.
onurcel 3y ago
same. I have these exact urls bookmarked for years

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Max-q 3y ago

The screens are expensive for everybody. For devices with e-ink display, the screen is often more than the rest of the BOM combined. That's why there are only premium device on the market, except Kindle, which is subsidized by Amazon. When they first appeared, I was sure the price would drop with increasing volumes, but that has not happened. Probably they can't get good enough yield, and it's not a product suitable to sell with dead pixels, like a TV, where cheap models have dead pixels while the premium models don't.

chrisfosterelli 3y ago
It possibly hasn't happened because, at least from what I've heard previously here on HN, the e-ink company has a monopoly on the patents needed to make them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 It sounds like they might have just recently expired but I imagine there is a catchup phase.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  In the link you posted, please scroll down to the reply by Robinsoh - the "patent thicket" claim is bullshit, and people keep repeating the myth without a real source to back it up. E-ink is expensive because it's a niche product that lacks economy of scale, and it's a niche product because it does almost nothing that can't be done by LCDs (which are incredibly flexible). E-ink is amazing, but it doesn't have the best business case.
  - hakfoo 3y ago
    The big commercial selling point of E-ink is that it should be able to survive zero power. I assume that's why its first killer app has been pricetags. A store with 5000 items each requiring a LCD pricetag would be constantly replacing little batteries or having to reprogram units if they popped out of a plug or rail-basewd power system. I think some of the interest from the hobbyist brows is less about that and more about other aspects of the technology-- it has a bit of a distinct look and excellent full-sun readability. A hypothetical nonbacklit high res grayscale LCD would have some similar properties and might be more viable at small scale; I know they're making basically that in small sizes for use in resin 3D printers.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

malfist 3y ago

Not exactly what you're looking for, but check out dakboard. They even have a pi version

Qwertious 3y ago

>It's a shame that this technology is kept artifically out of reach to hobbyists. This is a myth. They're not artificially expensive, they just have low economy of scale because they're a niche product. As you yourself said, you're tempted to just buy a large LCD display instead.

Animats 3y ago

> exorbitant cost. Is that fundamental to the technology, or is it just it being a low-volume niche product?