14 ms·

13.3" full color ePaper display

591 points by bufbupa 7y ago

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> "... Glass..." Oof, that brings back a couple of unfond memories of cracked displays in the early ebook reader era. Hope they are able to develop a plastic substrate version.
- bufbupa 7y ago
  Looks like it may be coming soon: "The new printing process alleviates the need for a glass-based CFA" https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200107005530/en/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200107005530/en/
BeefySwain 7y ago
My understanding of electronic paper displays is almost entirely founded in the great Applied Science[0] video about it. I have to assume that the way that a full color electronic paper display is done would be vastly different than the method that the 3 color displays work. Anyone have any insight into this? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsbiO8EAsGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsbiO8EAsGw
- RL_Quine 7y ago
  The way it's updating here, along with the description, give a good idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI
otras 7y ago
> "13.3” ACeP display is suitable for various applications, e.g. Artwork, Signage, Retail, etc…" These various applications sound like static images without fast refresh requirements. I wonder what the refresh rate is like on these. I'm still waiting with bated breath for a reliable e-ink computer monitor comes out with a decent refresh rate. I'd even be happy with just greyscale.
- bufbupa 7y ago
  Per below vid, it looks like refresh rate is ~25 seconds. Doubt you'll be able to use it for a monitor anytime soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI
  - simias 7y ago
    Oof, that's even way too slow for e-book usage. Still, it's nice to see this technology progressing. There's obviously a massive use case for battery-limited devices like smartwatches and smartphones. The dream of someday coding on a high-resolution decent-refresh-rate color e-paper monitor is still alive!
    - bufbupa 7y ago
      Well, what you could do is strap two back to back to each other. So like front: page1, back: page2. Then when you "turn the page" it skips evens/odds and you just flip the display over to get page2 while page3 buffers on the other side :p
      - reubenmorais 7y ago
        Manual double buffering :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_buffering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_buffering
      - yorwba 7y ago
        Flipping back to page1 would be problematic.
        cortesoft 7y ago
        not if they are bound with a circular ring
    - echelon 7y ago
      There are still tons of applications: Digital photo frames that cycle throughout the day, dynamic posters and murals with art that changes with the time or viewer, refreshing price labels, clocks with minute resolution, data visualization over large time intervals, informational displays... You might not even have to paint the entire screen at once, but can perhaps update only the dirty regions. Not everything needs to display video or respond in real time to human input. There's so much painted in the world around us that could have value added by letting it refresh on the day, hour, or minute.
errantspark 7y ago
Looks like fun! Perhaps another thing to add to my box of barely used devkits. I've clicked through their site but I'm not seeing a real data sheet or any information about the gamut etc. Did I just miss it?
- jlangemeier 7y ago
  Nope you haven't missed anything, their user manual for it is very sparse (to put it nicely). At least it comes with a pinout? Another user was saying ~25 second refresh rates.
gnicholas 7y ago
Site isn’t loading for me. Am I the only one?
- qwertywert 7y ago
  Same here.
- egypturnash 7y ago
  I got an nginx error after a long wait, I think it is being hugged to death. Here's an archive.org link: http://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3˝-acep-display-ac133ut1-【glass】/ http://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits.e...
  - thebitguru 7y ago
    Lol, I have never heard it put this say, but seems exactly right: "hugged to death"! =D
- frsandstone 7y ago
  Archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3%CB%9D-acep-display-ac133ut1-%E3%80%90glass%E3%80%91/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits....
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- somuchlan 7y ago
  Site is loading this URL for me: https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3%cb%9d-acep-display-ac133ut1-%e3%80%90glass%e3%80%91/#tab-custom-tab-third https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3%cb%9d-ac...
- DesiLurker 7y ago
  slashdotted!
m_ke 7y ago
I was just looking to see if there were any decent ereaders that could handle research papers in PDF format. I couldn't find anything but I guess there's hope for one in the future.
- jborichevskiy 7y ago
  Have you looked at the reMarkable tablet? https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/ Great for reading PDFs as they're displayed at about real size.
  - paxys 7y ago
    Looks neat, but $500? Yikes.
    - jborichevskiy 7y ago
      Yep, definitely a bit steep. I saved a little ($~100?) by going for the refurbished model though.
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      How is that expensive ? Unless you expect to only use it very rarely ?
      - paxys 7y ago
        While the writing feature may be good, it offers a very tiny subset of overall functionality than an iPad while being the same price.
        BlueTemplar 7y ago
        Lack of color e-ink (even if only in 4 tones) is probably the only thing that is keeping me from ditching using lots and lots of paper. Can't wait for one, even if it's much more expensive than an iPad (which, BTW, always seemed to be a toy to me, but I hear that they got better...)
qaq 7y ago
I want E Ink monitor for programming. It so much easier on the eyes (even if refresh rate is horrible)
- RL_Quine 7y ago
  I've messed around with this a bunch on some 9" hardware and custom waveforms to attempt to drive the display as hard as possible, it's almost certainly not what you want to be using, especially the color ones as they require multiple passes to actually attain the color. For my Color/Black/White panels that's normally rendering all the Black + Color as black, and then pulling the black pigment back as well to expose the Color one (red or yellow). For the single color ones you can get sub-500ms latency for updating, at the cost of extreme ghosting. You need to do a lot of changes to the way you think about graphics to make this a reality. Think of an IRC program for example, normally every one of them scrolls up text from the bottom but this is completely a worst case solution for e-ink. To make it work you have to fill half the screen with text, then add new lines sequentially at the end and only scroll when you've run out of space. Additions can reasonably be done without a full refresh, scrolling text just causes it to mud out.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    It could become feasible with a custom UI. You could have a version of vim or emacs that doesn't even "scroll" your code conventionally, but just gradually rewrites lines starting from the top down (or from the bottom up when scrolling "back"), sort of doing away with a unified viewport - this would at least address the most common operation in a dev environment that currently requires quick full-screen update.
  - blululu 7y ago
    This is pretty spot on. I tried something similar a while back and found that the typing latency was on the order of ~120 ms which made it feel mushy and led to a lot of errors. The need to rethink graphics to handle refreshes should not be underestimated. A lot of UI patterns (almost all animations and transitions) rely on a period refresh rate. In order to make a compelling experience you need to rework a good bit of the UI.
frsandstone 7y ago
Cached in Archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3%CB%9D-acep-display-ac133ut1-%E3%80%90glass%E3%80%91/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits....
- kgwxd 7y ago
  Is it archive.org or the original site that went out of it's way to force "smooth scrolling" on me? Edit: original site is working now, it's them.
  - Zelphyr 7y ago
    There should be a Developers Pledge: I, [state your name], hereby agree upon pain of death to never do things like force smooth scrolling, override scroll speed, implement a header that bounces based on scroll direction, etc...
    - Xelbair 7y ago
      >override scroll speed if anyone does that I'll find that person and kill them with dull spoon. There is nothing more infuriating than that little thing - why would even anyone do that? what's the use case? why waste dev time on that?
      - hirako2000 7y ago
        It's usually not dev, a product guy came up with a stupid idea with enough cash in hand, dev often oblige and for sure always find a way.
        jjp 7y ago
        And the product guy did it because a sales team came in and said without load of color and animation then we won't be able to sell the product. And the sales guy did it because a prospect said we really like all the features and the price but your product doesn't have as much color and animation as Acme Inc's product. And the prospect did it because they actually prefer Acme Inc's product but they don't like Acme Inc's price so if they are going to have to go with the second choice product then let's get something done about the colors/animation before we close the sale. And then we have the product guy coming back and working out what is the least or least worst thing we can do to remove the sales resistance, close out the sale and have everybody paid.
jalgos_eminator 7y ago
Could not find a refresh rate in the documentation, or how many colors it can create. I also saw something about it having to compensate for temperature with 7 different maps from 0°-50°C. You can see it on page 8 of the User Manual.
- bufbupa 7y ago
  Per below vid, Refresh time: ~25 seconds Colors: 32,000 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI
  - mwambua 7y ago
    Do they actually mean 32768 colors?
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      Probably just 3 colors, 5 bits of brightness levels per color (aka "16-bit").
op00to 7y ago
This would be awesome for comic books.
- dsr_ 7y ago
  Any 10+inch color LCD display of 250dpi or higher works well for comic books. It turns out that if you make a tablet capable of showing HD video at 60fps, it can show you comic book pages quite well. I use an Amazon Kindle Fire Ow It Burns HD10 for this, because it's at the minimum intersection of suitable hardware and price.
  - bobbyi_settv 7y ago
    I think the Kindle Fire makes you jump through hoops to get apps via the Google Play store though and as I understand it, you need to do that in order to get Marvel Unlimited on there, which is something many people really want to have on their comics-reading device.
    - dsr_ 7y ago
      I think I rooted that sucker before installing everything I wanted. I don't think it's a suitable device for everyone.
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      You'll probably want to avoid any apps from Google Play anyway...
seltzered_ 7y ago
The most interesting new-old startup in this space the past couple years is clearInk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjJ2-cdhwMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjJ2-cdhwMQ ..but they haven't shipped anything yet AFAIK. And no idea how electronics/etc is hidden around their demo frames.
- vanderZwan 7y ago
  They state they are targeting education in developing markets, so that sounds like they (believe they) have a way to scale this and make it very affordable.
  - seltzered_ 7y ago
    Eh, I'll believe it when I see it. Saying this from a perspective of: - Usually reading seeing what's new in this space every year. Wrote my last comment in https://lobste.rs/s/ahy28r/remarkable_perfect_tablet_for_academics#c_s83pee https://lobste.rs/s/ahy28r/remarkable_perfect_tablet_for_aca... . - Taking some of the "developing markets" speech with a grain of "geek heresy" salt. It's out of my domain, but from what I've heard there's been a problem where technology in education has been rushed to as a cost-savings mechanism yet in practice the content / usability issues make the education experience worse.
ihuman 7y ago
What companies make consumer/hobbyist ePaper displays besides Waveshare? I'm looking for a 5"-7" ePaper display with fast/partial refresh that work with a Raspberry Pi, but the only one I've found is Waveshare's.
- sparker72678 7y ago
  4.2" (Which sounds like it's too small for your needs): https://www.adafruit.com/product/4142 https://www.adafruit.com/product/4142
  - nkozyra 7y ago
    Wow that one also has a 25s refresh rate
- hoytech 7y ago
  This is still in kick-starter phase, but if you don't mind waiting a few months it has a lot of potential IMO: https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6 https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pitzips 7y ago
  I believe Waveshare gets their panels from the same place good-display.com does. The Waveshare adapters work on good-display panels.
- userbinator 7y ago
  Replacement displays for ebook readers are not that expensive and someone has figured out how to drive them without the proprietary controller: http://essentialscrap.com/eink/ http://essentialscrap.com/eink/
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    Wow those are super cheap.. I'm tempted to pick up one and I don't even have a use case yet.
proee 7y ago
This has a refresh rate of 25 SECONDS - so it's not going to replace your black and white kindle display or be useful for dynamic content.
- duxup 7y ago
  Bummer. My oldest son is a voracious reader, and I would love to get him on an e reader, but I don't want to go for a traditional screen, so the lack of color e ink type option kinda stops me.
  - etrk 7y ago
    Does he only read comic books? Black and white screen is ideal for most of the world's books.
    - duxup 7y ago
      He reads just about anything but I'm not inclined to make an investment in a device that wouldn't include graphic novels and similar color content. I just don't think it would last.
    - daotoad 7y ago
      I read a lot of comics, but I also read a lot of regular books. For now, I read using a 10" Chuwi tablet because it gives me a decent, color screen, at a decent size and weight, at a reasonable price. I would LOVE to have an eink reader that could fulfill this role. I have been watching and waiting for years.
- sukilot 7y ago
  Who remembers browsing the web/usenet on 28800Kbps modems?
  - JorgeGT 7y ago
    I think you have an extra K on there! I do remember my 36 kbps modem though, but the web was optimized for that speed. Webpages had "image warnings"!
tombert 7y ago
God this would be great if we could get an Android color e-ink reader released so I could do Safari Books. The O'Reilly thing is a pretty good deal if you're a serial-tech-book-reader like I am, but I absolutely hate reading off the computer screen or my iPhone, but I don't mind reading regular text off my Kindle. I know that there's the Onyx Boox Android thing, but that's only black and white, and technical books are occasionally in color.
OscarCunningham 7y ago
I've been waiting for something like this to use as a digital photo frame. It lets you have see all your photos without having it glowing at you when you go to bed.
elric 7y ago
I've long thought that it would be great to replace all kinds of signage wit eInk. Time tables on public transport, any kind of announcement that's typically printed on paper,... There's lots of stuff with a low refresh rate (sometimes in the order of months) that could benefit from being easier to update, but that isn't worth replacing by power hungry, overly bright, hard to read LCDs. Hell, there are a lot of cases where LCDs are used wher eInk would be a much better fit. Things like meeting room reservation screens, for instance. With largeish colour displays, maybe that'll all finally become a reality.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Meeting room reservation screens should work well with even low-power transflective LCDs ?
solarkraft 7y ago
It would be amazing if monochrome 13,3" e-ink displays would go on sale at an affordable price some day.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Aren't they ? What would be "affordable" for you ?
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    I think I'd be willing to pay about 230€ for the screen. Maybe 300-350€ for a device with a free operating system and very good UX (but I wouldn't be afraid of building that myself).
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      Make that 23€ instead : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21997599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21997599 EDIT : Oops, that's for 6"... For 13" it seems to start at $450 ? :/ https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=13.3%22+e-ink&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=15 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=13.3%22+e-ink... Would it be practical to jury-rig four 6" together ??
prostaff 7y ago
www.aeroworxglobal.com Full Colors!
solarkraft 7y ago
While it's very cool that this is now possible, I think this has almost no use case. A business that is able to afford e-ink's high prices could also buy an LCD/OLED, which could also show motion and much better colors.
- htk 7y ago
  E-ink advantage is not about price/motion/colors. Is about how close it is with printed paper, where external light like the Sun helps the visibility. It’s also interesting regarding energy requirements, as you can keep the image displayed without the need of power.
- hinkley 7y ago
  One of the reasons I keep an eye on eInk is that I love the idea of information radiators, but I always get stymied by running wires to a suitable spot. Data has been mostly solved, power has not.
deepspace 7y ago
Nice, but I fear that this will go the same way as Eink corp's monochrome displays. They have been a terrible steward of the technology, limiting themselves to a tiny fraction of the addressable market (ebook readers) while shutting out a vast potential low power display market by pricing their panels far too high. They have also either refused to license their technology to others or made the licensing fee uneconomical. A competent company would have pursued the signage market aggressively many years ago and would have had a massive revenue stream from that by now. E Ink displays have recently started showing up as price tags on grocery shelves, which is promising for the future of low cost, low power displays. I am not sure if these are supplied by Eink or if patents are expiring and competitors are moving into the market.
- sukilot 7y ago
  signs: https://eink.com/signage.html https://eink.com/signage.html price tags: https://eink.com/electronic-shelf-label.html https://eink.com/electronic-shelf-label.html more: https://eink.com/application.html https://eink.com/application.html Are you sure you know EInk/PVI's business better than they do?
  - deepspace 7y ago
    > Are you sure you know EInk/PVI's business better than they do? Never said that I do, and, yes they are NOW finally starting to pursue the signage / label markets. My point was that they could and should have done so 10 or more years ago.
    - jschwartzi 7y ago
      They were. My first employer partnered with eInk back in like 2012 to bring a line of ESLs to market. The reason you're not seeing more of it is because in the US the companies prefer to purchase a "turnkey solution" whereas in Europe companies are more apt to develop custom software to integrate the ESL with their systems. And the major ESL supplier in the US, Pricer, uses on-premises servers and IR to update labels which is an expensive proposition. So you're limited in how you can pilot the technology. I actually think there's a lot of room at the low end of the market to sell an on-premises ARM- or NUC-based server which interfaces with the tags over a radio link and provides aggregate data back to a cloud-based system for control and pricing updates. That would get you the millions of convenience stores who have to pay 3rd-party contractors to do their shelf labels. This would be especially brilliant if you combined a software fee with equipment leases so that your solution is an operating expense instead of an upfront capital cost.
AlphaWeaver 7y ago
In the realm of e-ink, I've been loving my Onyx tablet lately. It runs full Android, has an ePaper display, and has a Wacom stylus for note taking. Two things I think it's done really well- it has the ability to easily disable the touch screen so you can pass it around and work with it like it's a real piece of paper. Additionally, you can change the refresh rate to your preference, and set it per-app. Higher refresh rates lead to ghosting, but if I turn the refresh rate high enough, I can watch a YouTube video on ePaper (!!!) which is crazy to me.
- skuthus 7y ago
  what model did you get?
  - AlphaWeaver 7y ago
    I got the Boox Note 2, which is 10.3 inches. It's just large enough to be useful, but not so big to be unwieldy.
    - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
      Video I saw looks cool, but 500 bones! I'd be concerned my handwriting would be too small or illegible to be an effective primary notepad. How do you use it?
      - AlphaWeaver 7y ago
        As far as dealing with legibility, it has pretty high resolution, so you can write small if you'd like. You can also zoom in and out to write larger if you'd like. I use it for reading and note taking. It's helpful to jot something down quickly or to take more in-depth notes. You can also install Android apps on there too, so I use Firefox to browse the web (reading articles on Wikipedia, doing research into software products) and sync that with my phone to easily pass data between them.
    - skuthus 7y ago
      Thanks for the info!
awinter-py 7y ago
fwiw the sony letter-size monochrome e-reader is amazing reading PDFs on a device that doesn't burn out your eyes and can't receive notifications or produce audio is like a digital detox all my favorite devices recently are low- and no-connection (voice memo, yubikey) and work fast with limited UX
kepano 7y ago
The progress towards digital paper has been really slow. Sometimes I wonder if there is an alternate timeline in which we pursued eink-like displays earlier on. It would be amazing to watch a movie on this kind of display if the refresh rate could permit it. I wrote about this on my blog http://stephanango.com/the-elusiveness-of-digital-paper http://stephanango.com/the-elusiveness-of-digital-paper
z3t4 7y ago
Make something 16 inches and lightweight. So that you can make it display an actual A4 "paper" and hold it in your hand.
passwordds 7y ago
This is the imitation of the Sony digital paper version ??? Similar price tags too.
jamilbk 7y ago
We have great weather here in the Bay Area but are often confined to offices to get our work done because of sunlight glare on our laptop screens. I've always thought more people would choose to work outside if their laptop had a decent e-ink display that performed well in sunlight. Perhaps there'd even be outdoor co-working spaces complete with gardens, fountains, and grassy lawns to sprawl onto.
- prennert 7y ago
  I used to have a Toshiba Portege R500 which had a transreflective screen. It was an LCD that could be used in sunlight because incoming light got reflected back from behind the screen. The colors suffered a bit, but you could even switch off the backlight of the screen to save power. Seems to have gone out of fashion unfortunately.. http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_toshiba_r500.html http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_toshiba_r500.html
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    I really loved that the screen on my pebble watch was always on and the thing managed a week of screen on time. The colors looked like crap compared to the newer smart watches but I still feel like something major was lost here.
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  Stop buying macbooks with glossy screens then.
cordite 7y ago
How does long term UV exposure (sunlight) affect pigments in a product like this? It seems like a cool idea for large format signs, but how long until everything looks like burnt green-blue?
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Well, there are lots of pigments out there available that hold well to long-term UV exposure... Even if you're talking decades, I don't think that metal-based pigments uv-degrade easily ?
rrauenza 7y ago
I keep wishing for a large enough display I could use it as a digital picture frame. I was looking at eink's offerings just yesterday after hearing about Lenovo's new 21" frame.
zhoujianfu 7y ago
I really want somebody to use one of these to make a picture frame you hang on the wall with no power cable.. just a spot in the frame for AA batteries, and some kind of low power Bluetooth connection to your phone to update the picture via an app.
gnicholas 7y ago
I have looked into low-power color displays and I think their competitor [1] is currently better positioned. My understanding is their eink has somewhat better light transmission, but their refresh rate is much, much slower than the competition. I'm looking forward to seeing the products made from these faster displays, which I believe are coming later this year. 1: https://www.clearinkdisplays.com/solutions https://www.clearinkdisplays.com/solutions
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
est 7y ago
I still wonders what happens to the MEMS display Apple bought from Qualcomm https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/12/15/apple-has-taken-over-qualcomms-imod-mirasol-display-lab-in-taiwan https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/12/15/apple-has-taken-o...
sytelus 7y ago
Any details on how they made this work? How much power does it draw? This could have a tremendous impact. You can basically replace every surface with the programmable display, assuming mass-manufactured cost savings. Walls on your home or office, dining table, the exterior of the car!
kodachi 7y ago
If you wanna help hack the kindle: http://fread.ink/ http://fread.ink/ Reminds me that my Kindle has been going strong for 7 years.
krick 7y ago
This is great. I was dreaming about large full colour e-reader since like 10 years ago, when I bought my first PocketBook. Now, TBH, I'm kinda used to reading on regular displays, mostly since I carry my phone all day long anyway. But if there will be a good reader like that I'm pretty sure I'll buy it. If nothing else, being usable without a daily recharge is huge by modern standards. It's virtually impossible to buy anything now that can last for a couple of days without recharging anymore. Not sure about glass though.
stiray 7y ago
At this price just doesnt matter what size of display is or anything else. It is like selling toothpicks for 10 dollars. Yes they are usefull, yes I would like to have them, but the price is so overblown that I would feel stupid if I would buy it. Eink is a typical case where instead of scaling up, they try to get rich by much too expensive product. This is a maximum stupidity as instead anyone having their product in their home, they will also loose the ebook market over time. The second option, the technology is just not there yet and they have problems manufacturing it in large quantities.
mike-cardwell 7y ago
I had this idea, probably more than 10 years ago now, to have an e-ink display on my wall which does nothing other than show me my calendar. Every couple of years I go hunting for a simple and affordable display that's at least 13 inches, but preferably larger. I don't even care if it's colour or not. The closest I can find is those picture frames that people have. But to auto update them over the network, they always seem to require the use of some crappy online intermediary. And they're always way more expensive than they should be.
- hmottestad 7y ago
  I turned my old ebook into a weather and subway screen: https://fluffyelephant.com/2015/12/reuse-my-ebook-reader/ https://fluffyelephant.com/2015/12/reuse-my-ebook-reader/ Any ebook that can be hacked to run "regular" android will do the job, since you will need to turn off the auto-sleep settings. I then used the stock browser to show a simple webpage with some small javascript. Benefit of using the stock browser was that sony had implemented partial refresh...so when the subway times update every 10 seconds it doesn't cause a full screen refresh. Wifi needs to be rock solid, had quite a few problems with my old linksys....no problems since I switched to unifi.
m712 7y ago
Seems like the site is suffering from the Slashdot effect.
beowulfey 7y ago
Holy shit, they finally did it. I interviewed for a coop with eInk back in 2009-2010 and they had mentioned they were working on full color back then. Very happy to hear they finally got there.
Rainymood 7y ago
All I want is an e-ink display for my monitor!
imhoguy 7y ago
I would love to have eink as my main monitor. I am sick of stareing to LED-backlit screens for 9/5.
megous 7y ago
If anyone wants to play with bw e-ink displays in the form of e-book reader you easily can. I've ported mainline Linux to PocketBook Touch Lux 3 and I'm now playing with making userspace apps. You can just pick the kernel load it to uSD card, put it in the device and you'll be able to boot Arch Linux or whatever and play around. http://linux-sunxi.org/PocketBook_Touch_Lux_3 http://linux-sunxi.org/PocketBook_Touch_Lux_3
- kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
  I would really love to have lichess and sgt puzzles on an e-ink device.
- 24gttghh 7y ago
  Where does one purchase this e-ink reader? I can't find them anywhere, and their own website link for it seems broken.
  - megous 7y ago
    This one is not manufactured anymore, it was replaced with Touch Lux 4. (it's probably almost the same thing inside, with very small differences, most of their eink readers are A13 based, even some of the expensive hi-res ones). You can buy it second hand, or with a broken display and replace the display (that's what I did).
mwexler 7y ago
Love the idea of these, after multiple botched attempts to deliver over the last decade. But refresh rate was always the killer for most applications. While I don't expect it to be a gaming monitor, any news on whether the refresh rate has improved? As a baseline, some companies are getting 7.5 fps with greyscale.
Noxmiles 7y ago
"$799.00 (Tax excl.)" it's probably not the for companies buying thousands of them. But what would you expect is the price? End user products with this display probably are way over 1000 or 2000 USD.
npongratz 7y ago
It's 4:3! 1600×1200, 285.80mm (W) × 213.65mm (H). I keep looking for 4:3 non-CRT displays; what a pleasant surprise.
mavsman 7y ago
Hopefully we'll soon live in a world with solar powered electronics that use foldable e-ink displays.
deleted 7y ago
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chansiky 7y ago
Its about time. Can't wait to get one. Hopefully it would only be like another 10 years before you can watch video on one of these.

591 points by bufbupa 7y ago

> "... Glass..." Oof, that brings back a couple of unfond memories of cracked displays in the early ebook reader era. Hope they are able to develop a plastic substrate version.

bufbupa 7y ago
Looks like it may be coming soon: "The new printing process alleviates the need for a glass-based CFA" https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200107005530/en/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200107005530/en/

BeefySwain 7y ago

My understanding of electronic paper displays is almost entirely founded in the great Applied Science[0] video about it. I have to assume that the way that a full color electronic paper display is done would be vastly different than the method that the 3 color displays work. Anyone have any insight into this? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsbiO8EAsGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsbiO8EAsGw

RL_Quine 7y ago
The way it's updating here, along with the description, give a good idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI

otras 7y ago

> "13.3” ACeP display is suitable for various applications, e.g. Artwork, Signage, Retail, etc…" These various applications sound like static images without fast refresh requirements. I wonder what the refresh rate is like on these. I'm still waiting with bated breath for a reliable e-ink computer monitor comes out with a decent refresh rate. I'd even be happy with just greyscale.

bufbupa 7y ago
Per below vid, it looks like refresh rate is ~25 seconds. Doubt you'll be able to use it for a monitor anytime soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI
- simias 7y ago
  Oof, that's even way too slow for e-book usage. Still, it's nice to see this technology progressing. There's obviously a massive use case for battery-limited devices like smartwatches and smartphones. The dream of someday coding on a high-resolution decent-refresh-rate color e-paper monitor is still alive!
  - bufbupa 7y ago
    Well, what you could do is strap two back to back to each other. So like front: page1, back: page2. Then when you "turn the page" it skips evens/odds and you just flip the display over to get page2 while page3 buffers on the other side :p
    - reubenmorais 7y ago
      Manual double buffering :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_buffering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_buffering
    - yorwba 7y ago
      Flipping back to page1 would be problematic.
      - cortesoft 7y ago
        not if they are bound with a circular ring
  - echelon 7y ago
    There are still tons of applications: Digital photo frames that cycle throughout the day, dynamic posters and murals with art that changes with the time or viewer, refreshing price labels, clocks with minute resolution, data visualization over large time intervals, informational displays... You might not even have to paint the entire screen at once, but can perhaps update only the dirty regions. Not everything needs to display video or respond in real time to human input. There's so much painted in the world around us that could have value added by letting it refresh on the day, hour, or minute.

errantspark 7y ago

Looks like fun! Perhaps another thing to add to my box of barely used devkits. I've clicked through their site but I'm not seeing a real data sheet or any information about the gamut etc. Did I just miss it?

jlangemeier 7y ago
Nope you haven't missed anything, their user manual for it is very sparse (to put it nicely). At least it comes with a pinout? Another user was saying ~25 second refresh rates.

gnicholas 7y ago

Site isn’t loading for me. Am I the only one?

qwertywert 7y ago
Same here.
egypturnash 7y ago
I got an nginx error after a long wait, I think it is being hugged to death. Here's an archive.org link: http://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3˝-acep-display-ac133ut1-【glass】/ http://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits.e...
- thebitguru 7y ago
  Lol, I have never heard it put this say, but seems exactly right: "hugged to death"! =D
frsandstone 7y ago
Archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3%CB%9D-acep-display-ac133ut1-%E3%80%90glass%E3%80%91/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits....
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
somuchlan 7y ago
Site is loading this URL for me: https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3%cb%9d-acep-display-ac133ut1-%e3%80%90glass%e3%80%91/#tab-custom-tab-third https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3%cb%9d-ac...
DesiLurker 7y ago
slashdotted!

m_ke 7y ago

I was just looking to see if there were any decent ereaders that could handle research papers in PDF format. I couldn't find anything but I guess there's hope for one in the future.

jborichevskiy 7y ago
Have you looked at the reMarkable tablet? https://remarkable.com/ https://remarkable.com/ Great for reading PDFs as they're displayed at about real size.
- paxys 7y ago
  Looks neat, but $500? Yikes.
  - jborichevskiy 7y ago
    Yep, definitely a bit steep. I saved a little ($~100?) by going for the refurbished model though.
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    How is that expensive ? Unless you expect to only use it very rarely ?
    - paxys 7y ago
      While the writing feature may be good, it offers a very tiny subset of overall functionality than an iPad while being the same price.
      - BlueTemplar 7y ago
        Lack of color e-ink (even if only in 4 tones) is probably the only thing that is keeping me from ditching using lots and lots of paper. Can't wait for one, even if it's much more expensive than an iPad (which, BTW, always seemed to be a toy to me, but I hear that they got better...)

qaq 7y ago

I want E Ink monitor for programming. It so much easier on the eyes (even if refresh rate is horrible)

RL_Quine 7y ago
I've messed around with this a bunch on some 9" hardware and custom waveforms to attempt to drive the display as hard as possible, it's almost certainly not what you want to be using, especially the color ones as they require multiple passes to actually attain the color. For my Color/Black/White panels that's normally rendering all the Black + Color as black, and then pulling the black pigment back as well to expose the Color one (red or yellow). For the single color ones you can get sub-500ms latency for updating, at the cost of extreme ghosting. You need to do a lot of changes to the way you think about graphics to make this a reality. Think of an IRC program for example, normally every one of them scrolls up text from the bottom but this is completely a worst case solution for e-ink. To make it work you have to fill half the screen with text, then add new lines sequentially at the end and only scroll when you've run out of space. Additions can reasonably be done without a full refresh, scrolling text just causes it to mud out.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  It could become feasible with a custom UI. You could have a version of vim or emacs that doesn't even "scroll" your code conventionally, but just gradually rewrites lines starting from the top down (or from the bottom up when scrolling "back"), sort of doing away with a unified viewport - this would at least address the most common operation in a dev environment that currently requires quick full-screen update.
- blululu 7y ago
  This is pretty spot on. I tried something similar a while back and found that the typing latency was on the order of ~120 ms which made it feel mushy and led to a lot of errors. The need to rethink graphics to handle refreshes should not be underestimated. A lot of UI patterns (almost all animations and transitions) rely on a period refresh rate. In order to make a compelling experience you need to rework a good bit of the UI.

frsandstone 7y ago

Cached in Archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits.eink.com/product/atelier-with-13-3%CB%9D-acep-display-ac133ut1-%E3%80%90glass%E3%80%91/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200108221349/https://shopkits....

kgwxd 7y ago
Is it archive.org or the original site that went out of it's way to force "smooth scrolling" on me? Edit: original site is working now, it's them.
- Zelphyr 7y ago
  There should be a Developers Pledge: I, [state your name], hereby agree upon pain of death to never do things like force smooth scrolling, override scroll speed, implement a header that bounces based on scroll direction, etc...
  - Xelbair 7y ago
    >override scroll speed if anyone does that I'll find that person and kill them with dull spoon. There is nothing more infuriating than that little thing - why would even anyone do that? what's the use case? why waste dev time on that?
    - hirako2000 7y ago
      It's usually not dev, a product guy came up with a stupid idea with enough cash in hand, dev often oblige and for sure always find a way.
      - jjp 7y ago
        And the product guy did it because a sales team came in and said without load of color and animation then we won't be able to sell the product. And the sales guy did it because a prospect said we really like all the features and the price but your product doesn't have as much color and animation as Acme Inc's product. And the prospect did it because they actually prefer Acme Inc's product but they don't like Acme Inc's price so if they are going to have to go with the second choice product then let's get something done about the colors/animation before we close the sale. And then we have the product guy coming back and working out what is the least or least worst thing we can do to remove the sales resistance, close out the sale and have everybody paid.

jalgos_eminator 7y ago

Could not find a refresh rate in the documentation, or how many colors it can create. I also saw something about it having to compensate for temperature with 7 different maps from 0°-50°C. You can see it on page 8 of the User Manual.

bufbupa 7y ago
Per below vid, Refresh time: ~25 seconds Colors: 32,000 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVANwwXtHEI
- mwambua 7y ago
  Do they actually mean 32768 colors?
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    Probably just 3 colors, 5 bits of brightness levels per color (aka "16-bit").

op00to 7y ago

This would be awesome for comic books.

dsr_ 7y ago
Any 10+inch color LCD display of 250dpi or higher works well for comic books. It turns out that if you make a tablet capable of showing HD video at 60fps, it can show you comic book pages quite well. I use an Amazon Kindle Fire Ow It Burns HD10 for this, because it's at the minimum intersection of suitable hardware and price.
- bobbyi_settv 7y ago
  I think the Kindle Fire makes you jump through hoops to get apps via the Google Play store though and as I understand it, you need to do that in order to get Marvel Unlimited on there, which is something many people really want to have on their comics-reading device.
  - dsr_ 7y ago
    I think I rooted that sucker before installing everything I wanted. I don't think it's a suitable device for everyone.
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    You'll probably want to avoid any apps from Google Play anyway...

seltzered_ 7y ago

The most interesting new-old startup in this space the past couple years is clearInk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjJ2-cdhwMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjJ2-cdhwMQ ..but they haven't shipped anything yet AFAIK. And no idea how electronics/etc is hidden around their demo frames.

vanderZwan 7y ago
They state they are targeting education in developing markets, so that sounds like they (believe they) have a way to scale this and make it very affordable.
- seltzered_ 7y ago
  Eh, I'll believe it when I see it. Saying this from a perspective of: - Usually reading seeing what's new in this space every year. Wrote my last comment in https://lobste.rs/s/ahy28r/remarkable_perfect_tablet_for_academics#c_s83pee https://lobste.rs/s/ahy28r/remarkable_perfect_tablet_for_aca... . - Taking some of the "developing markets" speech with a grain of "geek heresy" salt. It's out of my domain, but from what I've heard there's been a problem where technology in education has been rushed to as a cost-savings mechanism yet in practice the content / usability issues make the education experience worse.

ihuman 7y ago

What companies make consumer/hobbyist ePaper displays besides Waveshare? I'm looking for a 5"-7" ePaper display with fast/partial refresh that work with a Raspberry Pi, but the only one I've found is Waveshare's.

sparker72678 7y ago
4.2" (Which sounds like it's too small for your needs): https://www.adafruit.com/product/4142 https://www.adafruit.com/product/4142
- nkozyra 7y ago
  Wow that one also has a 25s refresh rate
hoytech 7y ago
This is still in kick-starter phase, but if you don't mind waiting a few months it has a lot of potential IMO: https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6 https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pitzips 7y ago
I believe Waveshare gets their panels from the same place good-display.com does. The Waveshare adapters work on good-display panels.
userbinator 7y ago
Replacement displays for ebook readers are not that expensive and someone has figured out how to drive them without the proprietary controller: http://essentialscrap.com/eink/ http://essentialscrap.com/eink/
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  Wow those are super cheap.. I'm tempted to pick up one and I don't even have a use case yet.

proee 7y ago

This has a refresh rate of 25 SECONDS - so it's not going to replace your black and white kindle display or be useful for dynamic content.

duxup 7y ago
Bummer. My oldest son is a voracious reader, and I would love to get him on an e reader, but I don't want to go for a traditional screen, so the lack of color e ink type option kinda stops me.
- etrk 7y ago
  Does he only read comic books? Black and white screen is ideal for most of the world's books.
  - duxup 7y ago
    He reads just about anything but I'm not inclined to make an investment in a device that wouldn't include graphic novels and similar color content. I just don't think it would last.
  - daotoad 7y ago
    I read a lot of comics, but I also read a lot of regular books. For now, I read using a 10" Chuwi tablet because it gives me a decent, color screen, at a decent size and weight, at a reasonable price. I would LOVE to have an eink reader that could fulfill this role. I have been watching and waiting for years.
sukilot 7y ago
Who remembers browsing the web/usenet on 28800Kbps modems?
- JorgeGT 7y ago
  I think you have an extra K on there! I do remember my 36 kbps modem though, but the web was optimized for that speed. Webpages had "image warnings"!

tombert 7y ago

God this would be great if we could get an Android color e-ink reader released so I could do Safari Books. The O'Reilly thing is a pretty good deal if you're a serial-tech-book-reader like I am, but I absolutely hate reading off the computer screen or my iPhone, but I don't mind reading regular text off my Kindle. I know that there's the Onyx Boox Android thing, but that's only black and white, and technical books are occasionally in color.

OscarCunningham 7y ago

I've been waiting for something like this to use as a digital photo frame. It lets you have see all your photos without having it glowing at you when you go to bed.

elric 7y ago

I've long thought that it would be great to replace all kinds of signage wit eInk. Time tables on public transport, any kind of announcement that's typically printed on paper,... There's lots of stuff with a low refresh rate (sometimes in the order of months) that could benefit from being easier to update, but that isn't worth replacing by power hungry, overly bright, hard to read LCDs. Hell, there are a lot of cases where LCDs are used wher eInk would be a much better fit. Things like meeting room reservation screens, for instance. With largeish colour displays, maybe that'll all finally become a reality.

BlueTemplar 7y ago
Meeting room reservation screens should work well with even low-power transflective LCDs ?

solarkraft 7y ago

It would be amazing if monochrome 13,3" e-ink displays would go on sale at an affordable price some day.

BlueTemplar 7y ago
Aren't they ? What would be "affordable" for you ?
- solarkraft 7y ago
  I think I'd be willing to pay about 230€ for the screen. Maybe 300-350€ for a device with a free operating system and very good UX (but I wouldn't be afraid of building that myself).
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    Make that 23€ instead : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21997599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21997599 EDIT : Oops, that's for 6"... For 13" it seems to start at $450 ? :/ https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=13.3%22+e-ink&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=15 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=13.3%22+e-ink... Would it be practical to jury-rig four 6" together ??

prostaff 7y ago

www.aeroworxglobal.com Full Colors!

solarkraft 7y ago

While it's very cool that this is now possible, I think this has almost no use case. A business that is able to afford e-ink's high prices could also buy an LCD/OLED, which could also show motion and much better colors.

htk 7y ago
E-ink advantage is not about price/motion/colors. Is about how close it is with printed paper, where external light like the Sun helps the visibility. It’s also interesting regarding energy requirements, as you can keep the image displayed without the need of power.
hinkley 7y ago
One of the reasons I keep an eye on eInk is that I love the idea of information radiators, but I always get stymied by running wires to a suitable spot. Data has been mostly solved, power has not.

deepspace 7y ago

Nice, but I fear that this will go the same way as Eink corp's monochrome displays. They have been a terrible steward of the technology, limiting themselves to a tiny fraction of the addressable market (ebook readers) while shutting out a vast potential low power display market by pricing their panels far too high. They have also either refused to license their technology to others or made the licensing fee uneconomical. A competent company would have pursued the signage market aggressively many years ago and would have had a massive revenue stream from that by now. E Ink displays have recently started showing up as price tags on grocery shelves, which is promising for the future of low cost, low power displays. I am not sure if these are supplied by Eink or if patents are expiring and competitors are moving into the market.

sukilot 7y ago
signs: https://eink.com/signage.html https://eink.com/signage.html price tags: https://eink.com/electronic-shelf-label.html https://eink.com/electronic-shelf-label.html more: https://eink.com/application.html https://eink.com/application.html Are you sure you know EInk/PVI's business better than they do?
- deepspace 7y ago
  > Are you sure you know EInk/PVI's business better than they do? Never said that I do, and, yes they are NOW finally starting to pursue the signage / label markets. My point was that they could and should have done so 10 or more years ago.
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    They were. My first employer partnered with eInk back in like 2012 to bring a line of ESLs to market. The reason you're not seeing more of it is because in the US the companies prefer to purchase a "turnkey solution" whereas in Europe companies are more apt to develop custom software to integrate the ESL with their systems. And the major ESL supplier in the US, Pricer, uses on-premises servers and IR to update labels which is an expensive proposition. So you're limited in how you can pilot the technology. I actually think there's a lot of room at the low end of the market to sell an on-premises ARM- or NUC-based server which interfaces with the tags over a radio link and provides aggregate data back to a cloud-based system for control and pricing updates. That would get you the millions of convenience stores who have to pay 3rd-party contractors to do their shelf labels. This would be especially brilliant if you combined a software fee with equipment leases so that your solution is an operating expense instead of an upfront capital cost.

AlphaWeaver 7y ago

In the realm of e-ink, I've been loving my Onyx tablet lately. It runs full Android, has an ePaper display, and has a Wacom stylus for note taking. Two things I think it's done really well- it has the ability to easily disable the touch screen so you can pass it around and work with it like it's a real piece of paper. Additionally, you can change the refresh rate to your preference, and set it per-app. Higher refresh rates lead to ghosting, but if I turn the refresh rate high enough, I can watch a YouTube video on ePaper (!!!) which is crazy to me.

skuthus 7y ago
what model did you get?
- AlphaWeaver 7y ago
  I got the Boox Note 2, which is 10.3 inches. It's just large enough to be useful, but not so big to be unwieldy.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    Video I saw looks cool, but 500 bones! I'd be concerned my handwriting would be too small or illegible to be an effective primary notepad. How do you use it?
    - AlphaWeaver 7y ago
      As far as dealing with legibility, it has pretty high resolution, so you can write small if you'd like. You can also zoom in and out to write larger if you'd like. I use it for reading and note taking. It's helpful to jot something down quickly or to take more in-depth notes. You can also install Android apps on there too, so I use Firefox to browse the web (reading articles on Wikipedia, doing research into software products) and sync that with my phone to easily pass data between them.
  - skuthus 7y ago
    Thanks for the info!

awinter-py 7y ago

fwiw the sony letter-size monochrome e-reader is amazing reading PDFs on a device that doesn't burn out your eyes and can't receive notifications or produce audio is like a digital detox all my favorite devices recently are low- and no-connection (voice memo, yubikey) and work fast with limited UX

kepano 7y ago

The progress towards digital paper has been really slow. Sometimes I wonder if there is an alternate timeline in which we pursued eink-like displays earlier on. It would be amazing to watch a movie on this kind of display if the refresh rate could permit it. I wrote about this on my blog http://stephanango.com/the-elusiveness-of-digital-paper http://stephanango.com/the-elusiveness-of-digital-paper

z3t4 7y ago

Make something 16 inches and lightweight. So that you can make it display an actual A4 "paper" and hold it in your hand.

passwordds 7y ago

This is the imitation of the Sony digital paper version ??? Similar price tags too.

jamilbk 7y ago

We have great weather here in the Bay Area but are often confined to offices to get our work done because of sunlight glare on our laptop screens. I've always thought more people would choose to work outside if their laptop had a decent e-ink display that performed well in sunlight. Perhaps there'd even be outdoor co-working spaces complete with gardens, fountains, and grassy lawns to sprawl onto.

prennert 7y ago
I used to have a Toshiba Portege R500 which had a transreflective screen. It was an LCD that could be used in sunlight because incoming light got reflected back from behind the screen. The colors suffered a bit, but you could even switch off the backlight of the screen to save power. Seems to have gone out of fashion unfortunately.. http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_toshiba_r500.html http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_toshiba_r500.html
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  I really loved that the screen on my pebble watch was always on and the thing managed a week of screen on time. The colors looked like crap compared to the newer smart watches but I still feel like something major was lost here.
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
Stop buying macbooks with glossy screens then.

cordite 7y ago

How does long term UV exposure (sunlight) affect pigments in a product like this? It seems like a cool idea for large format signs, but how long until everything looks like burnt green-blue?

BlueTemplar 7y ago
Well, there are lots of pigments out there available that hold well to long-term UV exposure... Even if you're talking decades, I don't think that metal-based pigments uv-degrade easily ?

rrauenza 7y ago

I keep wishing for a large enough display I could use it as a digital picture frame. I was looking at eink's offerings just yesterday after hearing about Lenovo's new 21" frame.

zhoujianfu 7y ago

I really want somebody to use one of these to make a picture frame you hang on the wall with no power cable.. just a spot in the frame for AA batteries, and some kind of low power Bluetooth connection to your phone to update the picture via an app.

gnicholas 7y ago

I have looked into low-power color displays and I think their competitor [1] is currently better positioned. My understanding is their eink has somewhat better light transmission, but their refresh rate is much, much slower than the competition. I'm looking forward to seeing the products made from these faster displays, which I believe are coming later this year. 1: https://www.clearinkdisplays.com/solutions https://www.clearinkdisplays.com/solutions

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

est 7y ago

I still wonders what happens to the MEMS display Apple bought from Qualcomm https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/12/15/apple-has-taken-over-qualcomms-imod-mirasol-display-lab-in-taiwan https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/12/15/apple-has-taken-o...

sytelus 7y ago

Any details on how they made this work? How much power does it draw? This could have a tremendous impact. You can basically replace every surface with the programmable display, assuming mass-manufactured cost savings. Walls on your home or office, dining table, the exterior of the car!

kodachi 7y ago

If you wanna help hack the kindle: http://fread.ink/ http://fread.ink/ Reminds me that my Kindle has been going strong for 7 years.

krick 7y ago

This is great. I was dreaming about large full colour e-reader since like 10 years ago, when I bought my first PocketBook. Now, TBH, I'm kinda used to reading on regular displays, mostly since I carry my phone all day long anyway. But if there will be a good reader like that I'm pretty sure I'll buy it. If nothing else, being usable without a daily recharge is huge by modern standards. It's virtually impossible to buy anything now that can last for a couple of days without recharging anymore. Not sure about glass though.

stiray 7y ago

At this price just doesnt matter what size of display is or anything else. It is like selling toothpicks for 10 dollars. Yes they are usefull, yes I would like to have them, but the price is so overblown that I would feel stupid if I would buy it. Eink is a typical case where instead of scaling up, they try to get rich by much too expensive product. This is a maximum stupidity as instead anyone having their product in their home, they will also loose the ebook market over time. The second option, the technology is just not there yet and they have problems manufacturing it in large quantities.

mike-cardwell 7y ago

I had this idea, probably more than 10 years ago now, to have an e-ink display on my wall which does nothing other than show me my calendar. Every couple of years I go hunting for a simple and affordable display that's at least 13 inches, but preferably larger. I don't even care if it's colour or not. The closest I can find is those picture frames that people have. But to auto update them over the network, they always seem to require the use of some crappy online intermediary. And they're always way more expensive than they should be.

hmottestad 7y ago
I turned my old ebook into a weather and subway screen: https://fluffyelephant.com/2015/12/reuse-my-ebook-reader/ https://fluffyelephant.com/2015/12/reuse-my-ebook-reader/ Any ebook that can be hacked to run "regular" android will do the job, since you will need to turn off the auto-sleep settings. I then used the stock browser to show a simple webpage with some small javascript. Benefit of using the stock browser was that sony had implemented partial refresh...so when the subway times update every 10 seconds it doesn't cause a full screen refresh. Wifi needs to be rock solid, had quite a few problems with my old linksys....no problems since I switched to unifi.

m712 7y ago

Seems like the site is suffering from the Slashdot effect.

beowulfey 7y ago

Holy shit, they finally did it. I interviewed for a coop with eInk back in 2009-2010 and they had mentioned they were working on full color back then. Very happy to hear they finally got there.

Rainymood 7y ago

All I want is an e-ink display for my monitor!

imhoguy 7y ago

I would love to have eink as my main monitor. I am sick of stareing to LED-backlit screens for 9/5.

megous 7y ago

If anyone wants to play with bw e-ink displays in the form of e-book reader you easily can. I've ported mainline Linux to PocketBook Touch Lux 3 and I'm now playing with making userspace apps. You can just pick the kernel load it to uSD card, put it in the device and you'll be able to boot Arch Linux or whatever and play around. http://linux-sunxi.org/PocketBook_Touch_Lux_3 http://linux-sunxi.org/PocketBook_Touch_Lux_3

kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
I would really love to have lichess and sgt puzzles on an e-ink device.
24gttghh 7y ago
Where does one purchase this e-ink reader? I can't find them anywhere, and their own website link for it seems broken.
- megous 7y ago
  This one is not manufactured anymore, it was replaced with Touch Lux 4. (it's probably almost the same thing inside, with very small differences, most of their eink readers are A13 based, even some of the expensive hi-res ones). You can buy it second hand, or with a broken display and replace the display (that's what I did).

mwexler 7y ago

Love the idea of these, after multiple botched attempts to deliver over the last decade. But refresh rate was always the killer for most applications. While I don't expect it to be a gaming monitor, any news on whether the refresh rate has improved? As a baseline, some companies are getting 7.5 fps with greyscale.

Noxmiles 7y ago

"$799.00 (Tax excl.)" it's probably not the for companies buying thousands of them. But what would you expect is the price? End user products with this display probably are way over 1000 or 2000 USD.

npongratz 7y ago

It's 4:3! 1600×1200, 285.80mm (W) × 213.65mm (H). I keep looking for 4:3 non-CRT displays; what a pleasant surprise.

mavsman 7y ago

Hopefully we'll soon live in a world with solar powered electronics that use foldable e-ink displays.

deleted 7y ago

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chansiky 7y ago

Its about time. Can't wait to get one. Hopefully it would only be like another 10 years before you can watch video on one of these.