PopSlate, an E ink case for your iPhone | Hacker News Reader

PopSlate, an E ink case for your iPhone

popslate.com

67 pointsjdoliner57 comments

Interesting. Tho' since I already know about yotaphone [ http://yotaphone.com/in-en/ ] this seems like a compromise. The 'second display' as a case does not seem to have the interactivity that the built-in display of yotaphone has. Also, you'd have to turn the bluetooth on to change display ...and yet another 'device' to charge, so well not for me.

I am waiting for yotaphone2 to be released

I want a proper E-Inc smartphone, damn it! With no OLED screen. The number of times I used my cellphone to watch videos: 0, as far as I remember. Number of times I wished my phone had longer battery life and didn't auto-dim after 30 seconds: well, every single time I use it for more than 30 seconds.

Yeah, yeah, I know that you need fast screen for shooting videos. Whatever. I would settle for a phone with no camera and EInk screen without thinking twice.

The problem is, that would be a vastly different interface from what app developers (and web developers) are expecting. You might as well get a dumb-phone, since the vast majority of apps will work poorly (if at all).

I know what you mean. I feel the same way about not just the display but about phone having physical keys or qwerty keyboards ...I mean, the old casio and palms had it right for useful phones to get shit done as the primary function and taking funny cat pics/videos or playing games as secondary. Ah well, I guess I am just old.

BTW, as far as E-ink displays are concerned, do you know about the yotaphone ? http://yotaphone.com/in-en/ ? The yotaphone2 is scheduled to be released sooish; I plan on getting one.

YotaPhone 2 is able to fully function using only its eink screen, it will mirror android interface with some customizations considering eink refresh rate and color (but the phone still has OLED screen at the front). The phone already available in Russia and some European countries

Popslate is pretty cool, I saw it at MWC 2013 in February of 2013. I guess it never took off because it was too expensive.

Guess what - it's gotten more expensive ($129 now).

Bummer.

I came here to wonder about the price, and there's the answer. It's a pity that eInk is a great technology that remains horribly expensive. Not sure why; manufacturing yield? Rare inputs? Small volumes?

... patents ?

There's no proof that the product is at a particular price point just because one of the needed components is expensive.

It might just be priced at what they perceive that the market is willing to pay, this is kind of a luxury product with very little competition, after all.

Also it could be that they are going for the profit maximising price curve.

$129 is worth it; if you would use the functionality a lot. And they must be selling enough units at that price to make it worthwhile for them.

Without knowing their cost structure it's hard to say; if their production capacity is limited there may be no way to make enough to meet demand at a lower price.

The wiki page is interesting read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_maximization

I'm sure volumes have a lot to do with it, but I doubt it's the display that is driving the cost here.

I recently bought a replacement 6" E Ink screen for my kindle at it cost $30. This device has a 4" screen, not sure on the relative resolutions.

I missed them at MWC2013 but saw them in 2014 (or was it a ripoff of them?.) Although I found them nice and interesting, they didn't feel "that" groundbreaking.

$129, jesus. A Kindle Paperwhite is $119.

I used to wear a Pebble watch every day and found it useful but not overly so. That needed charging every 5-7 days, and this claims to last a week on a single charge. I don't wear the pebble watch any more because as lazy as it sounds, I kept forgetting to charge it when it ran out of battery, and there were days where I was walking around with a dead watch, which was at that point essentially an expensive wristband.

With my phone, I know I need to charge it every day and it is a habit to plug it in just before I go to sleep every day. With the pebble, and I think this too, sometimes the battery would last 5 days, sometimes 8, and that irregular charging cycles means it's hard to form habits around charging.

It became annoying to remember to charge the Pebble and take it off and put it on again. The benefits from having it became less appealing. I fear the same might happen with this if I were to own it, and it would become a bulky iPhone case. At $129 it might be worth a punt but I'm skeptical.

> That needed charging every 5-7 days, and this claims to last a week on a single charge. I don't wear the pebble watch any more because as lazy as it sounds, I kept forgetting to charge it when it ran out of battery.

Personally, I think this is why Apple will aim for a one day battery life for the Apple Watch. It's much easier to remember to put you watch on to charge every night, than to remember every 3 or 4 days.

You are implying they could have built a watch that lasts longer but didn't?

Definitely not - I'm saying that an Apple Watch with a one day battery life would not be a failure and would (IMO) be preferable over a 2 or 3 day battery life (regardless of whether they could make it now or in the future).

As many have pointed out Apple (and others) seem to 'solve for X' in regards to battery life. One day seems like an ideal 'X' for a smart watch.

one day battery life [...] would (IMO) be preferable over a 2 or 3 day battery life

That makes absolutely no sense.

Nobody forces you to use the "extra" battery time.

Nothing stops you from pretending it doesn't exist and charging your gizmo every night.

While I don't think it's a big enough reason to actively decide to put a smaller battery in, I'm sure I'm not the only one who hates putting things on charge for longer than they need. The battery losing its capacity is probably the single biggest reason for me having to replace my devices, and whether it's an outdated notion or not, it's in my head that leaving something on charge when it's full kills the battery.

Pushing a lithium-ion cell up to max charge and leaving it there probably shortens its life a bit, but what's much worse is running it down.

except years of training around battery charging that says not to charge a half (or 3/4) full battery.

I could put my kindle on the charger every night, even though it lasts 2 weeks on a charge, but I'm pretty certain that would kill the battery dead in a few months.

Kindle (and many other devices) use lithium polymer batteries, which don't have memory and don't require deep discharge. In fact, their life is increased when charged often, since depth of discharge determines overall cycle count, and deep discharge on LiPo is harmful.

In short, charging your Kindle frequently is just fine.

I know what you mean about habit forming - I have a G Watch and the battery lasts 36 hours, at first it was a case of charging it at home, seeing it not moaning about low battery at night, then having it die at work the next day. I've had it nigh on 6 months, but have only just adapted to putting it on to charge every night with my phone.

Why don't you just put both on the charger every night then?

In the case of a watch, it's hassle. You have to take it off and put it on every night. I know some people do this with watches anyway but I don't

In terms of this product, it would be easier to charge it, but there is still the mental block around charging something which still has 90% battery. That seems wasteful to me

I got a Pebble a few weeks ago. I use it for sleep tracking as well as daily wear, so charging at night isn't an option. I've gotten into the habit of charging it every morning while I shower and shave. Even when I'm extra-quick with my morning routine, I still find that the 15-20 minutes is enough to bring it back to 100%.

From everything I've read, lithium batteries actually do better when they're not discharged all the way—the only downside being that the device's battery gauge can lose calibration over time (hence the recommendation to do a deep discharge every 30-50 cycles or so).

This habit also will extend the useful life of the watch for me: Since I'm already in the habit of topping off daily, when the battery begins to lose capacity (down to 3 days from the initial 7, for instance), I won't even notice.

This display is actually electronic paper, so the display doesn't use power once it's set. Power is just used by the bluetooth and rest of the bits to monitor for changes in the display. If they could let you switch it on only when you want to change it, it could likely last a lot longer. The Pebble has a fake "e-paper" screen that's actually not electronic paper, it's a black and white LCD which constantly draws paper.

e-paper, or electronic paper, is a generic term for any kind of display that doesn't work by emitting light, which the pebble, the popSLATE, and ereaders like the nook or kindle do. What you are describing is e-Ink, which is a specific implementation of a non-light-emitting screen generally used in ereaders.

That being said, it does seem that popSLATE is using a screen like what is used in an ereader, and not like what is used in the pebble.

The thing is, pre Pebble, everyone understood that both terms meant something that didn't use power once an image was displayed. The Pebble is the first product I was aware of that abused the term. Everyone I spoke to thought it was the same clear display used in an ereader when it's actually just similar tech to my retired Palm III.

I don't really think it abuses the term, since it doesn't require a backlight to display things, it is technically correct to call it e-paper. I also remember the people at Pebble discussing the differences between e-Ink and e-paper when it first came out. It's not like they hid how the Pebble's display worked.

Besides, an e-Ink screen would be a horrible experience given how the display gets used in the Pebble watch.

It always seemed purposely misleading to me. Heck they don't even use the term LCD in the technical specifications... which is odd because that's what it actually is. And it did work as I had multiple friends, including several technically minded ones, who were misled by Pebble's terminology and thought it was an ereader-quality display.

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't know that it's a common problem. I've had my Pebble for about 4.5 months now and remembering to charge it can be interesting. I usually forget when I last charged it, but even then there are low battery alerts. I know that it'll last about a day once I see the "20% remaining" message, so I just charge it within 6-12 hours of that message.

It's not really too much of a hassle to remove the watch for a couple hours while sitting at my desk, and I've heard of people who charge it while sitting at a desk wearing it.

I was standing behind someone in a queue for boarding a flight whose phone died from lack of charge as they were about to hand it over to be scanned - so having your boarding pass on an e-ink display might actually be a pretty good idea...

Is it really worth $129 so that you don't have to print out a paper copy of your boarding pass when your battery is low?

If you don't have a printer handy, yes.

Well, that's only one scenario - it's definitely useful - would be nice to have it built into the back of a phone.

A lot of people no longer have printers, or at least working ones. They'd have to find an Internet cafe and brave the risk of keyloggers, print things off at work, or get a document printing company to do it.

Or print it at a kiosk upon check-in?

I can check-in from my phone.

Edit: downvotes don't make that any less true. The situation the OP was observing could very well have been that the person had checked-in via phone and when boarding was starting, the phone's battery died.

Yes, she had an airline app that allowed you to check in using your phone. Not much use if your phone runs out of charge just when you are about to get it scanned to board the flight!

The question was why didn't she get the paper when she checked in to her flight at the kiosk at the airport?

Because she doesn't necessarily was even near the airport when she checked in. Nowadays you can check-in online or via your phone up to 24 hours before your flight starts.

And you never see any paper. Yeah, that sucks when your phone runs out of battery. In our trains, the conductor has now USB chargers in case such things happen.

Technology fails, we fail. It happens. We manage to adapt.

Think of the trees. (of course manufacturing this extra piece of electronics is probably not "good" for the environment, but assuming that many people already have a smartphone, it makes sense to have a boarding pass QR code as opposed to getting everyone to print an A4 each time. Just think how many pages would be saved per year!)

A lot of people are commenting on the price but the thing that struck me was the thickness. Based on the images it looks to at least double the thickness of the phone!

Like the InkCase, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/378232716/inkcase-plus-... but for iPhone. Nice.

Thanks for sharing this! PopSlate looks cool but I was a little sad that this would be difficult to pull off for Android due to fragmentation.

>SAVE POWER

> Use the ultra low-power, ePaper screen to extend your battery life

That's one way to put it but:

    s/extend/save

is more honest.

Minor nitpick, but shouldn't it be s/save/extend/

(silly) Price aside, why is it only for iPhones? Surely the bigger market is Android devices... or both... I see a similar trend with docking station/speakers. I've yet to find a model that has a dock for micro usb. All of them are iPhone centric with an optional cable to the headphone jack of other phones.

Bigger market with Android devices? Very few Android phones will get even close to what any of the iPhone models sold. And docks for iphones are a lot more interesting, because there is an established standard for controlling iOS devices externally, which works with music and many many iOS apps. Not to mention, that for both 30-pin and Lightning connectors the device playing the music is the iphone, not the dock. With Micro USB the only way to do anything would be to access the filesystem and play all the music files found. But that's incredibly difficult, because of different standards, root Android directory being polluted with files for apps, and there is no way to control apps on the phone. Android phones are horrible for standards - mine doesn't even work with a regular remote(next/back + mic) on my headphones.

This is not true, most modern Android devices support USB audio class as "very strictly recommended" in Android Compatibility Definition Document and everything supports USB HID devices. Just implement USB sound card and USB keyboard to play music and control it.

In that case - fair enough. But we are yet to see a single dock which would support this.

The android market is fragmented in many different manufacturers. I'm pretty sure that none of those individual manufacturers comes close to the market share the iPhone has.

Samsung does. If it has not surpassed it at certain periods in time, it's not far behind. Either way - its a huge market. There is no technical problem creating docks for Android devices / micro usb. But for some reason there aren't any I've seen.

Does anyone know if the screen is only configured via their app?

Reason to buy for me: read an ebook in the sunlight.

If these perform well, it might be the perfect reason to move to a phablet sized device. I don't really need the extra real estate for my phone, but I'd need it for reading.

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