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Comment by Havoc | Hacker News Reader

What are the practical applications of this in the near term though?

Can't really think of any. Signboards would be good but I doubt the scale/price/size works out well (for now). ereaders don't really need colour IMO though it would obviously be a benefit.

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I know I would love an ereader or outdoor-usable screen with color for schematics, drawings, syntax highlighting. Literally anything that doesn't involve animation and requires a battery-powered display could be better with this.

Same here, been waiting for this for years.

E-Readers don't NEED color, but neither does your phone. Color is fun.

Color also conveys information more efficiently per pixel than black and white.

Have you ever read a photography book? How about a cookbook? Or anything else with color photos? There are more books in the world than those with just black text. :)

I've always wanted an e-reader that could do comics in full color. Kinda niche I guess.

Smartwatches? The Pebble has been using e-paper from day one and Pebble Time introduced color support. I'm not sure whether the Pebble 2 & Pebble Time 2 currently on Kickstarter have improved on that further but the Pebble Time's 64 color display can be a bit meh depending on the lighting conditions (at least to me the backlight always seems a bit too blue outside of daylight, tinting the colours too much).

E-paper != E-Ink. Pebble's "e-paper" display upset more than few people who assumed it was have the contrast, clarity, and zero power consumption abilities of true E-Ink. I stead it turned out to be a marketing term for an ordinary LCD.

That explains it, I guess. They still managed to provide ridiculous battery life and an always-on display (unlike OLED smart watches like the Apple Watch.

I wonder if e-ink wouldn't be possible for a future Pebble and whether it would give it any noticeable advantage compared to the current LCD display.

On the plus side, you can still read it outside in daylight. I have both a Pebble Time and an Android watch, and the Android watch is almost impossible to read outside in daylight.

It would be fabulous for kids picture books. I've read chapter ebooks to my kids a few times but for younger kids you want big colour pictures.

Educational books ? There was some research that reading from a screen is less effective for studying. Maybe this is better ?

Comics! I've been wanting one of these dedicated for comics for a long time!

This allows magazines and other color-image-heavy content to work a lot better on e-readers (currently they're pretty bad)

It seems an additional color-e-ink display for relatively-static text would be useful for reducing eyestrain. From personal experience I can vouch that my old Nook Simple Touch is far easier to read for long periods than my wife's backlit reader app.

full-colour magazines, textbooks, cookbooks, atlases ... pretty much everything involving illustrations would be nicer in colour

One that springs to mind is a proper wireless, i.e. battery powered, electronic picture frame. Notwithstanding that I can't understand why these haven't become a thing in black and white anyway.

Programming in colorForth¹ outside?

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColorForth

Depending on the sizes available, any device where you'd normally have an LCD, if it's outside, could have a color e-paper display that can be easily read in sunlight.

Depends on what you're reading. If you're reading books with maps or photos (I read a lot of travelogues for example), it would make quite a difference.

It'd at least give Amazon a more compelling reason to charge 300 dollars for their top Kindle.

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