Comment by luka-birsa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by luka-birsa | Hacker News Reader

Founder of Visionect here. I'm so happy when these kinds of posts surface as this is exactly how we've envisoned our platform to be used - by tinkerers builidng interesting ideas.

I do see a lot of comments regarding the price, so it's best if I do the general disclaimer. E Ink screens are very pricy (compared to LCD). The driving is even pricier. And since this is not a mass-mass produced product (at least not in a sense of your 75" OLED TV) you get to the price that you have. We've worked for years on getting the price down for the E Ink screens (trust me on this), but there is a question of critical mass. E Ink in the non-reader, non-shelf label applications is still a very niche solution, that will command very high price. I hate to say it, but the only way we could have brought the price down with current quantities is if we built an inferior product as the price right now is the function of Bill-of-Materials.

We tried a lot of applications, some covered previously here on HN, we currently see that there are just two other avenues where E Ink is being used and has the potential for mass depoyments in the near future.

1. In offices it can be used as interactive signage - we've built a very successful solution for meeting room booking around it (see http://getjoan.com).

2. The market for outdoor displays - especialy smart bus stops that run on solar - is starting to ramp up. Check out what our partners are doing in this space (a recent live deployment https://www.visionect.com/blog/coimbra-the-city-of-the-stude...).

If anyone would like to get more information about E Ink, please shoot - we've tried every E Ink display out there, played with color display and probably seen every E Ink application out there. You can also shoot me a direct mail to luka.birsa AT visionect.com.

Hello Luka! I really like your products. I am in a quest for a small e-ink display that might survive the rigours of being placed behind a car windshield. Is this an application that, in your opinion, can be handled with an e-ink display or will sun, extreme temperatures, etc destroy it. Is there any kind of hardened e-ink product out there? I hope it is ok to pick your brain on this. Thanks!

So we do have quite a lot of experience running these screens in extreme environments - we've worked with a company called Mercury Innovation and built a fleet of traffic signs that have been running in scorching Australia non-stop for about 4 years now.

There are a couple of things you need to do: - Protect the screen against UV (there are protective foils and glass with integrated protection you can use). Failing to do so will cause permanent damage to the screen. This is a solved problem with loads of companies using EPD for external usage. - Make sure you respect the maximum temperature limits - the driving board should be aware of extreme (>50C temperatures) and prevent updates in those cases. There are special waveforms that extend the operating range to beyond that, but you will get only black and white updates.

Realistically EPD robustness is a solved problem. About 6/7 years ago we've launched a product based on epaper that was water tight and was intended to be used outside (permanent mounting on desks). We did not see any problems with display. And the parking signs have been running 4 years non stop any failures in the field.

Thank you for taking the time to answer! I hope that in time eink displays will become more relevant, I really think that they are the best solution for many applications.

A perhaps stupid idea for you: bring newspapers, museums / art galleries together and convince them to fund a company that sells a large display like the one seen in the article to the masses - and instead of just the front page of the NYT, you get, say, a painting, or something else, every few hours.

Great work Luka! Love the minimalistic design. How far are we from seeing a color-version on this display?

We have working prototypes of smaller displays in house, but I do not think E Ink offers large format solution. There is one caveat with color - the refresh rates are still not quite there yet (we've seen ~5-10s for the 4096 color version), but we've seen considerable improvment recently.

I think it's just a good use-case away. Perhaps we'll see the screens break out in the education space first and then the rest of industry as well, but we're looking at various applications with color and we might be first.

It seems to me like even a 5m refresh period would be fine for an art display? I doubt I'd want to change pieces more than once a day.

I'm probably an outlier, but I'm an all digital person and my walls are bare due to the size, backlighting and power cables of the recent art frame fad products. I've been waiting with bated breath for consumer ACeP screens. I have a lot of artwork that I don't think needs smooth gradients, even just a bit of color would be wonderful.

Anyways I just wanted to drop in and say I'd definitely buy something (and probably for a multiple of what current digital art frames go for).

On that note though, all I've seen of ACeP are promo photos and I don't quite trust promo photos. If you've any experience with them, is there anything you can say regarding how they actually perform visually?

We have ACeP in our labs and it looks really good while displaying images. It's not high end glossy print colorful, but it's very very close. More than enough for most applications. It's also a stark difference to the color-filter variants that were available previousy. There the contrast was poor due to the filter they overlaid over a regular E Ink reflective surface.

You're making me turn positively blue.

Hi luka-birsa, Do you think E-Ink computer monitors will ever be a thing? This is something that I'm personally really looking forward to to relieve eye strain commonly caused by LCD monitors.

You can acually buy them today - Dasung did manage to productivize them enough for people to try them out. But it's really hard to compete on price, especially with consumer 27" 4k display costing 100-200$.

I was curious; 13.3 inch screen with light and touch screen for $1099 (https://dasung-tech.myshopify.com/products/dasung-e-ink-pape...) (without it's $999).

Pricey, small and really not the best design, but it's a start. I say it's a start but at the same time I'm afraid this is the best we're likely to get, given that the e-ink market is not growing and the technology isn't competing with cheap LCD screens and tablets.

A shame; I wouldn't mind a modern, affordable take on the typewriter with an E-ink screen (13 or 15 inch) and mechanical keyboard. I could probably build one if I have a lot more expendable income and time.

It's a very niche product. Most people opt for modern OLED displays for consumer needs, so it's really a chicken and egg problem. I'm sure if you start buying in bulk companies will notice. Sony is working on a bunch of consumer E Ink devices and I'm sure they would be more than comfortable doing this at scale, as long as there is a need.

Thank you for your reply Luka. Do you personally think E-Ink monitors can offer consumer advantages to LED monitors? Can the same latency be achieved in these displays? (< 4ms between input and result on screen)

With current E Ink technology no. Even if it was technically feasible (not sure about that), nobody is focusing on high refresh rates. Increasing refresh increases battery consumption and that means you're taking away one of the key benefits of EPD.

We tested 8fps video on our devices a while back and in the end you're getting a B&W display with 8 FPS updates... Why wouldn't you go for something like LCD or OLED instead? I don't believe you can beat LCD at being LCD.

There are other technolgies that promise fast update times, that offer similar characteristics (look into ClearInk), but they are nowhere near where E Ink is in terms of maturity.

Could an E-ink screen behind the backlight of an LCD screen be used to enhance the dynamic range of the screen? The idea being to modulate the local brightness of the screen by changing the color of the e-ink.

The screen really does not let a lot of light shine through. There is a reflective coating (imagine aluminum foil) that reflects back. We did try to use the opacity of screen with high power leds for some usecases but it did not work. I think you need to look at E Paper optical characteristics as you would look at 1 mm thick cardboard.

The best way to fix optical characteristics is to play with the substrate and layers in front. Like adding a very good frontlight really helps with contrast even in non-dark conditions.

Could you explain why some devices have limitations related to being in the sun? It seems like more than just the heat.

E Ink film is sensitive to UV light. It will optically degrade without proper UV protection. We've had a display without protection on a sunny desk by an open window (so no UV protection on the windows as well) and we got permanent burn in after a couple of months - this is why all finished devices take extra steps to protect against UV.

Properly protected screen will last for ever - we have units in the office running for at least 5 years without stopping.

I have read somewhere here on HN that the E Ink scene (and price) is limited by patents. Can you share more on that ?

E Ink owns the majority of the patents, so direct clones of E Ink are being made under license. I do not think that the patents are the limiting factor - the specific applications are somewhat limited compared to widespread use of OLED.

For the applications that have mass apeal we saw that the price goes down to a comparable level of an LCD (eg in ebook readers and shelf labels).

There is also a bunch of innovation happening in the market - competitors like ClearInk are trying to build a better version of E paper, but it's always hard to scale some new technology and it will take some time before anything substantial comes along. E Ink was lucky that they found the killer app in ebook readers and that really helped them get to volumes that allow them to build these screens in commercial volumes.

What do you think of reflective screens like Qualcomm's Mirasol?

Looks like the technology didn't pan out. Not sure what the end reason was, but E Ink won that battle.

I would actually like to see combination of the two tested. Such as a greyscale high resolution e-ink base and a transparent layer of Mirasol like color pixels that can activate.

Kind of mimicking CMYK from print, and LED TV:s locally adjusting LED backlight to improve contrast ratios, and some high HDR screens. Except a very low energy use variant.

Just sent you an email for help with a school project I'm working on :)

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