[HN Gopher] E Ink's color ePaper tech gets supersized for outdoo...
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E Ink's color ePaper tech gets supersized for outdoor displays
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 168 points
Date : 2025-02-11 16:01 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (newatlas.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newatlas.com)
| jackgavigan wrote:
| There are also plans to use E Ink's technology for digital art:
| https://inkposter.com/
| geodel wrote:
| Priced between $600-$2000. It can be themed for particular
| occasions, great for places like corporate offices, hotels
| which already spend quite a bit to look chic.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Why art, I want to put photos on it that swap out every so
| often.
| jsheard wrote:
| Is the image fidelity really good enough for that? I thought
| color e-ink had pretty limited bit-depth and gamut.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It's not. They have 4k colors available. Good enough for an
| eink reader, not good enough for art display.
| hapidjus wrote:
| Not all art would work but you could definitely find works
| that could work within the constraints.
| jeffbee wrote:
| You could commission works that exploit the medium.
| rbanffy wrote:
| This sounds like the answer. Retro-looking CGI will be
| right at home on a canvas like that.
| sho_hn wrote:
| The Kaleido panels features in this article indeed do 4096
| colors, but the Spectra 6 panels also from E-ink can be a
| bit more - they mix particles of 6 different primary
| colors, and with some advanced dithering in place you can
| get pretty impressive results that really look quite
| pleasing.
|
| Still, there's a lot of details to consider and trade-ofs
| to make wrt/ content, and Spectra refresh is also dead-
| slow.
|
| Perhaps to their credit, E-Ink isn't even trying to hide
| the refresh in their marketing material:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr_EQaqTK0M (second half
| has a lot of examples of poster-sized Spectra 6 and Spectra
| 3100 panels).
| nashashmi wrote:
| The price point is too painful for home use unless you place
| your frame high above inaccessible without ladders.
|
| It should be used for billboard advertising. You don't even
| need that many PPI pixels per square inch because of how high
| above it is, and it would save ginormous bucks on printing
| canvases and technicians changing the ad. Not to mention, timed
| advertising.
| hansonkd wrote:
| > The price point is too painful for home use unless you
| place your frame high above inaccessible without ladders.
|
| When i read this comment i had to go look at the product
| because i was expecting 10-20k. Looks very reasonable to me.
| The most expensive is only $2500? and the cheapest only $600?
| Seems super inline with what I would expect to pay for art.
| jolmg wrote:
| You're not paying for art. You're paying for paper you can
| later display art on.
|
| Also, with e.g. an oil painting on canvas, the cost of
| producing that is the time of the artist to paint it by
| hand. I don't think 10-20K is anywhere reasonable for e.g.
| a mass-produced inkjet-printed thing. Likewise 10-20K for a
| PNG file would be even more insane.
| bitdivision wrote:
| The displays seem to be available for around $250
|
| https://www.waveshare.com/product/13.3inch-e-paper-hat-
| plus-...
| mariusandra wrote:
| $250 is just part of the price.
|
| I just went through the process and made this for myself: h
| ttps://www.printables.com/model/1189455-waveshare-133e-6-co
| ...
|
| The total price was around $420. This includes shipping,
| taxes (to Belgium), a pi zero w2, a sd card, and printing a
| case.
| bitdivision wrote:
| It's never as cheap as you think is it! I think
| fortunately I have most of the other bits lying around.
| Was planning on putting it in a wooden frame with a
| matte.
|
| Are you happy with the quality?
| mariusandra wrote:
| Can't really complain cause there's nothing better right
| now.
|
| Compared to the previous gen e-ink (7-color ACeP), the
| contrast and the colors are so much better. I also have a
| bunch of 3-color (black/white/red) panels - video and
| more pictures on https://frameos.net/ ) - and the
| contrast is similar, but the colors are obviously
| limited.
|
| So yeah, I'm definitely happy.
| TriangleEdge wrote:
| I'd like a smaller one in my home that I could interact with
| programmatically. Something that could hold weather forecasts,
| family calendar events, reminders, pictures, etc. I like the
| matte look of e-ink.
| chainwax wrote:
| https://usetrmnl.com/
|
| This was recently shared here on HN:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42137513
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| I own 5 of them and love them!
| m463 wrote:
| Can you point these at your own server instead of theirs?
| jwithington wrote:
| Yes https://docs.usetrmnl.com/go/diy/byos
| sho_hn wrote:
| Here's the one I built for my home:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/NoTr8XX
|
| This is still a black and white panel, but it's not that
| different with the color ones. Feel free to reach out if you
| have questions.
| generj wrote:
| How was your battery life performance?
|
| I've been (slowly) working on a similar project and it's been
| easy to get it running on my desk hooked into power but much
| more difficult to elegantly frame the panel that can just
| live on a wall.
| sho_hn wrote:
| I ended up replacing the battery with a larger one than the
| one pictured in the end, a 3100 (ed: hang on, was it maybe
| 3500 even?) mAh Samsung 18650 cell. I also switched the
| voltage reg to a more efficient chip. I now get about 9-10
| months on a charge (with one daily refresh over wifi) in
| practice. At those durations battery Li-Ion self-discharge
| is actually a big factor sadly so a lot of those mAh fade
| into the ether. :)
| blkhawk wrote:
| I made my own version of this and I am seeing a lot of
| interesting choices so I am intrigued. The lack of
| soldering means you probably don't do that normally.
|
| I find it wild that you used a dev board because the LDOs
| on them are most of the time very bad and you do seem to
| use 5V instead of bypassing that. The type you get
| normally uses 1mA just sitting idle.
|
| Why did you use an external RTC instead of just soldering
| a 32.768khz crystal to the esp32? Okay if my assumption
| above is correct that answers that. but the external
| wakeup has no real advantage in power draw.
|
| The relay eats some current and a mosfet in its place
| would probably be better. I assume you added it because
| the e-ink hat has no proper shutdown. From the looks of
| it you can just bypass the BUCK converter on it so just
| run it off 3.3-3.6v. There is a smaller BOOST converter
| in there that might still waste power so the mosfet might
| still be needed. This beings me to my next point:
|
| you can completely do away with the DCDC boost converter
| by using a LiFEPO4 battery. All you need extra is monitor
| the voltage and have your display warn once it falls
| below 3V.
|
| Anyway 9-10 months is remarkable for the LEGO approach.
| sho_hn wrote:
| > but the external wakeup has no real advantage in power
| draw.
|
| This particular external RTC has very low power draw, and
| it allows me to put the esp32 into a deeper sleep state
| and turn off the entire RTC and RTC memory mini-MCU in
| the entire esp32. It does make a difference.
|
| > I assume you added it because the e-ink hat has no
| proper shutdown. From the looks of it you can just bypass
| the BUCK converter on it so just run it off 3.3-3.6v.
| There is a smaller BOOST converter in there that might
| still waste power so the mosfet might still be n
|
| Aye, the controller board isn't designed for a battery-
| based application and has an idiotically high idle power
| draw, even not taking the always-on power LED into
| account I could have taken out, so I'm only powering it
| up to do the update.
|
| And yeah, I'm sure a MOSFET would do this fine.
|
| > Anyway 9-10 months is remarkable for the LEGO approach.
|
| The LEGO approach is partly because I kept shifting the
| goal posts - originally I wanted to forego controller
| board entirely, and directly drive the e-ink waveforms
| from the MCU with the help of an op-amp (there's some
| prior art and reverse engineering available for this).
| This is partially why I picked a dev board with a big
| external PSRAM for a trial run. The controller board has
| its own SPI memory to hold the large framebuffer, but I
| was originally going to park this with the esp32 and have
| the lob of memory hooked up there :-)
|
| My other plan was actually ordering a custom PCB that has
| it all in one place (this is the main reason why I didn't
| bother to solder anything to a perf board).
|
| But then I had a little daughter and plans changed, so I
| shipped the mockup to production. Since it's holding up
| pretty well I'm quite happy with how it turned out
| anyway, but I absolutely agree a cleaned-up "v1.0" of
| this thing would be really nice to do at some point.
|
| Also, do note that I'm mainly a software engineer and
| have no formal training or background in EE, so partly I
| do these as little hobbyist learning projects and to do
| something with my hands. If your day consists of Alt-
| Tabbing between your EDA and your Mouser/Digikey order
| tracking I'm sure you'd approach this very differently
| and iterate it much more on the screen first :)
| StevenNunez wrote:
| This is so cool! I always dream of doing this but don't know
| where to start. Even using old LCDs for new and interesting
| form factors would be a dream. Nice work on this!
| sho_hn wrote:
| Thanks! The main difficulty & goal with this one was
| reducing the power consumption to the absolute minimum,
| which meant putting some effort into component choices and
| I also ended up writing the display controller driver
| myself.
|
| But if you just want to get going, you don't really need to
| go through that sort of trouble. You can just buy a panel +
| controller board via a retailer like e.g. Waveshare, and
| hook them up to a computer. Quite a few of these controller
| boards even have HDMI input, or come with SDK code for e.g.
| Raspberry Pi if they use SPI over GPIO. You can tinker
| quite a bit without things getting more challenging, and if
| you can arrange for wired power you may not really need to
| optimize anything.
| fosh wrote:
| This is so polished! Have you shared the latex / other bits
| anywhere ?
| brian-armstrong wrote:
| There's Visionect if you want to go large enough to see on the
| wall at a glance (32")
|
| https://www.visionect.com/shop/place-play-32/
| xienze wrote:
| Perhaps a requirement left unsaid by OP, but something
| reasonably priced. $2500 is a bit rich for what it would be
| used for.
| brian-armstrong wrote:
| $2500 isn't too far off of the BOM for epaper this large,
| plus some markup for the assembler. Even if you bought this
| as a bare panel and a battery on Alibaba, you're not going
| to do better than $1500 or so. At current date that's just
| what it costs
| grogenaut wrote:
| it's just absurdly priced though when you compare with a 80"+
| tv, I get it, its different lower volume tech, but chicken
| and egg.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Indeed. This is the issue with these panels. They tend to
| be prohibitively expensive. Worth for signage because
| labour costs will dominate in the long run. I suspect this
| is what dictates the panel prices.
| jwithington wrote:
| Trmnl was referenced but also this one
| https://learn.pimoroni.com/article/getting-started-with-badg...
| bitdivision wrote:
| https://www.waveshare.com/product/13.3inch-e-paper-hat-plus-...
|
| The spectra color displays seem to be available cheaper than I
| expected ($250). Note that the refresh cycle is really long on
| these though.
|
| I'm now tempted to put something together.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| Could the folks at E Ink not afford a stock photo of a mall to
| Photoshop their product into for their press release? That first
| image looks like a fever dream.
| stevewodil wrote:
| What is the issue?
| 1317 wrote:
| i didn't notice it at first either
|
| look at the names of the shops
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Look at the name of the shop on the left. It's an AI stable-
| diffusion type image. Look at the person standing on the
| right in the background who sort of has two heads? The top
| right the upper walkway has a blue glass wall which also
| waterfalls into the white wall.
|
| The shop on the left, where is that dress? Inside or outside?
| The window to the left of the dress with the white rectangle
| outline is in front of the dress at the top of the picture
| and behind it at the bottom of the picture.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It looks like it was AI generated, which makes us question if
| the product is also AI generated and doesn't really exist.
| I'm sure this is just bad advertising, they didn't take a
| shortcut with the product but they took a shortcut in
| showcasing the product, to the detriment of people actually
| believing if this is a real product.
| grayhatter wrote:
| if you ignore the dystopian hellscape that this comment is
| about to glorify... this does seem like the ideal (commercial)
| use case for AI imagery. The first being because I was only
| interested in the color gamut or fidelity of the eink, I
| completely filtered out the atrocity that is that AI generated
| mall... The AI generation they used is very well trained to
| produce images that, with only an instantaneous glance has no
| artifacts that immediately jump out as out of place. I'd
| describe it as a background blur you're less likely to notice.
| The caveat being a blur would be completely unremarkable, while
| this background is... unfortunate... fever dream does seem
| quite apt.
| glitchc wrote:
| Agreed. More importantly, it's hard to believe that the
| relative contrast difference matches real-world use. They would
| have been much better off taking a proper photograph.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Note that if you view the gallery, the 2nd and 3rd photos are
| real-world photos from industry expos.
|
| If the Kaleido 3 Outdoor is similar to how the Gallery 3
| panels work, image refreshes are very slow compared to the
| standard Kaleido 3 panels (which can't do vivid colors): on
| the order of seconds. This is acceptable for displays that
| change every few minutes or hours, but would be unusable
| handheld devices.
|
| It's interesting that they've chosen to continue the Kaleido
| lineage rather than make a stronger push for Gallery.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| You wouldn't catch it if that lettering on that store looked
| fine.
| xattt wrote:
| You don't shop at CBIIAHO?
| atulvi wrote:
| All I want is a Guernica sized borderless home art display.
| rbanffy wrote:
| E-wallpaper you can lay out modularly sounds like an amazing
| use case. Tiling edges would need patterned
| conducting/insulation adhesives but with some clever protocol
| negotiation each wallpaper tile can self-identify and display
| the pixels assigned to it. With some printed antennas it can be
| powered via RF for changing the image and then left unpowered.
| m463 wrote:
| > Dimensions 349.3 cm x 776.5 cm (137.4 in x 305.5 in)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)
|
| interesting!
| chainwax wrote:
| I personally love this. I have a pretty strong distaste for
| bright screens everywhere and rather like the look of e-ink
| screens. I'd love a future where we move away from putting up LCD
| panels on every surface we can advertise on.
| sho_hn wrote:
| I think seeing more public spaces shift away from emissive
| displays and putting more emphasis on quality lighting again
| would definitely be interesting.
|
| What mainly limits the applications for this tech is that full-
| color refresh is very slow and very ugly, so it prefers static
| content. For public spaces this could mean a greater emphasis
| on graphic design quality as well, since you'd probably only
| want to refresh out of sight of customers, e.g. outside of
| business hours.
|
| The problem is that puts it into a pretty narrow band of
| application of displaying information that only changes
| infrequently, but often enough to offset the high cost of the
| panels vs. just having someone put up a new print. Overall my
| gut feeling is that the economics just aren't quite there yet
| without some more effort put into changing the equation.
|
| For examle - I think that E-Ink should actually kind of try
| making the refresh experience have its own aesthetic. Right now
| the refresh on the Spectra panels looks like the panel is
| having a seizure. If they could make it look cool (e.g. doing
| it a fancy geometric pattern or something), it might make it OK
| to refresh while being seen.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > information that only changes infrequently, but often
| enough to offset the high cost of the panels vs. just having
| someone put up a new print
|
| Bus advertising. According to people I worked with back in
| 2010 that were working on LED panels for buses[0], changing
| the vinyl advertising on a London bus took something like 3
| days. Which is a long time for a bus to be out of service.
|
| An e-ink panel is a great solution - lightweight, zero power
| use until it needs changing, and the refresh rate doesn't
| really matter.
|
| [0] Didn't succeed because LED panels at the time were big,
| low-res, bulky, and extremely power hungry.
| michpoch wrote:
| > changing the vinyl advertising on a London bus took
| something like 3 days
|
| That sounds like wrapping a whole bus with an ad. Hardly
| something an LED or e-ink display could replace.
| toast0 wrote:
| There's a mix, a quick search took me to
| https://londonbusadvertising.com/ which shows wraps,
| which aren't going to be replaced with a display. But
| also rectangle panels which could be replaced with
| displays.
|
| Those panels might very well be vinyl for outdoor
| durability, but I don't see why they'd take 3 days to
| swap out, unless it's a scheduling/transport issue, for
| example a bus operator needs to drop off day before, so
| the ad company doesn't have to schedule around when the
| drop off happens, and the bus operator picks up the bus
| the day after, because they don't want to schedule around
| when the ad company finishes; now your one hour swap is a
| multi-day production.
|
| A full wrap, could be a 3 day process though.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Not one, but it can be covered in screens. This has been
| demoed in cars for some time now.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > That sounds like wrapping a whole bus with an ad.
|
| They were talking about the standard landscape side
| panels. Didn't make much sense to me either but that was
| why the bus companies were throwing money at them to get
| LED panels working (aside from the financial bonus of
| being able to book multiple ads for the same bus, obvs.)
|
| (As an example of how efficient TFL's advertising
| swapping was - there was a poster at Deptford Bridge DLR
| advertising a Gorky exhibition in 2010 that wasn't
| changed until late 2017/early 2018. And all that involved
| was opening the street-level case to put in a new
| poster!)
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I'd love this to be banned. Not only is it a visual
| eyesore form the street, it devalues public transport's
| brand, and in many cases it makes it hard for people
| inside the vehicle to see where they are.
| guappa wrote:
| In copenhagen all the internal screens show ads instead
| of the next stop.
|
| It's very useful to get lost.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I love our buses in Krakow, Poland. They mostly don't
| carry any advertising on the outside, but when they do,
| it's advertising the fact that the bus is fully electric,
| zero-emissions, and part of the new all-electric fleet.
| It's low-key, aesthetic, and basically advertising public
| money being well-spent on improving QoL for citizens.
|
| (I may be wired weird; I'm also happy when I see signs on
| stuff saying it's been financed by Local Program X,
| Subprogram Y, with support from EU Program A, Subprogram
| B, Function C, blahblah. Unfortunately not everyone cares
| to make those look aesthetically, given that the
| information is only placed because it's a condition of
| the grant, but it usually looks OK and IMHO sends a
| positive message.)
|
| EDIT:
|
| Trams here have been seen carrying exterior ads for
| private businesses every now and then, less so now than
| in the past; these days, it's mostly either default
| coloration or some temporary "this train is new and
| awesome" ad.
|
| Bus stops, however, are another matter.
|
| As for internal screens, sometimes ads find their way
| onto the "bus TV" and "tram TV" displays. Most of the
| time, it's a mix of tourist trivia, air quality report,
| PSAs (safety warnings, transit etiquette), and transit
| org's own ads (showing off new eco-friendly fleet, job
| ads). There's a separate set of screens that show a map
| (OSM!) and the route with upcoming stop markers, but
| unfortunately, half the time they're broken - either the
| map or route indicator is frozen, or they get desynced
| from each other, or reality. Voice announcements seem to
| be a separate system and are usually reliable, though
| every now and then they desync from reality too.
|
| I sometimes wonder who's maintaining this and if they'll
| take a volunteer (or part-time contractor) to help them
| keep the indicators working.
| nottorp wrote:
| > I may be wired weird; I'm also happy when I see signs
| on stuff saying it's been financed by Local Program X,
| Subprogram Y, with support from EU Program A, Subprogram
| B, Function C, blahblah.
|
| Do they also carry the name of the local politician who
| runs the program? That should raise some eyebrows...
| m463 wrote:
| wonder if temperature and durability will be issues on the
| side of a bus...
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > wonder if temperature and durability will be issues on
| the side of a bus...
|
| They were in 2010 with the panels we had running in New
| York. I think at any one time, >50% were off the road
| with issues (dirt, vibration[0], temperature, power
| supplies, etc.)
|
| [0] e.g. the CF cards holding the OS would eventually
| just work themselves out of their slots.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Bus advertising._
|
| If what I see on busses around here (York, UK, and
| occasionally other cities) is anything to go by, bus-side
| advertising is dying on its arse. Most of the busses I see
| are carrying adverts for sales that ended months ago of
| films "in cinemas now!" that stopped playing on the big
| screen a year or more ago. If bus-side adverting were in a
| healthy state I'd have thought new content would have
| replaced those long ago.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _full-color refresh is very slow and very ugly_
|
| Non-problem in my view. Today's 'ugliness' is tomorrow's
| nostalgia.
| achow wrote:
| > _..that puts it into a pretty narrow band of application of
| displaying information that only changes infrequently_
|
| On the contrary I would imagine that 99% of information
| displayed in outdoors is static in nature and does not need
| something in the range of 24fps.
|
| After all once upon a time 100% of the world's outdoor
| displays were static, and things were fine. Time Square
| should not be a benchmark.
| Animats wrote:
| > I think seeing more public spaces shift away from emissive
| displays and putting more emphasis on quality lighting again
| would definitely be interesting.
|
| What's the point of running the display on a battery if you
| need power for the "quality lighting"?
| Karliss wrote:
| Considering that I see giant >50 inch vertical LCDs screens
| used as advertisement boards in bus stops and every 100m
| along street. Same places that previously had rolling
| advertisement lightboxes swapping between printed ads every
| couple of minutes. So i would say there are quite a few
| places where ads are already past the point and the cost
| analysis isn't E-ink vs printed poster or rollup lightbox,
| it's E-ink vs >50 inch LCDs.
|
| Browsed aliba and price difference between those rollup
| lightboxes vs similar size outdoor LCD advertisements wasn't
| that big ~$200-$400 for lighbox and maybe $400-1000. Wouldn't
| be surprised if advertisement companies can also ask more
| money for ads on digital screens compared to printed ones.
| Payoff period might be shorter than you think. But it would
| be nice to hear from someone in business who knows more
| accurate numbers.
|
| As for refresh ugliness in case of advertisements it might be
| considered a feature even without fancy effects -> blinking
| attracts attention. And once you unavoidably turn your head
| to take a look at what's blinking in the corner of your eye
| the add has already changed. As long as it isn't too frequent
| maybe once every 3-5 minutes it will probably be considered
| acceptable. The giant LCDs with annoying videos area already
| sufficiently big eyesore.
| Lutger wrote:
| Movement is as much a visual pollution as light is. I find it
| very, very distracting. That is perhaps a cognitive defect on
| my part. The fact that e-ink screens will be relatively
| static is only a good thing in my book.
|
| Another complication might be that e-ink by itself is not
| visible in the dark, though it isn't a problem to add lights.
| However, that could again be a benefit.
|
| Personally I would love a ban on ALL advertisement in public
| spaces, even print. Some brave politicians have done it on a
| city level, and the citizens just love it. Banning moving
| images and lights for advertisement would be a compromise,
| e-ink screens could then still be allowed.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Movement is as much a visual pollution as light is._
|
| I find more so, especially when it happens in my peripheral
| vision. It can be irritating enough for me walking past
| overly animated displays in shops, I bet it could be
| dangerously distracting for some drivers (who aren't always
| giving as much attention to the road ahead as they should
| be anyway) going past street or shop window signs.
|
| _> though it isn 't a problem to add lights._
|
| Does backlighting eink work? I think all the hand-held
| displays I've experienced have been lit from the sides.
| That is probably practical though: the old posters-on-a-
| roll setups seen in highstreets were often lit that way and
| with modern bulbs it wouldn't consume as much power these
| days.
|
| _> Banning moving images ... e-ink screens could then
| still be allowed._
|
| I would be wary of that loophole. I've seen some impressive
| displays of quick refresh rates for e-ink, so playing
| distracting video content would be perfectly possible
| assuming those techniques scale to this size, and if
| advertisers can do it they will whether it is good for
| anyone else or not.
| jfim wrote:
| It's not only you. Movement in general is a preattentive
| feature, meaning that it gets processed subconsciously and
| appears to "pop out" in an image.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| > I find it very, very distracting.
|
| The human brain has cognitive subsystems devoted to
| detecting motion that seems non-random, that is, that seems
| to move with deliberate purpose contrary to other motions
| like leaves or ripples. It's important for predation on
| both sides--for the predator or the prey.
|
| That's also exactly why advertisers love it and will
| continue using it. They will buy any politicians who look
| likely to ban moving images or lights.
| echelon wrote:
| > I personally love this.
|
| The tech is awesome, but the E-Ink company is holding it back.
|
| We would have had large and cost effective displays well over a
| decade ago if E-Ink (the company) didn't patent patrol the
| technology. It's impossible to do anything in this space
| without touching their patents, and so independent of their
| direct involvement and licensing, there's no third party
| innovation or competition happening.
|
| These displays have had so much promise, but they've taken
| decades to evolve into diverse shapes and sizes. And they still
| cost an arm and a leg relative to other display technologies.
|
| Other commentary:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26173409
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Why is this _always_ repeated? Where are these patents? Where
| are the examples of eInk going against their competition???
| Because you have a _myriad_ eink-like technologies from many
| other companies, most of them literally better than eink,
| that were available but were abandoned after they failed in
| the market.
|
| One example I particularly liked is Mirasol, who was
| abandoned despite being owned by Qualcomm out of all
| companies (HIGHLY unlikely to be scared by a patent troll,
| considering Qualcomm could be arguably described as a patent
| troll themselves).
|
| It's simply ridiculous to think that eInk would torpedo their
| own technology out of incompetence/malice/whatever yet these
| ideas keep being parroted here without _any evidence
| whatsoever_ as if it was gospel from the gods.
|
| The real reason, of course, is that this technology is hard
| (plain physics), and that there's little investment because
| most consumers could not care less. The supposed advantages
| of eink are paper-thin at best (contrast sucks and keeps
| getting _worse_ after each generation, and that is without
| taking into account the color ones), customers have a hard
| time distinguishing it from other technologies such as
| reflective/memory LCDs (which practically beat them in every
| metric you can think of, even power usage -- except for long
| enough periods of idleness which are not of interest to any
| consumer), and at the end of the day most people will choose
| a backlighted LCD over all these alternatives anyway...
|
| See Garmin, which started with reflective LCD watches for
| outdoor usage, and the moment they experimented with a plain
| old fugly backlighted LCD they decided to replace most of
| their series, _even the ones for primarily outdoor usage_,
| with backlighted LCDs (e.g. Fenix 8). Customers just buy
| shiny flashy screens more, what can you do about that?
|
| eInk survives because they're actually one of the cheaper
| techs, which is the only reason talking about "billboards" is
| even remotely plausible, and even then they're having a hard
| time.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| There's a lot wrong in this comment.
|
| Eink B&W screen contrast has been improving dramatically
| with every generation, but there was a significant backward
| step in the jump to color eink screens (due to how the
| current Kaleido technology works). The Gallery technology
| does not suffer this lack of contrast, but the trade-off is
| that screen refresh times are slower than 1st generation
| e-ink panels.
|
| Garmin still uses reflective LCDs, even on the Fenix 8. The
| AMOLED is a separate SKU.
|
| Eink is superior to transflective LCDs in terms of power
| use as it only needs to be refreshed when content changes;
| an LCD must be refreshed multiple times per second. Only
| bistable LCDs can display an image without power but this
| comes at the cost of resolution and contrast.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > Eink B&W screen contrast has been improving
| dramatically with every generation,
|
| No: https://blog.the-ebook-
| reader.com/2021/01/20/contrast-on-e-i...
|
| Ever since Carta it has been stuck at 15:1 and it is
| trivial to see that e.g. Remarkable has better contrast
| than the newer (B&W) Kobos.
|
| As I said, this has _nothing_ to do with the color
| screens where the contrast is even further reduced,
| _even_ in Gallery (by eink's own specsheet, as well as by
| plain observation on a newer remarkable color).
|
| > Garmin still uses reflective LCDs, even on the Fenix 8.
| The AMOLED is a separate SKU.
|
| No. The _reflective LCD_ one is the one which has become
| the different SKU (it is now called the 'solar'; the main
| series now all use backlight), and guess which new SKU is
| neither stocked nor displayed on stores. It used to be
| that "Epix" was the AMOLED version of the Fenix, but now
| it has replaced the mainstream Fenix. As a fan of the
| reflective LCD garmin watches (since the 1st generation
| Fenix), the writing is on the wall.
|
| > Eink is superior to transflective LCDs in terms of
| power use as it only needs to be refreshed when content
| changes; an LCD must be refreshed multiple times per
| second.
|
| However eInk requires _significantly more_ power when
| refreshing than an LCD, not to mention a more complex
| controller, while at the same time the power required for
| refresh by a memory LCD is practically negligible. So, as
| I said, unless your usecase involves the eink panel
| staying static for _days at a time_, LCD will win.
|
| And no customer really wants a screen that is only
| refresh once every week; it defies the point of a screen.
| I could even say the same of a "dynamic" billboard.
| There's a reason even price stickers at shops use LCDs.
|
| Is there nowadays at least some eink watch that can
| surpass the battery life of the reflective LCD Garmin
| watches? (measured in months even with at least one
| screen refresh per minute). Note that many "eink"
| smartwatches actually use memory LCD, and not a eink
| panel, behind the scenes. (e.g. Pebble). Furthering my
| "users cannot even distinguish eink from reflective LCD"
| argument.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _Ever since Carta it has been stuck at 15:1 and it is
| trivial to see that e.g. Remarkable has better contrast
| than the newer (B &W) Kobos._
|
| This is false. Carta is the B&W family of eink
| Panels...The most recent one (the Carta 1300) has
| significantly improved contrast over the 2021 era panel,
| the Carta 1000. It's trivial to see that, and nobody
| looking at the most recent Kobo B&W would claim that it
| has less contrast than a 2021-era device. The Remarkable
| 1 uses a custom co-developed version of the Canvas panel
| which has reduced the thickness of the touchscreen layers
| and other _layers above the eink panel_ , which is the
| primary cause of reduced contrast in e-ink devices
| (including the Remarkable 1). (Remarkable 2 uses a custom
| co-developed version of Gallery, which has greater
| contrast and amazing color but slower refresh times than
| Carta or Kaleido.) If you ever get your hands on the eink
| hardware itself, you would be amazed at how much contrast
| even the 1st gen panels have...and how much contrast you
| lose to all the layers that get added above the panels to
| make them durable and usable in handheld devices.
|
| _The _reflective LCD_ one is the one which has become
| the different SKU... and guess which new SKU is neither
| stocked nor displayed on stores._
|
| Both the AMOLED and the Solar Watch are separate SKUs
| with the display in the name. There is no "base" Fenix 8
| anymore. And on that note, the closest 5 Best Buys and
| REIs to me all stock both SKUs for immediate pickup.
|
| _So, as I said, unless your usecase involves the eink
| panel staying static for _days at a time_, plain old LCD
| will win by far._
|
| This is also false. There have been a number of
| transflective ereader devices on the market. They get
| worse battery life and have significantly worse contrast
| (without backlighting) than their eink counterparts.
| Seriously dude, if tranflective LCDs got better battery
| life and had competitive contrast to eink panels, do you
| really think that _every ereader company including
| Amazon_ would still be using eink panels over cheaper
| transflective LCD panels?
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > The most recent one (the Carta 1300) has significantly
| improved contrast over the 2021 era panel, the Carta
| 1000. It's trivial to see that, and nobody looking at the
| most recent Kobo B&W would claim that it has less
| contrast than a 2021-era device.
|
| Well, I have linked an article making such claim. But how
| much has Carta 1300 improved the contrast, exactly? eink
| has stopped publicizing the contrast ratio on the public
| specs, just the marking BS that says the contrast ratio
| is improved (over what?), so I'm fearing the worst. I bet
| you it's still 15:1 (as Carta was on 2013) on paper or
| rounding-error level close to that, which explains why
| most users would see contrast as becoming worse.
|
| > The Remarkable 1 uses a custom co-developed version of
| the Canvas panel [...] has reduced the thickness of the
| touchscreen layers and other layers above the eink pane
|
| This is marketing BS. No such thing as canvas panel. It's
| Carta.
|
| Also, RM1 has no other layers. Stylus input is wacom
| (below substrate) and there is no frontlight. On RM color
| pro they made stylus input capacitive AND added
| frontlight which may arguably have increased touchscreen
| layer thickness, leading to the perceived reduction in
| contrast. But ironically enough even eInk spec says
| Gallery has lower contrast than Carta (around 1:12 for
| Gallery 3), so no comparison is needed there.
| Unsurprisingly, all reviews say contrast has taken a hit.
|
| > you would be amazed at how much contrast even the 1st
| gen panels have
|
| The early panels were utter crap. There's a reason you
| couldn't not even put glass on top of them and things
| like "infrared touchscreens" were a thing on ancient
| e-readers (google for them, if you're curious). The
| improvements since ancient panels have been significant
| -- they used to have contrast ratios worse than 8:1, and
| Pearl and Carta raised that to 15:1. However, it is still
| ridiculous compared to contrast in most other screen
| technologies (even memory LCD can reach 20:1 https://www1
| .futureelectronics.com/doc/SHARP/LS013B7DH03.pdf). And
| has it improved at all in the last decade?
|
| Not blaming eInk: there is a physical limit to contrast
| for their tech.
|
| > Both the AMOLED and the Solar Watch are separate SKUs
| with the display in the name. There is no "base" Fenix 8
| anymore
|
| If you google, or if you click on the product, you or if
| you choose the cheapest one, or if you walk to a physical
| store... you will be offered the AMOLED one. It used to
| be that you had to go out of your way to get the AMOLED
| line. Now it's all in your face. I do not have product
| sales numbers but it's still rather obvious to me they're
| focusing on the AMOLED one.
|
| > Seriously dude, if tranflective LCDs got better battery
| life and had competitive contrast to eink panels, do you
| really think that every ereader company including Amazon
| would still be using eink panels over cheaper
| transflective LCD panels?
|
| Memory LCD panels are _not_ cheaper, and most definitely
| not at this size. I'm not even sure they are manufactured
| at such sizes, either.
|
| ebooks are the only thing that defies the overall trend,
| maybe because e-ink practically defines the product line;
| but they are becoming even more of a niche market -- most
| people seem to have no problem doing their reading on a
| backlighted LCD iPad.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Yeah, I mistyped with the Remarkable 1 display. I meant
| to say it's just a custom co-developed Carta panel that
| they were calling Canvas because it had significant
| proprietary changes from Remarkable.
|
| _even memory LCD can reach 20:1_
|
| For a screen 1.25" diagonal. Not competitive unless your
| ereader is dedicated to haikus. Carta 1000 was 15:1,
| Carta 1200 claimed a 20% improvement, and Carta 1300
| claimed another 15% improvement, which puts Carta 1300 at
| a 20:1 ratio, which is about right based on real-world
| reviews of the most recent Kobos. And this is for devices
| with 7 to 13 inch screens, not 1.25 inch screens. Kaleido
| adds a color layer on top, which reduces contrast in
| Kaleido devices. Gallery has higher contrast when using
| color (but you would be correct that when sticking to B&W
| only Gallery has lower contrast).
|
| _And has it improved at all in the last decade?_
|
| Yes, significantly. You have decided it does not and
| reject all evidence to the contrary.
|
| _If you google, or if you click on the product, you or
| if you choose the cheapest one, or if you walk to a
| physical store... you will be offered the AMOLED one._
|
| Definitely false. REI will try to sell you the Solar one
| (for obvious reasons). Best Buy will sell you whichever
| one you want, but will try to steer people toward cheaper
| watches like the Forerunner or Instinct that people are
| more likely to actually buy.
|
| _Memory LCD panels are _not_ cheaper, and most
| definitely not at this size. I 'm not even sure they are
| manufactured at such sizes, either._
|
| Alibaba says otherwise, and that's just a 5-second
| search. It appears that I can order 10 10-inch
| transflective displays for $200....which is about what it
| costs to acquire a single 10-inch Kaleido 3 screen. Or in
| other words, transflective screens are about 1/10th the
| cost of a comparably sized e-ink panel. Which brings us
| back to this: If transflective LCDs were actually
| superior to eInk panels for the e-reader use case, why is
| _every_ ereader company sticking to eink? Why is
| notoriously cost-conscious Amazon sticking to eInk, when
| transflective LCDs would be far cheaper to make at scale?
| (Hint: it 's because eInk is better for the ereader use
| case.)
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > For a screen 1.25" diagonal. Not competitive unless
| your ereader is dedicated to haikus.
|
| > Alibaba says otherwise, and that's just a 5-second
| search. It appears that I can order 10 10-inch
| transflective displays for $200....which is about what it
| costs to acquire a single 10-inch Kaleido 3 scree
|
| Do not confuse memory LCDs with generic reflective LCDs.
| Memory LCDs are the ones I mention as having lower power
| usage during refresh, as well as the ones I mention as
| having higher price than eInk, as well as the ones I
| mention as not even being available in larger sizes
| AFAIK.
|
| > Yes, significantly. You have decided it does not and
| reject all evidence to the contrary.
|
| What evidence? The only thing I have explicitly discarded
| is PR's "XX% improvement" messaging because it is
| imprecise and has been wrong in the past. For example,
| Gallery 3 contrast ratio is around 11.7:1 ( see Table1 of
| https://confit.atlas.jp/guide/event-
| img/idw2022/EP1-02/publi... ) , significantly worse than
| Carta . I cannot find a similar measurement for Carta
| 1300, so I am at a loss, and since the last published
| number is 1:15, and reviewers mention the new screens as
| being _worse_...
|
| > Definitely false. REI will try to sell you the Solar
| one (for obvious reasons). Best Buy will sell you
| whichever one you want, but will try to steer people
| toward cheaper watches like the Forerunner or Instinct
| that people are more likely to actually buy.
|
| Sigh... What point are you trying to make here? You do
| not agree that Garmin is pushing the AMOLED ones over the
| reflective LCD ones? Do you realize the Forerunner and
| the Instinct series are also AMOLED or getting replaced
| by AMOLED? You disagree that Garmin 's trend is clearly
| towards AMOLED? In that case, you should definitely go
| and extinguish a couple fires happening on the Garmin
| user communities...
|
| > Which brings us back to this: If transflective LCDs
| were actually superior to eInk panels for the e-reader
| use case, why is every ereader company sticking to eink?
|
| Because e-ink is cheaper! I have said it even on my
| original post: eink is the only one who survives because
| they're the cheapest one. Plus, I believe, because
| e-readers are anyway becoming a niche mostly tied to
| e-ink, and getting utterly displaced by, e.g., phones and
| tablets in the market.
| grishka wrote:
| Shouldn't the first of those patents start expiring soon?
| _blk wrote:
| I just have a strong distate for ads. Period.
|
| Except the funny cat ones.
| guappa wrote:
| I think not having ads at all might be a better situation.
| Beijinger wrote:
| Sao Paulo?
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| Consider whether advertising at all should be everywhere, not
| just the brightness of it.
|
| In Brazil, one town banned all advertising hoardings (back when
| they were just posters), and observed multiple changes in how
| people felt about the space, including the fact that they were
| hiding entire favelas ("shantytowns"), that many locals were
| not really aware of.[1]
|
| It's been a while since I subscribed to Adbusters magazine[2],
| but I do believe in their central premise that advertising,
| whether it be in public spaces or online, is harmful to mental
| health and society, because it perpetuates an unhealthy
| consumerism, and it distorts truth.
|
| So, I say, don't just make advertising a bit more subdued than
| an LCD (but not as sustainable as recyclable paper which was
| fine for a long old time): let's just get rid of it.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adbusters
| latexr wrote:
| Another one.
|
| https://archive.ph/2024.07.26-042606/https://www.bloomberg.c.
| ..
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| I agree with the idea, but I guess this is just one element
| of life I've accepted that we've lost as a society. I just
| don't have the energy for every fight. I knock on doors for
| civil rights, I put on outdoor gear to do wildlife population
| counts or invasive flora removal, I don't have the energy
| left for another cause.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| Sure, but it takes a village, and all that. If polling data
| shows voters resent advertising across their town, you'll
| find that becomes a key part of messaging and canvassing
| for votes, so just saying something might be enough.
|
| And we can work together: I don't have time to knock on
| doors for civil rights or go count lesser-spotted newts, so
| I'll thank you for what you're doing to make our society
| better, and I'll go do some lifting on this bit, 'k?
| taurknaut wrote:
| I'd love a future without advertisements.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| I had this idea , a long time ago , my thinking was that e inks
| don't actually require energy to store data , so effectively we
| could use e inks for advertisement and only change them when
| needed , effectively being the best of both worlds ie. less
| energy cost / carbon emissions and more cost effective / removing
| the labour aspect of removing / putting up bill boards
|
| Advertisements are a fundamental part for a company. Depending on
| the type of company , it would still make sense for bill boards
| to be put out.
|
| Hot take , but advertising onlines are a threat to security
| unlike bill boards , most online ads actively try to promote
| malware simply because of how easy it is to create an ad (google
| ads , more like yeh you can promote your spyware for homebrew by
| paying us a buck or two from the money you scam by your infoware)
|
| I also don't like ads , simply because they don't understand me.
| But some do , there are many ads from my country that I & many
| others do.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVvmLakUtXE
|
| see this , an ad for bike in indian economy
|
| Try to guess the number of views , seriously , I am talking to
| anybody reading this , to genuinely try to guess the number of
| views for a video whose length is exactly 1 minute.
|
| Its 8.3 Million
|
| Some people compare it to be a better song than many cinema
| movies songs for which you go to and pay with your cash
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvGwIFVUK7M
|
| This ad is by Jindal , I got this in my recommended , yes a ad as
| a video shoved in my recommended.
|
| Some commentors comment how they saw this ad in their movie
| cinema before the start of movie. And they said , that they felt
| that the movie they spent on the cinema was already worth it
| because of this ad alone!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvGwIFVUK7M
|
| This has 20 Million Views !
|
| I am sure that many american / other countries also have such
| advertising. But I don't like apple like advertising / bland .
|
| Maybe its just me , but I like the old style so much more. Filled
| with emotions and art , yet it doesn't cross a line of being
| over. It just fits in perfectly.
|
| I am 16 years old and though I don't use twitter , though I don't
| use facebook / I was never in the time for my space.
|
| I still feel nostalgic for that era. I like how old twitter
| looks. I like how myspace functioned. In fact I created an
| account on spacehey just for that.
|
| I like the old style liked videos , square box , it makes me feel
| as part of something greater , a bit nostalgic.
|
| Also just remembered hamara bajaj ad which is also really nice.
|
| from the hero splendor ad that I linked in first link
|
| Tu hai toh main hu aur manjilo ka ghar aana chalta rahe
|
| A very rough english translation would be
|
| You are therefore I am , and let the dreams come to our house.
| Lets keep going.
|
| It captures emotions perfectly.
|
| I have spent 15 minutes writing this post & I have no regrets.
|
| Thanks for reading.
| wahern wrote:
| > You are therefore I am
|
| Reverse solipsism?
| ivell wrote:
| Many Indian ads are creative and emotional. I know quite a few
| friends who actually spend time watching the ads if they have
| nothing else to watch.
| prmoustache wrote:
| That is more a reflexion on your friends poor mental health
| than the quality and creativity of the ads though.
| pickledoyster wrote:
| Ad view counts and random comments praising the ad are just
| part of the ad.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I am a little skeptical of this application of e-ink. Is this
| really cost effective or environmentally friendly? Compared to an
| LED or OLED panel, sure, but how does it compare to ye olde
| poster behind glass? If you're willing to give up on snazzy
| animations anyway, how many times would you have to change the
| poster before the color e-ink is cheaper?
| ChrisNorstrom wrote:
| Yes. E-ink doesn't need electricity to show an image, it only
| uses small amounts of electricity to change the image.
| Technically, if it ran on batteries, you could pop in some
| batteries, change the advertisement image, and then take the
| batteries out and the image would stay like that permanently.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| Right, but how much does the display itself cost compared to
| $15 to print a poster out and stick it in a frame?
| outworlder wrote:
| $15 times the number of posters you want to rotate. Plus
| the labor to replace them, multiplied by the number that
| you have.
| floydnoel wrote:
| electricity isn't the only resource to consider, however
| toast0 wrote:
| Having a connected display gives advertisers a huge amount of
| control that they desire.
|
| Being able to control the time of day that your ad is shown is
| a pretty big deal. Being able to edit or take down a poorly
| considered ad campaign very quickly is also a pretty big deal.
| Coordinating paper ads and other media is tricky, because the
| companies that manage the advertising display inventory only
| have so many workers and therefore only so much capacity to do
| changes.
| Raztuf wrote:
| Sounds like a real headache. Maybe we should get rid of this
| whole advertising thing.
| JSteph22 wrote:
| No e-ink product is cost effective.
|
| That's why they have to tout other benefits like being "eco
| friendly".
| mrkpdl wrote:
| Seeing panels of this size is making me want eink whiteboards for
| planning meetings.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Tied to AI listening agents drawing as you speak.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Does anyone know where to buy used/surplus digital signage
| screens?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Or panels with slight defects.
| jameslk wrote:
| Just wait until they're on all the walls, floors, and ceilings.
| In every window of every car and building. Every surface that is
| blank. The low power required for eink displays makes them an
| ideal candidate for this use case. Programmatic ads for the
| physical world. Pick the part of the world you want to see your
| ad and it's there. You'll never have to see an adless canvas
| again
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| My Inner Grammar Nazi[0] twitched at this:
|
| _> Kaleido 3 is good to used as Digital_
|
| I first thought it was a mistake from New Atlas, but it is
| actually on the main eInk site:
|
| https://www.eink.com/brand/detail/Kaleido3-outdoor
|
| They are a Taiwanese company, but a fairly major one, so mistakes
| like this are a bit jarring.
|
| [0] http://queenofwands.net/d/20031003.html
| novaRom wrote:
| Destined to become "best seller" if Aldi/Walmart/Ikea could offer
| 75" with 4K RGB for $150-200. This would be a perfect indoor wall
| decor in any room, kind of ultimate poster.
| oefrha wrote:
| Lol you can hardly get a 7.5'' for that price. I once looked
| into making a few programmable ePaper "posters" for myself, and
| noped out of it when I saw the price.
| mariusandra wrote:
| Having gone through such a search just recently:
|
| - This 13.3" panel cost ~$420 to make https://www.printables.
| com/model/1189455-waveshare-133e-6-co...
|
| - This 7.3" panel cost ~$150 to make https://www.printables.c
| om/model/1189420-waveshare-73e-6-col...
|
| This includes shipping the panel from waveshare.com, paying
| taxes, adding a raspberry pi zero w2 + a sd card, and
| printing a case
| thefounder wrote:
| I think you can't even get them for $1500 - $2000
| daemonologist wrote:
| My understanding is that the yields on large eink panels are
| horrendous (which is why they cost thousands and thousands of
| dollars). I would definitely buy one at that price though.
| asoneth wrote:
| A 31.5" color e-ink poster is ~$1700[1]. I do not know what
| these large panels cost but (possibly due to low yields) eink
| panel prices seem to scale superlinearly with area. I would
| expect a 75" panel that is five times larger to cost more than
| a used car.
|
| Anything can become a "best seller" if you are able to
| arbitrarily lower the price by multiple orders of magnitude --
| $500 luxury cars would fly off the lot but would not be
| profitable.
|
| [1] https://inkposter.com/products/spectra-133
| solarkraft wrote:
| Of course they're trying to pitch it for ads. But ads are
| intentionally intrusive, so they're kind of missing the whole
| point.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| If this were accessible at a reasonable price to food trucks
| they'd buy it left and right for their menus.
| pathikrit wrote:
| Cool! I make this as a hobby project: https://framed.news/
|
| Would be cool to have a color option too
| elric wrote:
| Looks great. I would be very happy to see this used for
| timetables and service announcements in and around public
| transport.
| Klaster_1 wrote:
| The future is dim.
| nottorp wrote:
| Hmm why are all those companies trying and failing to make
| "smart" AR glasses.
|
| All they need is to come out with a product that covers
| billboards in real time.
|
| uBlock Origin for real life.
| goda90 wrote:
| You could use them to replace everything with messages like in
| They Live https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yjw_DuNkOUw
| nottorp wrote:
| No in They Live the messages were already there but they were
| conditioned not to notice them consciously without the
| glasses.
| BaraBatman wrote:
| Funnily enough, a few months ago, inspired by They Live
| (and by a Simpsons episode) I tried to do exactly that as a
| POC: block real life billboards
|
| https://bart.fly.dev/
|
| https://github.com/bart-ai/bart
|
| Ideally, one would use something like this on an AR
| headset/smart glasses and block unwanted stuff from their
| view
| crazygringo wrote:
| All the examples in the photos are clearly lit, so the idea that
| these won't use power or will be unlit doesn't seem plausible.
| Just think of how many _paper_ ads are lit from behind, when you
| 're walking around a mall or airport.
|
| Second, the contrast is bad. Most colors wind up looking washed
| out. It can be nice for reading, but advertisers want their ads
| to pop.
|
| I don't see this taking off for advertising at all, because
| advertisers won't like it. What it does seem more useful for is
| informational signage. Building directories, maps, etc. Because
| those don't need to be lit, and the e-ink can be a lot higher
| resolution than a lot of jumbo LED displays.
| navi0 wrote:
| The Innovator's Dilemma supports your last paragraph but will
| likely make your first two paragraphs age poorly.
|
| The tech will continue to improve if it finds its niche.
| Dynamic, low power, color informational signage displays are a
| big enough market by themselves to adopt and support enough
| product cycles to address shortcomings that advertisers have.
|
| The potential for no mains power (e.g., small solar panel or a
| vibration energy harvesting power source) means virtually any
| flat wall could be turned into advertising inventory. Do
| accident lawyers need their ads to pop or just be displayed
| over and over again?
| SXX wrote:
| What you say could be correct for a lot of technologies, but
| not this one. E Ink tech do not have much traction because of
| "E Ink" the company and their patents. Basically it's highly
| proprietary and they dont want to give away control over
| know-how and production. Until major patents expire no one
| will it touch with a ten-foot pole.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| about energy efficiency of lighting, maybe they can move the
| lights depending on the time of the day. For some ads at least
| (like roadside)
|
| Unfortunately, advertisers prefer the most distracting light
| intensity they manage. Only regulation can solve that.
| mystified5016 wrote:
| Have you never seen those highway billboards that rotate
| between three displays?
|
| Advertisers will buy it because the seller can make the
| physical ad spot N times cheaper by showing N different ads
| during the day.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Billboards are already digitized all over so I would expect
| any "We can make it N cheaper for N clients" pricing to
| already be done.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The question here isn't between static paper and e-ink.
|
| It's between glowing LCD panels and e-ink.
|
| Advertisers are already cycling their ads on LCD panels at
| bus stops, on the subway, etc.
|
| Going to e-ink just makes the advertisement much dimmer, it
| can't handle video, and it becomes washed out. Why would
| avertisers ever prefer that?
| diego_moita wrote:
| So, it is a product that has no vivid colours, no fast refresh,
| no video, is more expensive than a big television (i.e.: more
| interesting to steal if outdoors) and "doesn't cause light
| pollution" (i.e.: doesn't stand out the way you want adds to do).
|
| What are its advantages then?
| rcarr wrote:
| Can any of the big e-reader companies just please release an A4
| sized color e-reader? It can clearly be done, why are we still
| stuck with black and white for the 13 inch ranges?
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Currently, the cost of the panel alone would be nearly $1000.
| Yields on Kaleido-family screens aren't great (and are
| supposedly even worse for Gallery, the high-quality color
| panels) and they get even worse for larger panel sizes.
| thefounder wrote:
| A real killer for me would be to make them rollable.
| bryukh wrote:
| The interesting part here isn't the color - it's the temperature
| range (-15degC to 65degC) and massive 75" size. This could enable
| practical solar-powered information displays at bus stops and
| other public spaces.
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