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Building an E-Ink Laptop

alexsoto.dev

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Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#61

Post by fy20 »

suyula wrote: post #36

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.

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-...

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#62

Post by AshamedCaptain »

polshaw wrote: post #40
derekp7 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is that most real consumers (as apposed to us technologists) don't want e-ink technology. It is monochrome, can't do video, limited interactive due to refresh rate and ghosting... the only real thing it has going for it is low power usage. And that pairs well with applications where you spend a long time staring at the screen, and periodically initiating a compute burst to change the screen contents. In oth…

Power consumption is not the only thing going for e-ink. The major win for e-ink IMO is readability in direct sunlight. If it's a nice day outside I have to stay indoors (or at least in shade) in order to do work. The only reason is that I can't see my display well. As noted, we already have e-ink phones that can do both colour and video[1], while there is some ghosting it's getting to the point of usable. Just need…

But other screen technologies have actually _better_ contrast than eInk in direct sunlight (e.g. reflective LCD, mirror-backed). State-of-the-art eInk technology these days has actually WORSE contrast than in the early days! -- https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2021/01/20/contrast-on-e-i... (proving how much people care about it)

eInk's primary advantages are power (and only if your idle period is long enough; if you have to update it with any frequence you're going to lose pretty soon to a memory LCD); and angles/polarity (specially compared to LCD), which some people also claim produces less headaches.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#63

Post by [deleted] »

robinsoh wrote: post #53
godelski wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When does the patent actually end? I see it noted here that the invention was 1997 and a typical patent is 20 years? What's the missing variable? (I know nothing about patents nor e-ink besides my paperwhite)

It is sad to see that this article itself is literally citing a throwaway HN comment about patents and E-Ink as if it was a fact. I questioned the veracity of that claim and never got a response from the poster. I'll paste what I last commented about this because I'm already giving up trying to get any form of sane discussion on it. " As I have stated, I was looking for evidence or proof for OP's claim about patents…

[deleted]

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#64

Post by jagger27 »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #60
jagger27 wrote: post #8

$1000 for the screen. These E-ink patents can’t expire soon enough.

This is absurd. Not only we have no evidence whatsoever that any patents whatsoever are hampering e-ink in any way, but not only this does not prevent people here on HN from continuously claiming that, but in fact the very TFA's only source for this claim is HN ITSELF! What's next, people will continue to repeat this bullshit while citing this article as source? Will we go full circle?

Yikes, sorry. There only seems to be a vague notion of supposed “limited market use” for e-ink which means that volume is low and therefore R&D investment is low and so on. Patents are a convenient scapegoat, for lack of something more convincing. I admit my opinion was shaped by the HN peanut gallery.

It seems kind of obvious to me that if it was cheaper people would reach for it more often and find cool uses for it. There’s some more circular logic for you.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#65

Post by jagger27 »

derekp7 wrote: post #14
myself248 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what I don't get, is there's no shortage of jurisdictions where intellectual property doesn't seem to be worth the paper it's printed on, and really convincing counterfeits flood some well-known markets. Where are the e-ink knockoffs? What sort of enforcement are these folks doing that nobody else seems to be able to?

The truth is that most real consumers (as apposed to us technologists) don't want e-ink technology. It is monochrome, can't do video, limited interactive due to refresh rate and ghosting... the only real thing it has going for it is low power usage. And that pairs well with applications where you spend a long time staring at the screen, and periodically initiating a compute burst to change the screen contents. In oth…

The marketing material for the display used in TFA shows a video being played at (almost) acceptable frame rates with little ghosting, for what it’s worth.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#66

Post by robinsoh »

coldtea wrote: post #47
fortran77 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Patents are Bad!" trope always comes up in any e-ink thread. Not sure why. I love e-ink (I prefer to read books on a kindle), but I think if the demand were there the prices would come down, as you pointed out.

Demand doesn't bring prices down. Or not much anyway. Everybody would like a Ferrari/Rolex/etc., but they don't get cheaper because of it. In fact, high demand combined with a monopoly means you don't need to lower prices at all. (You lower price to raise demand, but you don't need to if you have strong demand at your current prices). Competition does lower prices. And with patents competition is impossible. As if fo…

> Demand doesn't bring prices down. Or not much anyway.

In my experience in the display industry, the main driver of price is cost and the main driver of cost is volume. If a customer puts in a signed escrowed order for a million displays lilke what Apple did, then processes get scaled, factories get built, and per-unit prices go down.

That my understanding of how 6" matrix E-Ink displays went from costing thousands of dollars per display when they were being built in low volumes of hundreds of displays to costing sub-50 when they were being built for Sony, Amazon and others in volumes of hundreds of thousands of displays. The same is true of the LCD industry and the OLED industry. The same is true of the cellphone industry.

> And with patents competition is impossible

I can't understand what exactly you're talking about. Is this the E-Ink-is-expensive-because-of-patents trope? I've asked before whenever I see this trope on HN, what specific patent are you referring to? Patent thicket? This extraordinary claim requires evidence. I go to SID, never heard anyone claiming this kind of stuff. Tonnes of competition but physics, featureset, costs, volume, customer demand gets in the way. It is why even well funded companies like Liquavista-Amazon and Mirasol-Qualcom didn't make it.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#67

Post by akdor1154 »

suyula wrote: post #36

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.

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.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#68

Post by mssundaram »

fouc wrote: post #49

The backlight on the Dasung HD-FT in the picture from the blog post seems to be way too bright, makes it appear to be lower contrast than it probably is.. https://alexsoto.dev/static/building-an-e-ink-laptop/eink-t4...

Even the picture hurts my eyes

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#69

Post by Nition »

Matrixik wrote: post #50
Nition wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I don't get: Aren't the patents from the 90s? And US patents last 20 years, right? So why haven't they expired already?

They are constantly creating new patents: https://patents.justia.com/assignee/e-ink-corporation

Man, I didn't expect that to be 36 pages long. Crazy amount of patents.
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