I've been using a 13.3" Dasung Paperlike HD-FT e-ink monitor since 2020. The refresh rate is fine for reading and writing code, and most websites are easily usable in black and white. I normally use a terminal-based text editor in light-mode with syntax colouring turned off. It's not great for detailed videos, but sometimes it's good enough.

Dasung have since released 25.3" monochrome and color e-ink monitors, and a more portable 12" color e-ink monitor.

https://shop.dasung.com/

I tried Onyx Boox Tab X e-reader (13"). It cannot be used directly as a screen, but it runs Android, so it's either some sort of screen sharing or SSH client. Onyx Boox series has its own custom refresh technology that does smart partial refreshes and thus is quite fast.

So I tried actual coding once with SSH+Mosh option, just to see if it's viable, but nothing serious yet. I remember that typing was okay, but more interaction (like copilot autocompletion and tooltips in nvim) wasn't comfortable. But gonna give it more tries for sure.

I converted an old kindle to a second monitor. The refresh rate for typing console commands isn't super important, since you tend to read a command before you finally press enter.

Already widely-available e-ink devices have been capable of far better than 1 Hz refresh for years. The idea that this isn't possible has entered into the Land of HN Tropes That Will Not Die.

I use an Onyx BOOX Max Lumi, now three years old, with locally-installed Termux (Linux environment for Android) and remote SSH fairly frequently. It can run highly-interactive text apps, with slight ghosting, and could probably handle an X11 display as well though I've not tried that.

Even at high-quality display, B&W e-ink offers 2--4 Hz refresh, and can offer ~16 Hz or better in "X-Mode" display. I won't pretend that's great video quality, but it is possible to view animations or videos using it.

For a now-several-years-old demo of what e-ink device capabilities are, with the fastest saved for last, see: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=KdrMjnYAap4>

There are higher-refresh displays as well. This one advertises 60 Hz refresh and colour (it's not clear whether colour can drive at 60 Hz).

<https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/new-open-source-high-r...>

<https://www.modos.tech/blog/modos-paper-monitor-pre-launch-o...>

Video demo: <https://yewtu.be/embed/pXn-bAwzNv4>

It's true that some colour displays currently run slower.

There's also an "e-paper" technology, based on LCD, which offers far higher refresh and AFAIU no ghosting.

(I've been using an e-ink tablet for the past 3+ years, and frankly love it.)

You can get 60 Hz refresh rate these days.