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Comment by unsupp0rted | Hacker News Reader

I, for one, would like to see AR glasses that use e-ink. Black and white with a slow refresh rate. Would be perfect for my use-cases.

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This exists, sort of. I got a demo of these at a YC event a couple months ago and was very impressed. The back is opaque, though, so it's not real AR, but it does accomplish "E-Ink displays in a glasses form factor":

https://solreader.com/

It's something... not what I would like personally, because it's literally only a kindle in your eyes.

I'm looking for a "here's a bit of e-ink in the corner of your lens" kind of thing, with a refresh rate of say 1 fps

you still would need a backlight but it's an interesting idea

Would be cool to wear a "light panel" on your sleeve.

Outdoors you see the e-ink fine. Indoors you look down at your illuminated sleeve to see the e-ink in your glasses.

You can't backlight an eink display. They are opaque, by design. Thats why they make such great ebook displays, so you can take them outside and still read them. Eink displays require .. i guess 'forelight'. Light that reflects off the display front.

I didn't know that, I just wonder how the kindle with light works though. Is that light coming from the front too?

frontlit

If you look closely at a backlit kindle screen, you can see that the e-ink pixels are a decent distance behind the surface. It’s more noticeable if there are scratches or dust on the screen and you rotate the display. The surface reflects the light from the sides back to the e-ink.

IIRC, side illuminated microscopic dots on a protective cover. Light only escapes through the dots, illuminating the panel, without shining into the user.

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