5 ms·

As someone who worked on them a decade ago: To be clear, the displays are not created by Amazon / Lab126. Instead, they're a product of Eink Holdings, Inc. Fr

As someone who worked on them a decade ago: To be clear, the displays are not created by Amazon / Lab126. Instead, they're a product of Eink Holdings, Inc. From what I remember, most of the screen refresh algorithms etc are Eink IP. And by the way, the cost of the display module alone was eye-watering, especially when compared with LCD displays... With e-ink, you can drive it faster, at the expense of massive power consumption or terrible ghosting / artifacting. You're not going to get the 6 weeks of use out of a battery doing that. For reading a book, smudges / ghosting sucks, so they optimize for full screen refreshes just often enough to clear that up (that's when the screen goes black then white, followed by the update). It's kind of a physics based fundamental limitation -- the display is closer to a mechanical display of old than an LCD. The kindle is a product that does one thing well: display static text in any lighting condition with a similar quality to the printed page.

klabb3 2y ago
> Instead, they're a product of Eink Holdings, Inc. From what I remember, most of the screen refresh algorithms etc are Eink IP. And by the way, the cost of the display module alone was eye-watering Layman here, but what you describe sounds very much like innovation held back by patents: At the core, it’s really promising tech with actual major advantages over LCDs with applications already in many domains and possibly many more in the future; all you’d need really is incremental improvements, similar to the journey of LCD. Remember the shitty TFT(?) monitors from 20 years ago? Ghosting, low resolution, delay, low contrast, backlight bleeding, etc. If we hypothetically had 20 companies competing the traditional way, throwing international manufacturing and material science know-how on these bad boys, I’d bet $100 that we’d see massive gains in ability at a fraction of marginal cost – from incrementalism alone – way before you reach physical limitations. And with a bit of luck, there might be a breakthrough in the core tech as well. > It's kind of a physics based fundamental limitation -- the display is closer to a mechanical display of old than an LCD. I hear you. But brilliant people have been wrong about these statements in all kinds of areas before. Could you share more detailed what those hard limitations might be?
- treflop 2y ago
  The core patents have already expired. AFAIK manufacturing e-ink displays is still difficult. I also have worked with e-ink displays for hobby projects and you’re flipping tiny balls of ink. Unfortunately e-ink displays are extremely slow and it only gets worse if you want colors or anything you might want in a display. E-ink displays look cool and sound cool but really suck to work with.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  There are high tech eInk devices that can refresh much faster than a Kindle and that you can buy right now, but any eInk discussion on Hacker News lives in a parallel universe where those devices should never be mentioned and we should pretend that the technology is where it was 10 years ago. With the rapid rate of development recently, I would expect eInk displays to break the "magic" 24 fps barrier in 2025 and hit the mainstream in a major way. Considering that offices worldwide have been constructed to block out sunlight to accommodate display use, this tech has the potential to change everything.
  - klabb3 2y ago
    Very cool! Do you have a link to a demo to see what it would look like?
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      Check out the Boox devices, there's a YouTuber called "mydeepguide" who makes extensive reviews.
  - bobmcnamara 2y ago
    Sharp MIP! I drove over locked a small one at 120FPS once. Wouldn't do 240fps though.
  - Qwertious 2y ago
    IIRC that's not the e-ink screen itself refreshing faster, it's a different display driver (hardware! not a driver like radeonsi) configuration. Having the extra chip is expensive, which is a cardinal sin in a loss-leader device that basically everyone just looks for the cheapest model of anyway. Unless you mean stylus-drawing is higher refresh, which is completely different tech as it's driven by the stylus and can't refresh that fast without the stylus at that specific point. Anyone seriously claiming e-ink screens can hit 24FPS (the whole screen, not refreshing individual pixels separately for an interlaced illusion of higher framerate) is simply ignorant. You're talking about a whole order of magnitude difference, when the core problem is a straightforward fight against physics.
faeriechangling 2y ago
I've tried to read manga and graphic novels on e-readers which makes EVERY page turn take longer, and it's very clear to me that e-ink latency is a huge problem. Boox is notable for having faster page turns since they're essentially just customised android tablets with an e-ink screen.
braunboffel 2y ago
> most of the screen refresh algorithms etc are Eink IP Please help the rest of us understand what you mean. What specific algorithms are you referring to?

klabb3 2y ago

> Instead, they're a product of Eink Holdings, Inc. From what I remember, most of the screen refresh algorithms etc are Eink IP. And by the way, the cost of the display module alone was eye-watering Layman here, but what you describe sounds very much like innovation held back by patents: At the core, it’s really promising tech with actual major advantages over LCDs with applications already in many domains and possibly many more in the future; all you’d need really is incremental improvements, similar to the journey of LCD. Remember the shitty TFT(?) monitors from 20 years ago? Ghosting, low resolution, delay, low contrast, backlight bleeding, etc. If we hypothetically had 20 companies competing the traditional way, throwing international manufacturing and material science know-how on these bad boys, I’d bet $100 that we’d see massive gains in ability at a fraction of marginal cost – from incrementalism alone – way before you reach physical limitations. And with a bit of luck, there might be a breakthrough in the core tech as well. > It's kind of a physics based fundamental limitation -- the display is closer to a mechanical display of old than an LCD. I hear you. But brilliant people have been wrong about these statements in all kinds of areas before. Could you share more detailed what those hard limitations might be?

treflop 2y ago
The core patents have already expired. AFAIK manufacturing e-ink displays is still difficult. I also have worked with e-ink displays for hobby projects and you’re flipping tiny balls of ink. Unfortunately e-ink displays are extremely slow and it only gets worse if you want colors or anything you might want in a display. E-ink displays look cool and sound cool but really suck to work with.
carlosjobim 2y ago
There are high tech eInk devices that can refresh much faster than a Kindle and that you can buy right now, but any eInk discussion on Hacker News lives in a parallel universe where those devices should never be mentioned and we should pretend that the technology is where it was 10 years ago. With the rapid rate of development recently, I would expect eInk displays to break the "magic" 24 fps barrier in 2025 and hit the mainstream in a major way. Considering that offices worldwide have been constructed to block out sunlight to accommodate display use, this tech has the potential to change everything.
- klabb3 2y ago
  Very cool! Do you have a link to a demo to see what it would look like?
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    Check out the Boox devices, there's a YouTuber called "mydeepguide" who makes extensive reviews.
- bobmcnamara 2y ago
  Sharp MIP! I drove over locked a small one at 120FPS once. Wouldn't do 240fps though.
- Qwertious 2y ago
  IIRC that's not the e-ink screen itself refreshing faster, it's a different display driver (hardware! not a driver like radeonsi) configuration. Having the extra chip is expensive, which is a cardinal sin in a loss-leader device that basically everyone just looks for the cheapest model of anyway. Unless you mean stylus-drawing is higher refresh, which is completely different tech as it's driven by the stylus and can't refresh that fast without the stylus at that specific point. Anyone seriously claiming e-ink screens can hit 24FPS (the whole screen, not refreshing individual pixels separately for an interlaced illusion of higher framerate) is simply ignorant. You're talking about a whole order of magnitude difference, when the core problem is a straightforward fight against physics.

faeriechangling 2y ago

I've tried to read manga and graphic novels on e-readers which makes EVERY page turn take longer, and it's very clear to me that e-ink latency is a huge problem. Boox is notable for having faster page turns since they're essentially just customised android tablets with an e-ink screen.

braunboffel 2y ago

> most of the screen refresh algorithms etc are Eink IP Please help the rest of us understand what you mean. What specific algorithms are you referring to?