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The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

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Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#111

Post by TheFreim »

esperent wrote: post #98
arsome wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kobos are pretty trivially jailbroken if you're looking for a similar competitive device.

Old Kobos were awesome, I had one for years running Kohreader. Sadly I lost it. Then when I researched new Kobos, about two years ago, it seemed like the quality has gone down a lot as the company has been sold several times. Is that still the case?

I picked up a Libra H2O a while back, I've had no issues whatsoever. I used the default software without issue before discovering KOReader, installation was easy. The hardware is very solid, have not noticed any problems with the outside casing, screen, or issues related to power.

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#112

Post by dredmorbius »

beAbU wrote: post #100
konschubert wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, when you make like a million of these you have different economies of scale, plus an ability to negotiate with suppliers. This is the power of making a product at huge scale. The amount of technology I can buy in a $90 Android phone is mind boggling.

Also consider that the devices you mention are probably heavily subsidised. The kindle is a gateway drug into the rest of the Amazon ecosystem, and you probably need some form of subscription to get full use out of it, or at the least you need to buy ebooks on Amazon for it. The $90 phone probably comes with facebook and other social apps + bloatware pre-installed, that no doubt ended up there because of some commerc…

Outside a handful of providers (Amazon, Barn & Noble's Nook, possibly Kobo), e-ink devices tend to not be subsidised.

You can look at pricing for, e.g., Onyx's product line to get a good sense of what the cost of a given mass-market device at a given e-ink size (and capabilities, e.g., Wacom, frontlight, touch interface) are.

Smaller e-ink devices are quite affordable. At 10" and above, you start seeing a pretty significant price premium, though IMO the benefits are worth it.

(I own a 13" Onyx device, for three years now.)

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#114

Post by nolongerthere »

Timshel wrote: post #82
paxys wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cheapest Kindle is routinely on sale for $60-70. And spec wise there is really no comparison. The Kindle has a backlight. 1448x1072 resolution (compared to this one's 800x480). Battery that can last a month. USB-C. 16GB storage. Bluetooth. It's a very capable device. The fact that this one is made by an "upstart" means nothing. You have to compete on price and quality to be successful. Plus if this company goes o…

Tracking on keepa lowest price is 95$ ( https://keepa.com/#!product/1-B0B92489PD ) and it's the 6inch. The 6.8inch has not been under 120$. Anyway yes the Kindle has better spec but as you mentionned in your first post the fact that it's locked is the whole point. Amazon is not making money on the device ...

Keepa doesn’t always tell the whole story as it can’t track coupons and in-cart discounts, which Amazon regularly uses especially for their own products to hide the real lowest price from price trackers and scrapers.

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#115

Post by nolongerthere »

vosper wrote: post #109
rubatuga wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't you just buy a used kindle touch? Once rooted, it runs python3, curl, and imagemagick, I use it to query the Canadian weather API and display the forecast. No proxies needed! Plus it only costs $40 used... Essentially a local-device version of my earlier attempt at an e-paper weather display: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oel08SDFyIY If there's enough interest I can release a new video.

Please do release a new video! There’s a comment thread about “it’s a pity kindles don’t seem to get jailbroken” so presumably some people are confused (me included)

Yea, the video is 7(!) years old, Amazon regularly patches jailbreaks just like Apple does, and for certain fire tablets it’s apparently impossible to jailbreak fully at all for the last 2 years. So you either need to find one that didn’t get the OTA update or find some way to downgrade to a previous OS/bootloader.

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#116

Post by ornornor »

dmd wrote: post #103
beAbU wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also consider that the devices you mention are probably heavily subsidised. The kindle is a gateway drug into the rest of the Amazon ecosystem, and you probably need some form of subscription to get full use out of it, or at the least you need to buy ebooks on Amazon for it. The $90 phone probably comes with facebook and other social apps + bloatware pre-installed, that no doubt ended up there because of some commerc…

The (eink) kindle is a fabulous device and in absolutely no way requires you to buy ebooks from Amazon. you can just plug it in and put Mobi files on it.

Very few non tech people realize that. I’d wager the overwhelming majority buy a kindle and then get 100% of their books off BezosBazaar.

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#117

Post by nolongerthere »

cendyne wrote: post #64
throwoutway wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasnt this suppose to end (the patents expire) in 2022/ 2023?

It might take a few years to refine the manufacturing process in other factories under different management. There is certainly a lot of knowledge and equipment to replicate.

To make a modern comparison, the first mass-market device with USB-C was arguably the 2015 MacBook, it was only really last year 2022 that it finally started to feel like most consumer electronics were being released with usb-c instead of micro-usb, and still many devices today are being manufactured with micro-usb ports (I even have a device I bought this year that utilized… mini-usb!!) so that’s 7+ years for something that everyone agrees is superior to gain serious traction. 3D printers are similar, after the patents expired, it took nearly 10 years for them to be truly mainstream.

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#118

Post by ornornor »

esperent wrote: post #98
arsome wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kobos are pretty trivially jailbroken if you're looking for a similar competitive device.

Old Kobos were awesome, I had one for years running Kohreader. Sadly I lost it. Then when I researched new Kobos, about two years ago, it seemed like the quality has gone down a lot as the company has been sold several times. Is that still the case?

I have two Clara HD and they’re pretty good. They just work. I use Calibre with them.

Inside is a micro SD card so if I ever need more storage I can just clone the original SD and extend the partition to upgrade the storage.

The Kobo are so much better than the kindle imho: more open, not locked down, and the typesetting engine is Mike’s ahead: no ragged edges or page long rivers unlike I was getting on the kindle.

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#119

Post by magospietato »

ornornor wrote: post #116
dmd wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The (eink) kindle is a fabulous device and in absolutely no way requires you to buy ebooks from Amazon. you can just plug it in and put Mobi files on it.

Very few non tech people realize that. I’d wager the overwhelming majority buy a kindle and then get 100% of their books off BezosBazaar.

The convenience factor of the BezosBazaar can't be underestimated. I have no interest in maintaining a digital library these days, and the walls of the Kindle garden just aren't that impactful when you read maybe a dozen books a year.

Re: The Invisible Screen – An E-Paper Smart Display

#120

Post by simonebrunozzi »

dcreater wrote: post #110
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #54

I love e-ink displays, and I wish there would be more options out there for creartive use, like this one by Invisible Screen (hello Konschubert, thanks for creating this!) What I'd love is a large, high-res, perhaps color, e-ink display that I can use either as a second screen, or as an indipendent computer. I read hours every day on an LCD screen, and most of that reading would be much better on an e-ink.

It sounds like you're looking for the reMarkable 2

Reviews for the reMarkable 2 are mixed. Not sure it's a great product.
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