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Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

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Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#131

Post by maushu »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #127
solardev wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't vote either way, but this is news to me. As long as e-ink has been around, all I've ever heard were the patent issues. If you're saying it's actually manufacturing difficulties, can you provide any links or additional info? I believe you, but as someone not familiar with the field, I'd love to learn more both to counteract the patent narrative and just for my own curiosity. What is hard about e-ink at scale…

Low market interest

With those prices I'm not surprised.

Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#132

Post by BoorishBears »

solardev wrote: post #126
BoorishBears wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should upgrade your phones and laptops then: Apple just released a phone that does 2000 nits outdoors, and similarly the MBP can dip into its 1000 nit sustained HDR brightness rating for SDR content if in direct sunlight In reality this is one of those slow burn deals where the improvements in anti-glare coatings, bonding between digitizer and displays, and brightness come slowly enough that it's easy to take for…

Oh, I thought there was some revolutionary coating I missed out on... I actually have a M2 MacBook Pro and a Pixel 7, both of which get decently bright, but neither of which is really usable under direct glare. And in XDR mode, the SDR colors get super washed out. HDR is a gimmick as far as I can tell. I'd trade either for a usable transflective display or a regular matte screen from early 2000s Dell. I don't think t…

What you described is EDR: where non HDR content is artificially limited to allow HDR content to contrast better. In sunlight the screen will stay in SDR and use HDR brightness levels without any tweaks, which doesn't result in washing anything out

> That's liking shining a flashlight into your eyes so the sun doesn't seem as bright...

... that's exactly the point of e-Ink: with minimal power you get brightness that rivals the sunlight you're holding the device in.

With infinitely efficient OLEDs, we'd just crank the brightness on the lit pixels high enough to match the brightness of a white piece of paper in sunlight and have a better e-ink: unfortunately in the real world that'd generate more heat and take more power than mobile devices can afford right now.

At the end of the day we have both matte and glossy displays with reflective characteristics that rival old school matte displays because of improvements made across the stack... but nostalgia makes us assume things were very different than they were.

Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#133

Post by nomel »

k1t wrote: post #95
nomel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you get the feature that your image is still there when the power is off How is that a realistic feature? Who is losing power and being happy that they spent a few thousand more, nearly 40x, than a 36" photo quality print, just so the image can remain while their lights are off?

The point is that it only uses power when changing the image, so a small battery can run it for a long time - not that it works during a power outage. (and of course it is a lot easier to change than a printed photo)

For $2,200, you could run a 35W 43” $160 TV for 29 years, if your power is $0.3/kWh. In reality, much more, with a dim display at night.

I understand being eco friendly, but that’s an absurd, entirely negligible, justification.

I would claim the reflective display is the killer feature.

Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#134

Post by simple10 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #38
xnx wrote: post #18

Well done. There would be so many more cool applications of e-ink if it wasn't $2,500 for a 42" display: https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/42''MonochromeeP... (minimum order 3) For comparison a 42" full-color 60fps TV with remote, speakers, wifi, etc. etc. is $140. It seems like the patent holder could be making a lot more money if they dropped the price.

>For comparison a 42" full-color 60fps TV with remote, speakers, wifi, etc. etc. is $140. Because it's a lot easier and cheaper to manufacture large LCD panels at scale than E-ink film. >It seems like the patent holder could be making a lot more money if they dropped the price. I don't know any company or shareholders that would say no to making more money so if this would actually be true then it would, but that's n…

Sometimes patent holder enter into initial deals with manufacturers and then can't lower the royalty price for other manufacturers. Even if they'd make more from higher volume, the initial manufacture might be serving high-end customers and doesn't want other manufactures entering the market at a lower price. So they refuse to agree to a lower patent royalty even though it would save them money. It's counterintuitive, but rationale under certain circumstances. This is pure conjecture for the e-ink patent on my part, but I've seen it first hand for other products.

Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#135

Post by rjvs »

renewiltord wrote: post #35
esafak wrote: post #29

Samsung sells an LED TV specifically for this use case. Currently only at 4K. https://www.samsung.com/us/tvs/the-frame/highlights/

A friend has the Samsung Frame and I think you can only interface with it via the Samsung SmartThings app. It's quite closed. So you need an online thing for the TV and then you upload it into their app.

They make it superficially closed but it's pretty simple to get around it with a USB drive. Really all you have to do is ignore their subscription system and size your images to match the screen.

Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#136

Post by rjvs »

mholm wrote: post #80
renewiltord wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend has the Samsung Frame and I think you can only interface with it via the Samsung SmartThings app. It's quite closed. So you need an online thing for the TV and then you upload it into their app.

Yep, it's very locked down, and Art Mode behavior is often anti-user to promote their $10/month Art Store subscription. There are limited matting options and I believe it intentionally crops photos incorrectly, even if you upload in the correct aspect ratio. It also takes about a minute to scroll down to 'User Art' sections with how slow their UI is.

Their Art Store promotion is annoying persistent but not actually required if you put images onto a USB and have it slurp them up; all you need to do is ignore their requests for subscription when setting it up. All that's required is to resize them to full screen with your own matte, or you can just crop the images to the right aspect ratio. Depending upon your desire for fidelity, you could also use ML image extension to get the right aspect ratio.

This doesn't get around all the other annoying bugs in the firmware of course.

Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#137

Post by Qwertious »

solardev wrote: post #117
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For comparison a 42" full-color 60fps TV with remote, speakers, wifi, etc. etc. is $140. Because it's a lot easier and cheaper to manufacture large LCD panels at scale than E-ink film. >It seems like the patent holder could be making a lot more money if they dropped the price. I don't know any company or shareholders that would say no to making more money so if this would actually be true then it would, but that's n…

I didn't vote either way, but this is news to me. As long as e-ink has been around, all I've ever heard were the patent issues. If you're saying it's actually manufacturing difficulties, can you provide any links or additional info? I believe you, but as someone not familiar with the field, I'd love to learn more both to counteract the patent narrative and just for my own curiosity. What is hard about e-ink at scale…

>As long as e-ink has been around, all I've ever heard were the patent issues. If you're saying it's actually manufacturing difficulties, can you provide any links or additional info?

For the record, the "patents" think has no links to back it up either.

But to answer your question: E-ink screens are less than $100 (depending on the size), that's already pretty cheap. They're only expensive when compared to LCDs. LCDs are produced at a rate of billions per quarter*, with ~6 billion smartphone owners, and lots of them having multiple LCD devices e.g. laptop/desktop screen, work computer's screen, supermarket kiosk, tablet, smartwatch, car screen, etc.

In contrast, e-ink screens have basically three applications: e-readers, e-notes (which is basically just an e-reader with a stylus), and supermarket pricetags. E-readers/e-notes are a luxury item that you don't need if you already have a smartphone/iPad. There's just no economy of scale for e-ink; not compared to LCDs.

Because there's no economy scale or obvious new markets to expand into, there's not much budget for R&D, so the entire field moves slowly.

Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#138

Post by komali2 »

mikewarot wrote: post #109
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure the ad-driven subsidy on TVs plays a huge part. TV prices have declined as “dumb” TVs have been phased out of the market. A more niche tool like a large e-ink display might not make as much sense from to price this way since ad systems need large networks of users to be relevant.

As a check against this, I looked for 42" computer monitors, which don't display ads. There are $600 4k 42" monitors in stock at CDW, for example. The same size 4k SmartTVs are about $300. So, yes... there appears to be about a 50% discount for TVs vs Computer Displays, part of which could be a subsidy, most of which I suspect is volume driving down the cost of production.

Double check the refresh rate, input latency, and color gamut for your comparisons. Computer monitor user concerns are quite different than tv screen users.

Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#139

Post by rjvs »

tambourine_man wrote: post #51
esafak wrote: post #29

Samsung sells an LED TV specifically for this use case. Currently only at 4K. https://www.samsung.com/us/tvs/the-frame/highlights/

I’m browsing this link for a good 5min. Looks interesting. I get that it tries to simulate paper, but I have no idea how. Even the “explore technology” link has little extra detail. I don’t even know if it’s backlit.

The main tech is a very anti-reflective coating; the best I've seen on a mainstream TV. It is backlit but in Art Mode the backlight is turned down (you can control how much and there is an ambient light sensor that fine-tunes your choice). The combination of low emission, quite low reflection and static content is pretty compelling for me in a lit room.

I have the white frame on the bezel against a light-coloured wall and when displaying art it's much less imposing on the room than an empty black screen. Obviously it uses more power than standby but it's also quite a bit less than a dynamic screensaver.

Don't know that I'd get another one; the bugs in Samsung's software are annoying (I just want it to display the art, or a picture from a single HDMI input, how hard can they possibly make it?) but perhaps that's standard for modern TVs.

Re: Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

#140

Post by tough »

Qwertious wrote: post #137
solardev wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't vote either way, but this is news to me. As long as e-ink has been around, all I've ever heard were the patent issues. If you're saying it's actually manufacturing difficulties, can you provide any links or additional info? I believe you, but as someone not familiar with the field, I'd love to learn more both to counteract the patent narrative and just for my own curiosity. What is hard about e-ink at scale…

>As long as e-ink has been around, all I've ever heard were the patent issues. If you're saying it's actually manufacturing difficulties, can you provide any links or additional info? For the record, the "patents" think has no links to back it up either. But to answer your question: E-ink screens are less than $100 (depending on the size), that's already pretty cheap. They're only expensive when compared to LCDs . LC…

Sounds kinda like a problem looking for a solution, you could emagine e-ink taking off for a lot of thing sthat currently are not digital, but it would need to be also cheaper.

If e-ink was x100 cheaper, we could use it in x1000 more use-cases

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