The killer application for these e-ink dispalys is calendar/todo list display. I'd love to have my org-mode agenda and todo-list/notes on such a low-powered, low-refresh-rate e-ink screen.
I know this question has been probably been asked many times, but I'll ask again: why are these devices not mass-produced in great numbers? Clearly there is great market demand for it, so then why would the market supply not respond to this demand? Is it because the technology has some oddities that manifest in tricky manufacturing processes? Or is it some patent encumbrance issue?
I actually repurposed an old Kindle to do just that, via kindle-dash[0]
Every 15 minutes it makes a cURL to an endpoint that gets my agenda, some news headlines, the weather, etc., and uses Puppeteer (I think) to return an image for the kindle to display.
I've personally only tested it with a Kindle 4 NT. I haven't had any reports of people using this on other Kindle devices, but in theory it should work as long as the device is jailbroken.
I had no idea this existed but was off writing something similar as well. Glad to see a public project repurposing old hardware. I think there's a large potential userbase if PW support eventually get's added.
I am not sure "org-mode" and "great market demand" typically refer to the same product.
If you think there's great market demand, you should put up a Kickstarter for one of these things. battery + esp32 + readily-available display + some protocol to sync Emacs and your display. You can prototype it in a weekend, and cash in on the demand.
On the one hand, in this case I don't agree with the person you replied to who thinks there would be great market demand for this (at least at the price points currently possible).
On the other hand... there are plenty of things in the world which could have lots of demand for if they were sold, or if they were invented and then sold, quite often I think of something, or see someone else's idea, where I think that's the case. But even if I were the most entrepreneurial entrepreneur imaginable, I couldn't start a business around every single thing I form an opinion on it having the potential to succeed.
Acting as if someone must be willing (and knowledgable enough both about how to make the thing in question and how to market it to get kickstarter traction etc etc) otherwise their opinion that it has a potential market fit is somehow invalid, just feels... mean spirited.
Yup, that's exactly what OP wants. You write some software to fetch the calendar / org-mode entries, and there's your prototype for the Kickstarter. Like all hardware projects, the tough part is the software and the marketing.
The software honestly feels like a day's worth of work. I don't know if TinyGo has a driver for the Pico W wifi chip, but I've used an ESP32 with nina and you basically initialize the WiFi core and then use net/http like a program running on a big computer. Very very easy. Times have never been better for Internet-connected microcontroller programmers.
Where is it clear that there is great market demand? The only time I see devices like this discussed is in the small maker community. And the technology limitation of not being a fast updating display limits it to more niche uses.
Half of all supermarkets in Finland have e-ink screens for product price tags along shelves. It saves tons of printing. In a country full of trees. Must be great value.
I think the primary savings of e-ink pricetags is in labor, not materials. Being able to just send price changes directly to the shelf without having humans go through and change them out is a big deal, so to speak.
Also less error prone and more importantly much faster.
Being able to update prices in near real time would also potentially allow for more efficiency in setting prices, meaning you can set them in real time.
With real time stock information, you could handle sudden demand spikes much more gracefully. Have you prices automatically adjusted between an minimum and maximum price based on current stock and demand. Basically get you targeted stock turnover for the best possible price. (Best coupled with a self-checkout system so the customer consents to the current price).
Not that any supermarket I know of is currently smart enough to do that but they could. With all the hoarding due to shortages I could see them smartening up one day.
> Not that any supermarket I know of is currently smart enough to do that but they could
This may or may not be illegal as fuck. Picking up an item that costs 1$ and having it cost 1.2$ by the time you get to the checkout is all sorts of wrong.
The Price Accuracy Policy allows customers to be compensated in case of a pricing error at the register. If the price of the article you are buying is higher at the register than what was shown on the shelf, the merchant must:
give you the item for free if the item costs less than $10;
sell you the item at the shelf price, minus $10, if the item costs more than $10.
So pricing could change at store close, but it'd be risky to change otherwise. And of course, it should* be a problem. You pick up a product, get to cash, and the price sneakily changes and you don't notice? Uncool.
Paper price have to be changed every week for specials even in Quebec.. it is very labour intensive and very error probe. They also often fall off. Eink price displays are meant to help that.
I used to work in a groceries store and changing price used to take so long that we had to do even while opened with shopping customers..
There's a whole slew of ways to scam retail prices. Sometimes customers used to just peel a price tag off one product and place it on another. (Store employees used to, less than 40 years ago, put a price sticker manually on every box. Then they'd key the price into the register.) Sometimes if there's a SKU sticker rather than the preprinted UPC sticker on the package from the manufacturer people will still try this.
This is a posted price, marked by the store. They'd need to forge it, the logo, font, etc.
That said, there are usually security cameras, and that would be fraud.
People shoplift too, so it is a similar type of crime.
You're assuming sub-day changes. Stock doesn't necessarily come in every day and responding to demand spikes on a day by day basis solves this for any non-24h shop.
You could also do sub-day lowering of prices, although I think day by day changes adds a lot on its own if you want to have dynamic prices in response to demand.
I think there are some self-checkout solutions where you scan the barcode while taking the product off the shelf instead of at the end. The price should, of course, not change between picking up and payment.
Automatic pricing updates on shelving displays have been around for awhile, eink versions have gotten more popular because they use so much less power. That combined with low power bluetooth has made it even easier to roll them out.
I live in Kazakhstan which is country without trees. I never saw eink price tags. They're paper. I doubt it has anything with trees. Paper is too cheap.
Sure they are eInk? On Carrefour here they have had plain old LCD ones for ages now. It looks like e-ink, but on close inspection it is definitely not (e.g. mirrorish background color). Polarized glasses also help detection :)
And that is what I do agree e-Ink is overrated. People have trouble distinguishing it from reflective LCDs (remember the Pebble).
I use an old iPad via Universal Control for exactly this purpose: calendar/to-do list. It sits under my monitor and frees up a lot of screen real estate.
Did you have to do anything to make universal control work? I guess I just assumed that since it was a new feature all of my old Apple products wouldn't work (like my 2012 Mac mini that runs a family dashboard doesn't work with UC).
Looks like you need a Mac from 2015 or newer and an iPad from the same year. Depends on the model though. Similar to Sidecar, I think it depends on video encoding/decoding features introduced in Skylake chipsets, along with some newer version of Bluetooth.
There might be some hacky stuff you can do to get it to run, but I wouldn’t expect good performance or reliability.
You could always run the iPad with calendar/reminders in split screen with no Universal Control - if you have a gorilla arm.
For what is worth my opinion, I wouldn't get one even if it was free.
The first data I look for when I read these enthusiastic reports of color e-paper screen is the refresh rate, and every single time the results are discouraging: 15 seconds for refreshing a page make the product nearly useless for almost all purposes except maybe calendars, but the inferior graphics quality and higher cost make them a lot less appealing than for example using a normal LED screen plus a PIR sensor that turns it off and sends the CPU to sleep when nobody is around to save power.
I think the technology just isn't there yet, and will probably need a long time before it becomes interesting for practical uses beyond tinkering and research.
I agree, and it’s frustrating how refresh rate is often buried in the specs.
If you haven’t seen it, here [0] is a monochrome e-ink monitor that you can actually watch videos on, just about. For working with documents it looks totally viable. It seems they are only available in China though.
Very interesting product, thanks for the link; might be a godsend for long text sessions (coders, writers, journalists, etc). Price still high for most potential users however.
The last I saw, it is indeed a complex patent and licensing issue. I don't have the source for that handy, but since you seem to be getting many answers blaming the market I figured I'd chime in.
I mean, I read a rather detailed comment on here a few years back from someone actually in the industry, lamenting the stranglehold a particular company was inflicting on innovation.
Edit: And looking closely at that comment chain, I see you were there, questioning the patent stagnation narrative back then also. I guess you're consistent anyway.
Edit 2: Man, you have asked this question a lot. And people have given you some very detailed answers, which you never seem to respond constructively to. Care to comment on this?
...
Throaway to not get sued.
E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP.
E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink film, filled with their patented pigment particles and sell it to display manufacturers who package the film in glass and a TFT layer and add a driver interface chip, all of which are proprietary AF and unless you're the size of Amazon, forget about getting any detailed datasheets about how to correctly drive their displays to get sharp images.
In my previous company we had to reverse engineer their waveforms in order to build usable products even though we were buying quite a lot of displays.
With so much control over the IP and the entire supply chain and due to the broken nature of the patent system, they're an absolute monopoly and have no incentive to lower prices or to bring any innovations to the market and are a textbook example of what happens to technology when there is zero competition.
So, when you see the high prices of e-paper gadgets, don't blame the manufacturers, as they're not price gouging, blame E-ink, as their displays make up the bulk of the BOM.
Tough, some of their tech is pretty dope. One day E-ink sent over a 32" 1440p prototype panel with 32 shades of B&W to show off. My God, was the picture gorgeous and sharp. I would have loved to have it as a PC monitor so I tried building an HDMI interface controller for it with an FPGA but failed due to a lack of time and documentation. Shame, although not a big loss as an estimated cost for that was near the five figure ballpark and the current consumption was astronomical, sometimes triggering the protection of the power supply on certain images.
> Which you never seem to respond constructively to. Care to comment on this?
It's impossible to respond -- it just makes assertions that are impossible to verify, and without throwing any sources.
The only thing I can verify myself is that waveform data from e-ink is overzealously copyrighted and protected, to the detriment of OSS projects, but this exclusively applies to e-Ink technology itself, not competitors.
I don't work in the display industry, but I do think that e-ink just sucks enough by itself that one does not need to invent any type of outlandish conspiracy about how a company would boycott itself in order to limit their market share.
Every single time I have ever seen a color e-Ink display it has been absolutely disappointing. Both Triton and Kaleido were low-contrast, gray-ish blurry messes (and Kaleido is so little an improvement over Triton it makes me wonder what exactly has improved in the last decade). ACeP is the only color technology which really stands out somewhat (this panel, by the way), but it is limited by the extremely low refresh rate and color resolution (we are talking multiple tens of seconds to refresh). And as for the core grayscale market, most people would be better served by a memory reflective LCD, since it is visually indistinguishable from e-Ink, similar or even better contrast, much faster refresh rate, and actually better in average power consumption for most applications except maybe price tags (since e-Ink sucks a lot of power when refreshing).
The fact that not only e-Ink really fails to thrive but that they do have competition which thrives (e.g. smartwatches like Garmin use transflective LCDs that are color & exactly as viewable in sunlight as e-Ink, perhaps more) should also put an stop to the idea that they somehow exert control over the low-power, daylight-viewable display market.
> It's impossible to respond -- it just makes assertions that are impossible to verify, and without throwing any sources.
I have to say this is ridiculous. You're making a claim that patents are blocking progress. When I ask which patent and for details, you're response is that I'm making assertions that can't be verified. That's exactly what I'm saying about your comment.
I mean the .fw/.ihex files, you have really not seen them?
They are not redistributable, and eInk DMCAs attempts at hosting them; you have to get from your existing firmware. It's not simple to just reverse them since they vary on the temperature. I mean, there is now free code for driving most eink controllers, but not free replacements for these files, as far as I know.
> I mean the .fw/.ihex files, you have really not seen them?
Not from E Ink. .fw is from Freescale. Never seen any .ihex E Ink waveform data file. Could you point to an actual example since you seem to imply it is very common?
> They are not redistributable, and eInk DMCAs attempts at hosting them;
> And people have given you some very detailed answers, which you never seem to respond constructively to.
Could you provide a link to where you see that? I disagree with that characterization.
I should also point out that still, even in this thread, again, no one has been able to tell the rest of us (who want evidence we can verify) what specific patent they're talking about. Instead the same old answer, of "all of their patents" comes out. This is the same as saying IBM patents are blocking progress in the software industry.
Of course, the throwaway post that I already said was clearly misinformed at many levels is cited as if it was gospel evidence of patent misbehavior.
> In my previous company we had to reverse engineer their waveforms in order to build usable products even though we were buying quite a lot of displays.
Yes, this is obviously true. You realize it is the equivalent of saying, I bought a Samsung LCD and then I wanted to change the LCD's internal drive voltages and drive circuit waveforms and Samsung didn't help me do that. And how is that in any way related to patents? I asked for evidence backing your claim that patents are blocking progress in the electrophoretic display industry. Would you care to answer that instead of deflecting?
I'm not convinced there is a large demand for these. While LCDs work poorly in bright sunlight, e-ink works poorly in darkness. Humans are more likely using a display in a poorly lit area than a brightly lit one.
In addition, e-ink uses less energy only if the image isn't really changing. If the image is refreshing, there is a bunch of energy being blown to overwrite the old image. That's not power friendly.
Finally, I seem to remember that there were a bunch of patents in the way.
> Finally, I seem to remember that there were a bunch of patents in the way.
Remember? Meaning you worked in the display industry?
I work in the display industry. I've never heard anything like what you describe, except on HN comments and blogs that use HN comments as citations. Look at my comment history. I think your claim is false because everytime I've challenged a claim like yours the poster has never been able to substantiate it, but I keep an open mind, if you can provide some real citations backing your claim then I'm happy to be corrected.
Looking through your comment history it seems that you have interrogated any poster who was ever mentioned patent problems, and demanded that they provide you with sources. It is not clear why they are required to do that.
That is quite a jumble of overlapping / inter-locking patents. The goal is to prevent competition using similar technology. It looks effective. And to answer your next question, no I'm not in the display industry, just thought it seemed interesting.
Challenging unsourced assumptions and combating misinformation is a noble goal. Is there any actual proof that companies other than e-Ink are unable to develop technology like this 7-colour display due to patents?
Not that I could find - but I didn't look for long to satisfy my curiosity. There was a case where e-Ink defended against another patent claim, but not any where they were the aggressor. The set of patents could be for defensive purposes (as in to be used in defending against other patents), or to prevent competition. I didn't find anything definite either way, but as always absence of evidence doesn't really mean much.
> as always absence of evidence doesn't really mean much.
My issue is that there's folks repeatedly saying confidently that there's a patent issue. Which I initially thought was real, and genuinely asked thinking they'd share terrible tales of misbehavior and patent evil committed by the accused company. Over time (more than a year) of this repetition trying to get answers, it seems pretty clear to me that it is not real and is just based on people who have no display industry experience or even a basic understanding of electrophoretic materials just saying 'it should be better than this by now, so the problem must be the company that produces the product'. They often have a Dunning Kruger level of confidence in making their claims. Examples:
"It is indeed a complex patent and licensing issue."
"there were a bunch of patents in the way."
" Imagine where electronic ink displays could be today if E Ink wasn't such a terrible steward of the initial technology."
Not even one of the posters cared to defend their claim when I asked for just a bit of clarification about what they were basing their claim on.
> you have interrogated any poster who was ever mentioned patent problems, and demanded that they provide you with sources. It is not clear why they are required to do that.
OP made a claim. I asked for basic evidence. If that's interrogation, then sure. Are they required to do that? Not really. But it would certainly help convincing me. As it stands, it sounds like bullshit to me. It is the equivalent of saying IBM patents are holding back the software industry. Which patent, you ask? Oh, all of them. That's the answer you're giving.
To be fair, they're not wrong - the patents on e-ink really are holding the technology back while preventing affordable access to anything but the lowest specification implementations.
The justification for long running technology and drug patents is often given but it only furthers to promote aggressive capitalism and any opportunity for reasonable reform is quashed.
> the patents on e-ink really are holding the technology back while preventing affordable access
Once again. Which patent? Which technology? All of them? I'm left convinced that you're not basing your claim on evidence, but instead just on 'feelings'.
> That is quite a jumble of overlapping / inter-locking patents. The goal is to prevent competition using similar technology. It looks effective. And to answer your next question, no I'm not in the display industry,
So you're not in the display industry, and yet you claim there's overlapping /inter-locking patents. Please tell the rest of us a bit more. What's inter-locking about them? So if I did: patents/search=ibm or search=microsoft does that also meet your claim? So let me guess, you believe IBM is blocking progress in the software industry?
You seem to be unaware of your communication style. It would work better if you took some time to work out why your comments come across as hostile and unproductive.
So tell me, how long have you been in the patent-lawyer industry?
See, that does not come across as a good faith attempt to communicate. It is similar to your posting style throughout this thread. Instead of interrogating people and demanding replies, how about you read the patents and explain if you think they are overlapping / inter-locking or not. Out of interest, which company in the display industry do you work for?
You made a claim that patents are blocking progress in the display industry. When I asked you for evidence of that, you've become hostile and turned the thread into an unproductive interaction. That's my genuine observation of this thread.
Here we find ourselves again, still without any answer about which patents and what the actual issue is. If you're attempting to initiate a thread about 'communication style' then I'll respectfully wait until we get some concrete answers to the original patent question. Thank you.
You're clearly mischaracterizing my post history to push your narrative instead of providing useful data for this discussion. Your communication style is abrasive enough to make me stop responding to you. Thank you.
From my perspective, this looks like an unfortunate misunderstanding - you both have good things to say, and somehow got caught in a snag. This is all too easy to do on the internet.
The cure is to be 10x more generous in your interpretation of the other person. People come from very different backgrounds and are therefore working with very different mental models, concepts, data, and so on. Differences in perspective too easily turn into judgments and even condemnations of the other person and that's what we're trying to avoid here, so we can keep having curious conversation with each other.
Your post history is public and people can judge for themselves if your account is pushing this single issue. I'll be popping up whenever I see you post to remind people that you don't want to say where you work in the display industry. Again, people can make their own judgements about that.
From my perspective, this looks like an unfortunate misunderstanding - you both have good things to say, and somehow got caught in a snag. This is all too easy to do on the internet.
The cure is to be 10x more generous in your interpretation of the other person. People come from very different backgrounds and are therefore working with very different mental models, concepts, data, and so on. Differences in perspective too easily turn into judgments and even condemnations of the other person and that's what we're trying to avoid here, so we can keep having curious conversation with each other.
Actually, if you removed the backlight of the LCD, you'd find the LCD does become worse in darkness, but then performs significantly better in sunlight. Think classic Game Boy.
This fact is the basis of transflective LCDs, which can work both in sunlight as well as in darkness conditions, and have improved up to the point they compete in contrast with e-Ink panels.
"significantly better in the sunlight" is not how I'd describe any pre-backlight Gameboys, honestly (including the original). The levels of light in which you could usefully play them were a very narrow band that I would describe as "lots of ambient light but no direct light at all". Hell even most of the front lights you could mount on a Gameboy created unviewable hotspots of light around the edges.
eInk has a much much wider range of workable light levels than any lcd I've used, with or without a backlight. The recent trend away from diffusion layers on lcd glass has also made it a lot worse.
People aren't willing to pay to emerging technology. You can easily buy a 25 inch eink black and white screen for around two years now. Every time I've seen it posted here it's someone asking why it doesn't cost $100.
Mean while I'm very happy with the $4k I spent to get one of the first models they build.
I know this question has been probably been asked many times, but I'll ask again: why are these devices not mass-produced in great numbers? Clearly there is great market demand for it, so then why would the market supply not respond to this demand? Is it because the technology has some oddities that manifest in tricky manufacturing processes? Or is it some patent encumbrance issue?