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Comment by suyula | Hacker News Reader

Has anybody tried to retrofit a transflector into a laptop LCD screen? I've got no idea if this is even possible but I'd love to be able to just trigger a brightness=0 and see a smartwatch-type display that doesn't strain my eyes.

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This is precisely what the OLPC screen did and it worked really quite beautifully.

Sadly doesn’t look like the spin off company producing the displays went anywhere :(

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi

I came across a forum post asking about this. As it says you need to remove the polariser layers which is fairly easy (last time I replaced a laptop LCD it fell apart on disassembly and I was presented with many layers of plastic), but OP couldn't find a transreflector layer that was suitable. Without that it's too bright in sunlight, but maybe for indoor use it's good enough. I wonder if something like window tinting films would work (as they are partially reflective depending on the tint level).

https://www.instructables.com/community/How-can-I-convert-a-...

How about carefully placed strips of retroreflective tape behind the display?

Reminds me of old-school passive matrix LCD displays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_matrix_addressing) on laptops in the 1990s.

It is certainly possible, just not a popular demand for most laptops.

A Pebble monitor, that would be wonderful!

I used to have a Toshiba r500 with a transflective screen, it was kinda great outside but kinda crap inside, the viewing angle was abysmal.

Not a retrofit, but the HiSense Q5 seems to be this, new. I don’t own one, but considering it.

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