5 ms·

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 p

by 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.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >A store with 5000 items each requiring a LCD pricetag would be constantly replacing little batteries Errr, not really. LCD price tags existed before e-ink (and still do) and battery life was not much worse. It's something like 1.5x-2x tops, so enough to make business sense, but not orders of magnitudes earth shattering as one might assume.
      - AshamedCaptain 3y ago
        In fact, most retail shops that have anything other than paper use LCD price tags. If they are making the switch is because they expect to be frequently updating them... and then any eInk battery life advantage evaporates.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        > If they are making the switch is because they expect to be frequently updating them... Not necessarily that. They're making the switch to digital price tags because it's much quicker and easier to run promos on certain items to clear the shelves before closing time on perishable goods, but most importantly, they're making the switch because when employee have to manually change paper price tags, mistakes happen far too often, and stores end up in situations where the price on the self doesn't match the price on the cash register, angering customers who in certain jurisdictions are entitled to compensation for the store's pricing mistake. Digital price tags ensure such mistakes are gone saving the store money over time.
    - Qwertious 3y ago
      Yes, e-ink pricetags are one niche of e-ink devices. The other niche is e-readers (which are a luxury version of installing an e-reading app on your phone). Maybe the niche of solar-powered billboards (e.g. bus-stop signs) will also take off, but that's about it. E-ink is great, but it is niche and basically everything that you can do with an EPD, you can do with an LCD. E-ink screens are in the at best tens of millions, whereas LCDs are in the billions per quarter - there are over 6 billion smartphone owners in the world already, and LCDs are in everything from supermarket self-checkout kiosks to laptops to smart fridges, they utterly demolish E-Ink in scale. I love e-ink screens, but there's no denying the tech's business-case is rather marginal and that won't change anytime soon.
  - chrisfosterelli 3y ago
    To be honest, that commenter probably knows more than I do about the tech. But on the business side, I think that would be a stronger position if there wasn't just one single company that owns the entire market. OLEDs were originally very expensive, niche, and had yield problems but competition has driven development -- bringing prices down, improving yields, and solving many the issues that made them a niche application. The commenter said that a billion dollars are needed to make the technology scale but The EInk Corporation itself raised only 1/10th of that and now they're making a billion dollars per year off it -- why haven't they brought prices down then? If you look at their annual reports, EInk sure seems to think their patents are important; they mention patents as part of their "strategic roadmap" every year. Their initial patents were in the late 90s, and the last few years the royalty revenue amounts on E Ink's revenue breakdowns have been dropping every single year as they shift more and more into actually making the screens. The data lines up IMO.
arp242 3y ago
I'm not sure I agree with that; I paid €120 for my PocketBook e-reader, which wasn't the cheapest one, and I bought it in-store (could have gotten a better price online probably, but comparing devices in-store was useful). Now, while €120 isn't nothing, it's also not a whole lot, and it's cheap enough that with a few books a year you're saving money. Amazon's 6" Kindle sells for €110 by the way, but is missing some features my Pocketbook has, and the 6.8" Kindle Paperwhite with comparable features sells for €170. Doesn't seem that much cheaper to me.

by Max-q 3y ago

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.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >A store with 5000 items each requiring a LCD pricetag would be constantly replacing little batteries Errr, not really. LCD price tags existed before e-ink (and still do) and battery life was not much worse. It's something like 1.5x-2x tops, so enough to make business sense, but not orders of magnitudes earth shattering as one might assume.
    - AshamedCaptain 3y ago
      In fact, most retail shops that have anything other than paper use LCD price tags. If they are making the switch is because they expect to be frequently updating them... and then any eInk battery life advantage evaporates.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        > If they are making the switch is because they expect to be frequently updating them... Not necessarily that. They're making the switch to digital price tags because it's much quicker and easier to run promos on certain items to clear the shelves before closing time on perishable goods, but most importantly, they're making the switch because when employee have to manually change paper price tags, mistakes happen far too often, and stores end up in situations where the price on the self doesn't match the price on the cash register, angering customers who in certain jurisdictions are entitled to compensation for the store's pricing mistake. Digital price tags ensure such mistakes are gone saving the store money over time.
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    Yes, e-ink pricetags are one niche of e-ink devices. The other niche is e-readers (which are a luxury version of installing an e-reading app on your phone). Maybe the niche of solar-powered billboards (e.g. bus-stop signs) will also take off, but that's about it. E-ink is great, but it is niche and basically everything that you can do with an EPD, you can do with an LCD. E-ink screens are in the at best tens of millions, whereas LCDs are in the billions per quarter - there are over 6 billion smartphone owners in the world already, and LCDs are in everything from supermarket self-checkout kiosks to laptops to smart fridges, they utterly demolish E-Ink in scale. I love e-ink screens, but there's no denying the tech's business-case is rather marginal and that won't change anytime soon.
- chrisfosterelli 3y ago
  To be honest, that commenter probably knows more than I do about the tech. But on the business side, I think that would be a stronger position if there wasn't just one single company that owns the entire market. OLEDs were originally very expensive, niche, and had yield problems but competition has driven development -- bringing prices down, improving yields, and solving many the issues that made them a niche application. The commenter said that a billion dollars are needed to make the technology scale but The EInk Corporation itself raised only 1/10th of that and now they're making a billion dollars per year off it -- why haven't they brought prices down then? If you look at their annual reports, EInk sure seems to think their patents are important; they mention patents as part of their "strategic roadmap" every year. Their initial patents were in the late 90s, and the last few years the royalty revenue amounts on E Ink's revenue breakdowns have been dropping every single year as they shift more and more into actually making the screens. The data lines up IMO.

arp242 3y ago

I'm not sure I agree with that; I paid €120 for my PocketBook e-reader, which wasn't the cheapest one, and I bought it in-store (could have gotten a better price online probably, but comparing devices in-store was useful). Now, while €120 isn't nothing, it's also not a whole lot, and it's cheap enough that with a few books a year you're saving money. Amazon's 6" Kindle sells for €110 by the way, but is missing some features my Pocketbook has, and the 6.8" Kindle Paperwhite with comparable features sells for €170. Doesn't seem that much cheaper to me.