[HN Gopher] Turning an eInk screen into a monochrome art gallery
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       Turning an eInk screen into a monochrome art gallery
        
       Author : edent
       Score  : 39 points
       Date   : 2021-09-26 12:08 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
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 (TXT) w3m dump (shkspr.mobi)
        
       | whartung wrote:
       | So, a curiosity.
       | 
       | Could you have, literally, a gallery of eInk art, where all of
       | the panels have no power. Aren't even plugged in. Someone grabbed
       | a bunch of displays, plugged them in to a machine, rendered the
       | picture, yanked them out and framed them and stuck them on the
       | wall.
       | 
       | Will they last? As I understand it eInk is a "no power" display.
       | Could this be done?
        
         | easton wrote:
         | If I'm not mistaken, this is how Best Buy does their price tags
         | now. They have eInk (or, eInk looking) displays on the end of
         | racks that can be changed out with power but otherwise seem to
         | work quite well.
        
         | atatatat wrote:
         | Is this not NFTs?
        
         | edent wrote:
         | Yes. In fact, my display goes to sleep between refreshes and
         | can last a really long time using no power.
         | 
         | However, with the Nook I'm using, the Android subsysyem
         | eventually realises it is out of power and will displau a
         | static "charge me" screen.
         | 
         | If you built your own device, you could detatch the screen from
         | the power and the image would stay on.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | kadoban wrote:
         | Sure. I have a couple eink devices, if they're not powered they
         | just keep whatever image they had.
         | 
         | They're not exactly the best possible displays for all art
         | though. The "whites" aren't all that white is the biggest
         | problem. It's perfect for a book, and I even really like it for
         | comics, but it's probably a bit limiting for art.
         | 
         | That's not even mentioning that the good ones are only
         | grayscale. Color ones exist, but the colors look _badly_ washed
         | out.
         | 
         | They're also pretty small and/or expensive.
         | 
         | Basically you'd be better off in every way with just a printer,
         | any kind of printer.
        
         | tartoran wrote:
         | A printer would be a cheaper solution
        
           | mdp2021 wrote:
           | > _A printer would be a cheaper solution_
           | 
           | Only if you do not plan to change the visualized contents
           | frequently.
        
             | kwhitefoot wrote:
             | A cheap black and white laser produces pictures at least as
             | good as most e-ink devices and in higher resolution. A
             | toner cartridge for my Canon costs about 100 USD and will
             | print 2000 sheets. 2000 sheets of A4 cost about 30 USD.
             | 
             | An e-ink display that size costs 100s of USD so I can
             | afford to reprint the picture thousands of times before I
             | hit the cost of the e-ink display.
             | 
             | And anyway, art galleries do not change the content
             | frequently so they could afford to use a higher quality
             | printer and higher quality paper.
        
         | mdp2021 wrote:
         | ...And you will probably be intrigued to know about the
         | "Advanced Color e-Paper (ACeP)" technology, which uses actual
         | multiple pigments inside each dot.
         | 
         | It currently has low pixel density, it is very costly, the
         | update may be very slow (in some models it takes over 8 seconds
         | to change the states of its dots), and it should be using
         | trichromy instead of quadrichromy (the declared total colours
         | amount to 4096, which suggests 16^3, where 16 is the number of
         | states in the traditional B/W E-Ink displays). The actual real
         | visual effect "in presence" is to be seen - the ability to have
         | big sized changeable printouts is there.
         | 
         | ACeP display, 31.2'', 1280x720 (50ppi) at 2300$:
         | https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-color-epaper-di...
        
         | mdp2021 wrote:
         | > _As I understand it eInk is a "no power" display_
         | 
         | The term is 'bistable': once the state is changed, no energy
         | expense is needed to keep it. To change the state, a relatively
         | considerable amount of energy is needed.
         | 
         | > _Will they last_
         | 
         | You have turned the stone, the white side facing up: it will
         | last.
         | 
         | > _Could you have, literally, a gallery_
         | 
         | Yes, as the EPD dots are changed to the desired states, the
         | displays are like physical content for picture frames, "you
         | could hang them on the walls".
        
       | radley wrote:
       | FWIW, there are companies already doing this:
       | 
       | https://getjoan.com/
       | 
       | https://www.ionnyk.com/
       | 
       | https://www.eink.com/architecture.html
        
       | LegitShady wrote:
       | They've mistaken a 'digital picture frame' for an art gallery.
        
         | tartoran wrote:
         | Perhaps the audience would be interested in the frames
         | themselves and ignore the actual content
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | Ultimately, maybe the audience would be interested in
           | becoming framed themselves instead, and ignore the actual
           | outside content.
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-26 23:01 UTC)