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E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

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Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#31

Post by Gigachad »

mysecretaccount wrote: post #23

One of my primary "consumer electronics" dreams for the future is that e-ink displays become cheap and commonplace. Something about screens causes them to steal away your attention. "Ambient" screens for menus in bars/restaurants are convenient but are awful decor. This is why I will never have a utility display in my house for e.g. displaying news, weather. I do not even really care if the tech improves - just give…

You can get TVs that look like paintings. I'm not talking about just having a painting like frame, but I wasn't actually sure if I was looking at a print or a TV. It's mostly to do with the matte screen and low brightness I guess. Supposedly you sacrifice color accuracy for this effect though.

Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#32

Post by userbinator »

With only 16 gray levels

It's disappointing that, even after several years of a hobbyist showing that it is indeed possible for an EPD to display more than 16 levels, none of the commercially available panel controllers out there have this capability:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140284

Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#33

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #25
asciimov wrote: post #17

I'm sorry that this guy feels that these devices are a scam. E-ink frames have their own aesthetic and do a decent job of displaying black and white photos. Sure they have some limitations, but they are good enough and solve a particular problem if you have a large amount of b&w photos to display.

maybe, but this is pretty damning > Nice looking website, edited and misleading pictures and videos with a soothing voice to let you sleep and distract you from the truth. > High prices, unclear specifications. Unclear business model, subscription based, phone app dependant, making you bound to their service. These devices may easilly become useless if (when) the company closes its doors. just be transparent about wh…

The author makes it impossible to judge though by refusing to link to the website in question.

While I won't judge him or assume malice, I would strongly prefer to make my own judgements about the honesty of their advertising.

Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#34

Post by dandelany »

spiderice wrote: post #24
jrm4 wrote: post #19

Honestly, this is as close to an objectively wrong "opinion" as I've seen on here. I think a scam is best defined as something where there's a huge disjoint between what is sold/marketed, and what the person actually receives or experiences. They may not look AMAZING, but so what? They do what they say on the tin.

> there's a huge disjoint between what is sold/marketed I think that's exactly what OP is arguing here. The website (which they didn't link to) showed entirely different capabilities than what the product can do. Nothing "objectively wrong" about that EDIT: Take this website for example [1]. I have no idea if this is the website OP ordered from (it's just one of the top google results), but if I ordered a picture fra…

OK, but that is just one product. I agree that some companies are overselling e-ink in a way that is scammy, but that doesn’t mean the whole market is a scam. Plenty of products eg. Inkplate are upfront about what you’re getting, and I think it looks pretty good, albeit not nearly as good as a proper print.

Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#35

Post by sedatk »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #22
sedatk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-paper and E-ink are different technologies though. E-paper is transfletive LCD and requires power to keep the image on the display.

E-paper and e-ink are synonyms (well, to be more precise, e-ink is a brand of e-paper, but those terms are being commonly used as synonymous). Not sure what you're referring to regarding transflective screens, as both the article and my comment refer to displays that only need power to update their content. I also have a device with a transflective LCD, it's called Nokia N900 - it would be hard to mistake one display…

Pebble had branded its transflective LCD display as e-paper. So, it signifies transflective display commercially, unless owner of the trademark decides to do something else with it. (I'm not sure though the term was trademarked, but it had been used for transflective displays for a while).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_d...

Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#36

Post by sedatk »

lazycow wrote: post #30
seba_dos1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-paper and e-ink are synonyms (well, to be more precise, e-ink is a brand of e-paper, but those terms are being commonly used as synonymous). Not sure what you're referring to regarding transflective screens, as both the article and my comment refer to displays that only need power to update their content. I also have a device with a transflective LCD, it's called Nokia N900 - it would be hard to mistake one display…

Might be referring to monochrome RLCD as used on Hisense Q5. Some press calls it e-paper.

Nope, see my sibling comment.

Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#37

Post by josephcsible »

I don't get why a lot of people are saying this isn't a scam, just because they are somewhat usable for the purpose. The scam part is that the product photos are faked, giving the impression that the images it displays are of a much higher quality than they really are. If you see a product page for an electromagnet that shows it holding up a 50lb weight, and when you get it, it can actually only hold up a 10lb weight, would you not consider that a scam either? Or how about a monitor advertised as 4K but that's actually 1080p?

Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#38

Post by scottmcdot »

Gigachad wrote: post #31
mysecretaccount wrote: post #23

One of my primary "consumer electronics" dreams for the future is that e-ink displays become cheap and commonplace. Something about screens causes them to steal away your attention. "Ambient" screens for menus in bars/restaurants are convenient but are awful decor. This is why I will never have a utility display in my house for e.g. displaying news, weather. I do not even really care if the tech improves - just give…

You can get TVs that look like paintings. I'm not talking about just having a painting like frame, but I wasn't actually sure if I was looking at a print or a TV. It's mostly to do with the matte screen and low brightness I guess. Supposedly you sacrifice color accuracy for this effect though.

Can you please share what TV you saw?

Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#39

Post by Gigachad »

scottmcdot wrote: post #38
Gigachad wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get TVs that look like paintings. I'm not talking about just having a painting like frame, but I wasn't actually sure if I was looking at a print or a TV. It's mostly to do with the matte screen and low brightness I guess. Supposedly you sacrifice color accuracy for this effect though.

Can you please share what TV you saw?

No idea, it was on a wall in a store. I think it might have been the Samsung frame tv.

Re: E-ink art frames are a scam (2021)

#40

Post by Kiro »

josephcsible wrote: post #37

I don't get why a lot of people are saying this isn't a scam, just because they are somewhat usable for the purpose. The scam part is that the product photos are faked, giving the impression that the images it displays are of a much higher quality than they really are. If you see a product page for an electromagnet that shows it holding up a 50lb weight, and when you get it, it can actually only hold up a 10lb weight…

That's just one specific shop being a scam then and not "E-ink art frames are a scam".
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