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Building an E-Ink Laptop

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Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#111

Post by robinsoh »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #94

I haven't used e-ink for a while, but the last one I did had a refresh rate of something like 1Hz. Is this still an issue with modern technology?

Correct, still about 500ms to get decent levels of separable reproducible grayscale. Claims of 10Hz like Dasung's A2 are often marketing interpretations of unstable 1-bit states. This is a limit of the physics of electrophoresis. To make it faster, they would have to abandon bistability. Some startups have gone that route, eg: ClearInk but they have not yet reached commercial scale.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#112

Post by jpettersson »

pbronez wrote: post #105

Very interesting - wasn’t familiar with these e-ink screens. I wonder if the power draw is low enough at you could power the screen and a Rpi4 off a USB battery bank. You could make a rear “shield” that connects to the monitor via VESA. The shield could hold the the Rpi, batteries, and an adjustable kick stand. You’d connect a keyboard via USB. The upcoming Quartz64 [0] mentioned in the article might simplify this, t…

I had the same thought. Found this after a quick search: https://github.com/tommythorn/Paperlike-Raspberry-Pi-4

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#114

Post by alex-a-soto »

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…

Thank you for providing this information; you are correct; I will update the original post.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#115

Post by robinsoh »

_ph_ wrote: post #74
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.

From what I read, the way eInk conducts their business, it is very difficult to launch new eInk products. This limits the available offerings which means there is no competition to drive the market priced down. I bought a reMarkable 2 because it seems to be perhaps the only device on the market which doesn't require a jailbreak or such to do even the most basic customizations. The only other alternative I have seen s…

> From what I read, the way eInk conducts their business, it is very difficult to launch new eInk products.

I have not read such claims. What I have read are individual small-scale customers approaching base layer producers like E-Ink and being disappointed after expecting assistance in getting their product ideas to market. That's analogous to a 10,000 unit/month or less customer approaching say a liquid crystal supplier, or AU Optronics and expecting any form of support or assistance. The outcome of such an interaction is pretty much guaranteed. Even the top tier distributors won't talk to you unless you're expected to order at least 100,000 units a year. Anything less and you go through the normal OEM development path of which there's tonnes of partners. You do what everybody else who has a display product idea does, which is go to SID or maybe just CES, and talk to OEM vendors. If you've got an E-Ink product idea, probably somebody like Netronix would be your OEM partner but even they probably won't talk to you unless you're putting down big NRE. That's just how it is. Volume drives the products. You can't have small volume and cheap unless you're reusing some component that someone else has driven the volume for. That's just as true in the display industry as it is in any other tech industry, eg: LCDs, OLEDs, CPUs, memory, sensors, even passives like resistors and capacitors!

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#116

Post by chx »

A very different eInk laptop recently was at https://hackaday.io/project/177716-the-open-source-autarkic-...

Also note my tech EDC/emergency kit at https://imgur.com/a/xmRmYSn which also uses a Dasung device, the 7.8" not-eReader as an external monitor to an also 7" laptop.

Also note Dasung within the next few months intends to start shipping in China at least a 25.3" eInk monitor.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#117

Post by sambroner »

robinsoh wrote: post #111
AussieWog93 wrote: post #94

I haven't used e-ink for a while, but the last one I did had a refresh rate of something like 1Hz. Is this still an issue with modern technology?

Correct, still about 500ms to get decent levels of separable reproducible grayscale. Claims of 10Hz like Dasung's A2 are often marketing interpretations of unstable 1-bit states. This is a limit of the physics of electrophoresis. To make it faster, they would have to abandon bistability. Some startups have gone that route, eg: ClearInk but they have not yet reached commercial scale.

What is bistability in this context? Confidence that the ink will rest in 'on' or 'off' configurations?

How does that relate to greyscale with multiple configurations and how does ClearInk manage pixel state?

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#118

Post by sambroner »

hutzlibu wrote: post #83
vicda wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this. Latency sucks but that didn't matter for text editing. But the drivers sucked and the screen was too small and you want to have a white background text editor just for the eink screen. Switch that to the wrong screen and you're suddenly blinded. Was fun, but I wouldn't recommend it. Making everything dark mode is easier, or keeping screen brightness super low is the easier option.

"Latency sucks but that didn't matter for text editing." Huh? Don't matter to you, or don't matter so much to you? Because I get annoyed, when there is a system stutter and I am editing text, because then the edits are not always where they should be.

I also get very frustrated by high latency text editors, but a consistent 1hz rendering can be slightly less frustrating if renders get applied consistently and you're confident your key strokes were recognized and will be applied.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#119

Post by robinsoh »

sambroner wrote: post #117
robinsoh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, still about 500ms to get decent levels of separable reproducible grayscale. Claims of 10Hz like Dasung's A2 are often marketing interpretations of unstable 1-bit states. This is a limit of the physics of electrophoresis. To make it faster, they would have to abandon bistability. Some startups have gone that route, eg: ClearInk but they have not yet reached commercial scale.

What is bistability in this context? Confidence that the ink will rest in 'on' or 'off' configurations? How does that relate to greyscale with multiple configurations and how does ClearInk manage pixel state?

Clearink does not rely on the foreground pigment particles coming to "rest" at a fixed position relative to the background pigment, ie: achieving a stable state. Instead they rely on driving the field for as long as the foreground is needed. As soon as it decays, the background pigment instantly rises back to the internally reflecting top plane. This allows the display to achieve much faster speeds since the pigments can be optimized for speed rather than stability.

Re: Building an E-Ink Laptop

#120

Post by coldtea »

robinsoh wrote: post #99
coldtea wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't understand what exactly you're talking about. I'm talking about exactly this: if a company holds patents on a technology, other companies can't improve the same technology (using parts of the patented tech and improving specific aspects with inventions of their own) without licensing it. > This extraordinary claim requires evidence. Nothing extraordinary, and it's not about E-ink being cheap or expensive, i…

> if a company holds patents on a technology, other companies can't improve the same technology You're making a claim equivalent to saying Microsoft holds patents on operating system technologies, other companies can't improve the same technology. I'm guessing you're not actually involved in the display industry because you chose not to reply with a clearly defined specific problem that is blocked by patents. I actua…

>You're making a claim equivalent to saying Microsoft holds patents on operating system technologies, other companies can't improve the same technology.

No, I'm stating the fact that other companies can't improve the same exact technology (as defined in the patent).

If Microsoft has patents on aspects X, Y, Z of filesystems, other companies can still make filesystems, even improved ones.

But they can't make a filesystem that also leverages X, Y, Z (or any combination of them) unless they license, and also can't make a filesystem with an improved version of X, Y, or Z lest they infringe on the X, Y, Z pattent.

So this isn't about other companies still being able to make improved eg. OSes in the general sense, but if they can build improved OSes that also leverage the same patented techniques where needed (and they can't).

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