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Jailbroke my Kindle to use it as an e-ink monitor

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Re: Jailbroke my Kindle to use it as an e-ink monitor

#81

Post by thaumasiotes »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #63
dredmorbius wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news, maybe, is that "E-Paper" (transflective LCD displays), capable of much higher refresh rates (60 -- 180 Hz), though with greater power draw and lacking E-Ink (electrophoretic) display's persistence, but otherwise sharing bright-light / daylit visibility, are starting to appear. What I've seen of E-Paper displays isn't especially encouraging on the cost front, as similarly-sized displays seem to have rou…

Transflectve LCDs can't compete against Eink on contrast. They are inherently compromised on light transmission because of the polarizers and the modern desire for [back|front]light support.

> and the modern desire for [back|front]light support.

I had a keyboard kindle that came with a case that included a dim orange pull-out booklight.

I wish we could still get that. It was much more relaxing to read by than the modern uniform white glow from the page itself.

Re: Jailbroke my Kindle to use it as an e-ink monitor

#82

Post by dredmorbius »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #80
dredmorbius wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's battery life? Have you compared sessions where you're principally, say, reading books with a bookreader app vs. Web browsing, or using other apps? My experience on the BOOX, an E-ink device, is that web browsing (Einkbro) consumes battery at ~10x the hourly rate that reading books (Neoreader) does. How much of that is active display, and how much is other CPU usage, I don't know.

My experience on the reMarkable 2 is that leaving it "off", showing the screen it displays when it detects that you haven't done anything for a while, will drain the battery in a matter of days, whereas leaving it "off", showing the screen it displays when you manually navigate into the shutdown menu and tell it to turn off, drains the battery in a matter of months. I assume that none of the difference is in active d…

The Remarkable2 is an E-Ink device. I'd asked mattkevan as they are using a transflective LCD-based "E-Paper" device.

The technologies have a similar appearance, but utilise different technologies (electrophoretic vs. liquid crystal). Principle differences are the responsiveness of the display (LCD is far faster) and power consumption (LCD draws constant power, the display clears when voltage potential is removed, electrophoretic displays persist indefinitely when power is off).

As I'd noted in the comment you're replying to, I've used an E-Ink device for years, and am familiar with its power consumption characteristics.

Re: Jailbroke my Kindle to use it as an e-ink monitor

#83

Post by dredmorbius »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #81
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transflectve LCDs can't compete against Eink on contrast. They are inherently compromised on light transmission because of the polarizers and the modern desire for [back|front]light support.

> and the modern desire for [back|front]light support. I had a keyboard kindle that came with a case that included a dim orange pull-out booklight. I wish we could still get that. It was much more relaxing to read by than the modern uniform white glow from the page itself.

You can always use a clip-on book light, or other external light source.

https://accessorytosuccess.com/blogs/tools/best-book-light-r...>

Re: Jailbroke my Kindle to use it as an e-ink monitor

#84

Post by vrotaru »

stavros wrote: post #23
adtac wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should stop writing code in files like /tmp/x.go no matter how throwaway I think the code might be. I still have the linux/armv7 binary if anyone wants it lol.

Oh man, apparently I'm not alone in using /tmp/ as my storage space. I like it because it's self-cleaning!

You know what else is self-cleaning?

   /dev/shm
The advantage being that it does not even touch the disk.

Re: Jailbroke my Kindle to use it as an e-ink monitor

#85

Post by IAmNotACellist »

SushiHippie wrote: post #42
Animats wrote: post #34

Are e-ink displays ever going to get cheap? By now the basic patents should be running out.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779

He calls it the broken nature of the patent system, but I'm sitting here wondering why the creators of that technology shouldn't be handsomely rewarded for it, for a period of time? It's not like they're sitting on it (Creative Labs comes to mind), but rather releasing displays that just make devices cost more than they otherwise will.

A similar thing happened the tech behind Wacom devices--they enjoyed market dominance, the patent ran out, and now we have super cheap high-precision digital art devices.

Re: Jailbroke my Kindle to use it as an e-ink monitor

#86

Post by konschubert »

Animats wrote: post #34

Are e-ink displays ever going to get cheap? By now the basic patents should be running out.

The competition is still pretty expensive. The e-paper display I am using in my digital calendar is not from eink (as far as I’m aware), but still costs about 50 Euro if you buy a single one: https://www.waveshare.com/7.5inch-e-paper-hat.htm

It’s the main cost driver of my calendar, it basically forces the price point: https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale...

Re: Jailbroke my Kindle to use it as an e-ink monitor

#87

Post by cududa »

bee_rider wrote: post #57
mattkevan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using Daylight Computer’s new Android tablet for a while now, which has a 60fps reflective grayscale LCD screen. During the day it looks and behaves like E-paper, but with a much faster display rate. It’s also got a warm backlight for use at night. When the backlight is off the contrast is lower than the E-ink Carta panel used in the Remarkable and Boox tablets, but the backlight and fast refresh really hel…

They seem to be sold out for quite a while, sadly. Good for them, though, I hope they means they’ll grow.

Watching videos/ interviews of the founder, it sounds like he’s very vey focussed on scaling this up to build affordable and durable wall sized versions of the display tech.

I’m certainly rooting for them. I hope they have more devices available soon

Re: Jailbroke my Kindle to use it as an e-ink monitor

#88

Post by arnavpraneet »

dang wrote: post #64
adtac wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dang, can we merge this thread into https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41155177 or vice versa?

Sure.

I did not expect your username to be dang, I thought he meant it as a figure of speech like "dang"
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