I'd really like to have a decent (let's say >13") display to hang on a wall in my room and display weather, my todo list, etc. It doesn't necessarily have to be E-ink proper, but I like the idea of having something that doesn't emit its own light. More like an electronic whiteboard.
Alternatives include something like the Vestaboard, which is not cheap, and probably fairly noisy.
Are there products I'm missing here?
This is the black/white one, they do a black/white/red one too. But beware, they take really long to refresh (the red color takes several refreshes to appear). And the one with red is on backorder till June.
It can be powered by a raspberry pi (or ESP32 or Arduino) and is (much) cheaper than the ereader options of the same size: Only about $170.
PS Beware: You can't simply start up a user interface like X-Windows on it. You have to write software to display on it. The display is addressed in 4 separate sections so it's not super easy.
Go on eBay and buy an older NOOK device (they all ran Android) for $20, tape it to your wall, and point at your web page of choice.
The only reason I can think of is that scaling the production would be difficult for some reason?
Dasung sells a 13.3" e-ink monitor: https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-Paperlike-13-3-E-Ink-Monitor/d...
Though my main pain point is that you lose the book position syncing you get with the Kindle hardware/apps.
It’s a pity because I’d love that thing to read the web on actually.
The best I can tell is that there just hasn't been an investment in scaling up fabrication anywhere near what the likes of LG (mostly LG, actually) has done with >40" OLED panels. Presumably the demand isn't there yet, and so larger-format electrophoretics remain the product of low-volume, high-cost manufacturing processes.
[0] The first OLED patent was filed in 1975 and the first practical OLED was created in 1987. Only in the past 5 years (2015-2020) has OLED been used widely enough to bring the price down.
[1] The first patent for an microencapsulated electrophoretic display was filed in 1996. The earliest practical EINK screen I could find was the Sony Librié in 2004.
Also, ye olde e-Ink has plans for Q3 2020: https://youtu.be/vOTid3I-4EI
The largest size currently available is 42" and it is used in outdoor and indoor scenarios. Indoor use is for education purposes as a digital whiteboard - see Quilla (https://www.engadget.com/2017-01-03-quirklogic-s-quilla-is-a...).
None of these are especially applicable for home use due to the price tag (just to be clear, the display itself is very expensive). What you could do is use Sonys larger format eInk tablet, use Remarkable EInk tablet or hack your own solution from an older Kobo reader.
We're offering solutions somewhere in the middle - traditionally we were focused on SME, where our devices are being used as universal digital signage (http://www.visionect.com) or tailored for room booking (http://getjoan.com), so a bit pricy for home use. But we just launched a 6" device called Joan Home (https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home/) that syncs to your calendar and are looking to expand it with new functionality in the future. We're thing of integrations with home automation, pomodoro timer, IFTTT, etc...
Comments on the Joan Home are welcome - as we're actively thinking of developing this into a more feature rich product in next two months.
With kids I bet it's more difficult, but I don't think this technological solution can solve a human/social problem.
Jean-6 that's the same device plus front light cost 549€ (without VAT) and monthly premium plans.
The only commercial product I know of that uses it is from Visionect but it's a meant for digital signage rather than as a computer display: https://www.visionect.com/product/place-and-play-32/. It's less expensive than their earlier system but still around $2500.
[1] https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-epaper...
[2] https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%cb%9d-color-epaper-di...
There are some projects dedicated to driving the screen with an ESP32, which already has WiFi built in, has good low power modes and is pretty cheap as well [1] [2].
There's also a project driving e-ink displays with an stm32 [3] and one to do it with an FPGA [4].
Beyond 13" things get really expensive and hard to find - best I can do is 12,48" for 150€ [5].
[0]: https://aliexpress.com/item/32983492389.html
[1]: https://github.com/dqydj/PaperBack_EPaper_Display
[2]: https://hackaday.io/project/168193-976-e-paper-controller-ki...
[3]: https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekocal-an-e-ink-calendar
I don't know specifics about the voltage conversion yet (these screens need about -20V - 20V), but I reckon that if you're really frugal you could make a battery powered wall display for under 60€ with this stuff - and that's part 1 of what I'm thinking of doing.
Part 2 would be to stick in a Pine64 SOPINE System On a Module [6], put on a capacitive touch layer [7] and run a mainline Linux with KOReader and maybe even a Wayland compositor to be able to run any Linux app (the high contrast GTK theme seems perfect for this application).
All hopefully for under 200€, which is a lot less expensive than other e-readers if that size and a whole lot cooler.
Any tips?
[6]: https://store.pine64.org/?product=sopine-a64
https://hackaday.com/2016/01/19/a-digital-canvas-thats-hard-...
It matches the LCD lighting to the ambient light, so that it doesn’t have that “glowing screen” look, but instead looks like a flat picture.
Something else irrelevant to your question, but trés cool: https://hackaday.com/2019/08/17/great-artificial-daylight-vi...
It's strange that the list of buses is sorted by bus number and not by time…
Also: finally a display where advertisement is probably not so attractive.
Dasung, Onyx have been market leaders in this category and they are expensive. There are E-ink tablets from several other manufacturers as mentioned in other comments, but they rarely are external displays.
Then there are reliability issues with cheap DIY E-Ink displays, they don't last long and especially when displaying low refresh rate data like Weather, todo list; there will be ghosting issues quite soon.
I'm not exactly sure on whether manufacturing large E-ink external displays is just an unit-economics problem which will get resolved with improvement in technology or there is some underlying Intellectual Property issues from the likes of Amazon,Dasung,Onyx etc.
[1]https://needgap.com/problems/43-affordable-e-ink-large-exter...
Sony is apparently still selling the DPT-RP1, and it still doesn't connect to Linux or read DjVu. I guess at least it has an OSX client.
What would be the interface for using it as external display? or are you telling about using it just as a document reader?; in that case it might not even serve OP's needs.
I imagine in 5-10 years or so, we'll see what you're imagining.
Also, can you share more about the resolution?
This timing is superb; I'm this very week considering purchasing a Pro-F (1600x1200) from Dasung, which has faster refresh but lower resolution. Also a few hundred $$ cheaper. Really curious if you think the lower resolution will be a bummer, or if the higher frame rate will be unnecessary.
One important thing to consider, which maybe I should have shared in the other post: I don't really enjoy using the mouse on the e-ink display, because of the refresh rate. It's doable, but noticeably choppy.
If using the mouse is important to you while you code, go for the faster refresh rate!
The lower resolution might actually be nice too since it might better match your other displays.
Quirks: Expect ghosting. You'll have to press the "clear" button if the only thing moving on the screen is the mouse. This is oddly satisfying and not nearly as annoying as it sounds. Like "time for a fresh slate!" Getting the right contrast is also something you'll have to get used to. Dark themes are basically unusable because of ghosting. The monitor's very high DPI isn't handled well by gnome, so stuff is smaller on the eink display than on my main monitor. It's got different needs than an LCD in terms of software configuration of themes, color management, etc. I don't think any OS was made with this thing in mind, so there are quirks. I wish there were some better "per-display" settings in gnome. But oh well.
In spite of the quirks, I don't regret getting this thing at all. It was expensive but now I'll be able to work outside. It's way easier on my eyes.
Right now I pretty much just use it for reading and writing code or doing stuff in the shell. And it's great for that. Vim is like the perfect text editor for this. I also got vs code setup alright for it too now, but it's really great with vim, and has been motivating me to use vim more.
Btw, I also got the Dasung "not e-reader" tablet which is also awesome.
These devices are quirky but really well made and designed.
The most interesting problem to tackle was “the blue glowing screen problem”.
One of the many ways that screens give themselves away as screens is by emitting light that is “out of character” with the surrounding environment. They can be too bright or too dark relative to the things around them, and indoors, displays often seem too blue.
I solved these problems with what I call “luminance matching”. The basic idea is to sample the light falling on the frame several times a second, and then adjust the display and image parameters so that what’s displayed is “correct” given the surrounding environment.
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...
There's going to be a big display revolution soon. Microled will probably outclass everything until we're at cheap retinal laser displays.
Other “e-ink” displays has way too low visual quality and markets don’t like that. Brighter backlight LCD and huge battery usually solves the same problem better. IOW/IMO if such technology is to hit the market it would need to be closely comparable to LCD.
Unfortunately it looks to be quite expensive, but the technology is there.
As others have already pointed out, the newly released Remarkable 2 sounds exactly like what you’re looking for. https://remarkable.com/
They're pretty cool but I think the limiting factor is demand rather than technology (although they do have a pretty niche construction in that the control sillicon is AFAIK actually fabricated inside/along the LCD panel)
Something like [1] with no front light.
https://shopkits.eink.com/product/13-3%cb%9d-epaper-display-...
31.2˝ monochrome ePaper Display:
https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epap...
And here is 42˝ monochrome ePaper Display:
https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-epaper...
Pricey, unfortunately. But does the work.
Sad that Amazon makes Kindle very closed to modification in terms of software. Therefore I am a huge fan of ReMarkable because an underdog may allow us to finally build e-ink apps: https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable
Such as an older LCD panel without a backlight? It doesn't sound like you're looking for anything special here.
I wonder what it would look like with just paper behind it instead? (or a slightly more reflective white material). I wouldn't expect color to "transflect" very well, but it might work ok as a simple 1-bit screen, fully transmissible as possible reflecting off the paper, or fully opaque.
The LCD still needs continuous power, but far far less than the backlight.
That might end up being a superior balance... a small amount of continuous power, with the benefit of up to 60hz refresh rate if you want it.
One that I know is Kingjim Pomera line. They have a few reflexive LCD models based on some rare Toshiba uC, an E Ink model that runs on good old ARM926EJ-S, IIRC, and a color backlit LCD model that just runs Android Linux stripped bare(no Android GUI at all). Some people are running X on the last one.
Those are only available in Japan with JP106 keyboard(think of ANSI with ISO return, ISO symbols and two extra keys next to spacebar) and I can’t assure hackability, but as an input...
http://www.artecdesign.ee/products/e-paper-digital-signage-p...
Foe just an electronic whiteboard there are Boogieboards.
I would suspect they have smaller ones too.
I found a demo here on YouTube:
http://einkcn.com/post/216.html
https://www.sohu.com/a/330365162_100238338
I think it's a waste of tax-payers money. Besides why it's not been stolen yet?
For consumer electronics I found modern e-ink tablets have very good refresh rate. Watching video is pretty smooth.
Because it's not really useful to anyone.
Anything worth stealing in China does get stolen, like their attempted solar cell bicycle paths.
I would not copy them unless you have the billions for them to fall back on.
