
Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays? - semisight
Context upfront: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13771203" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13771203</a><p>I&#x27;d really like to have a decent (let&#x27;s say &gt;13&quot;) display to hang on a wall in my room and display weather, my todo list, etc. It doesn&#x27;t necessarily have to be E-ink proper, but I like the idea of having something that doesn&#x27;t emit its own light. More like an electronic whiteboard.<p>Alternatives include something like the Vestaboard, which is <i>not cheap</i>, and probably fairly noisy.<p>Are there products I&#x27;m missing here?
======
GekkePrutser
If you're interesting in building your own you can get a 12" one from
waveshare:
[https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch...](https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/12.48inch-
e-paper-module.htm)

This is the black/white one, they do a black/white/red one too. But beware,
they take really long to refresh (the red color takes several refreshes to
appear). And the one with red is on backorder till June.

It can be powered by a raspberry pi (or ESP32 or Arduino) and is (much)
cheaper than the ereader options of the same size: Only about $170.

PS Beware: You can't simply start up a user interface like X-Windows on it.
You have to write software to display on it. The display is addressed in 4
separate sections so it's not super easy.

~~~
bluedays
Neat. I was looking for one of these. Wanted to make a KindleBerry Pi to do
some writing/coding in a destruction free environment.

~~~
tinkertamper
I wanted this for some time, an eink coding experience for outdoor use and
good battery life. Do you know of any active projects online where people have
got this working?

------
lolryan
The technology is there, but E Ink (the company) is steadfastly refusing to
lower prices because they believe there's a market for this. Now go to Alibaba
and find that you can get a flexible, full-color OLED sheet for the same price
as a given size E Ink panel.

Go on eBay and buy an older NOOK device (they all ran Android) for $20, tape
it to your wall, and point at your web page of choice.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
A great example of patents strangling innovation. If anyone has more concrete
details on the way this company is holding back this technology I’d love to
read details. Thanks!

~~~
amenod
The irony is that they are probably limiting their profit too. With lower
prices the number of applications would skyrocket and they would get much
bigger income.

The only reason I can think of is that scaling the production would be
difficult for some reason?

~~~
areactnativedev
From skimming through their website, it looks like they target business
applications with bigger displays (Health Care, Transportation, Industrial &
Packaging, ...) which I would assume are high margin contracts.

So maybe another reason would be that offering lower prices for big displays
would reduce profits from these business clients more than it would increase
profits from the additional low-margin mass-market volumes.

------
ipsum2
Have you looked at [https://remarkable.com/](https://remarkable.com/)? It's a
little smaller, 12" diagonal.

Dasung sells a 13.3" e-ink monitor: [https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-
Paperlike-13-3-E-Ink-Monitor/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Dasung-
Paperlike-13-3-E-Ink-Monitor/dp/B00MWEPM3C)

~~~
dheera
Can anyone comment on the difficulty (for a hacker) of using Remarkable with
Kindle books? I have a Kindle already, if that makes a difference in
generating DRM-free files of content I already purchased reading rights to.

~~~
enricozb
I have never been able to get EPUBs to reliably work on remarkable. My
solution is to convert them to PDFs.

~~~
jdkaiwei
You can also install KOReader on remarkable as a reader. Works better IMHO.
[https://github.com/koreader/koreader](https://github.com/koreader/koreader)

~~~
polskibus
If you do it, do you lose the ability to annotate?

------
mortenjorck
I've long wondered why electrophoretic displays (the generic term for E Ink,
which is a proprietary name) continue to be exponentially more expensive at
sizes larger than a Kindle while other technologies like OLED have become
vastly more affordable in larger formats over a similar timeframe.

The best I can tell is that there just hasn't been an investment in scaling up
fabrication anywhere near what the likes of LG (mostly LG, actually) has done
with >40" OLED panels. Presumably the demand isn't there yet, and so larger-
format electrophoretics remain the product of low-volume, high-cost
manufacturing processes.

~~~
lostgame
But e-ink technology isn’t ready to go out of the gate - the refresh rate is
still a _significant_ issue that makes it virtually purposeless for much
beyond reading. If it is at this point, it just didn’t happen quickly enough.

~~~
nitrogen
I'd like a very large e-ink display for artwork, signage, and metrics. It
doesn't have to refresh more than once every several seconds.

~~~
lostgame
Then you are a niche case. In order to forward a new technology, the masses
need to adapt it. Apple, for instance, had to upscale the manufacture of
Retina displays by starting with a proven successful product - then moving it
to the iPad, then moving it to MacBooks.

We had e-book readers for e-ink, but they stayed at a super slow refresh rate.
There was no reason to create a tablet sized e-ink display until the
ReMarkable removed the issue of the delay.

Now we will have clones of that, and after that we will see a push to larger
displays.

Mass manufacturing is hugely about cost balance vs. demand.

I think digital whiteboards in offices would be a great market for this.
Again, though, if you’re going to draw on it at _all_ there needs to be zero
latency.

~~~
dingaling
>There was no reason to create a tablet sized e-ink display

Of course there was; large-format publications like newspapers, magazines and
technical documents. All requiring large display area and not needing fast
refresh. But yet, all ignored by the manufacturers and so LCD tablets became
the default for those despite their drawbacks.

------
luka-birsa
Large format E-ink displays are currently used primarily in digital signage
scenarios (outdoor advertising, passenger information systems,...) - examples
are Soofa ([http://www.soofa.co/](http://www.soofa.co/)) and Mercury
Innovation ([https://www.mercuryinnovation.com.au/digital-bus-
stop](https://www.mercuryinnovation.com.au/digital-bus-stop)).

The largest size currently available is 42" and it is used in outdoor and
indoor scenarios. Indoor use is for education purposes as a digital whiteboard
- see Quilla ([https://www.engadget.com/2017-01-03-quirklogic-s-quilla-
is-a...](https://www.engadget.com/2017-01-03-quirklogic-s-quilla-is-a-42-inch-
e-ink-whiteboard.html)).

None of these are especially applicable for home use due to the price tag
(just to be clear, the display itself is very expensive). What you could do is
use Sonys larger format eInk tablet, use Remarkable EInk tablet or hack your
own solution from an older Kobo reader.

We're offering solutions somewhere in the middle - traditionally we were
focused on SME, where our devices are being used as universal digital signage
([http://www.visionect.com](http://www.visionect.com)) or tailored for room
booking ([http://getjoan.com](http://getjoan.com)), so a bit pricy for home
use. But we just launched a 6" device called Joan Home
([https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home/](https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home/))
that syncs to your calendar and are looking to expand it with new
functionality in the future. We're thing of integrations with home automation,
pomodoro timer, IFTTT, etc...

Comments on the Joan Home are welcome - as we're actively thinking of
developing this into a more feature rich product in next two months.

~~~
Operyl
What a cool product for meeting rooms! But .. and maybe I'm just not the
target audience, there's no way in any universe am I paying 250 bucks for a
"do not disturb sign" in my house. That's just way too expensive.

~~~
luka-birsa
Yup. We did get a lot of that with our meeting room solution. We'll be
expanding the feature set over the near future, to entice home users to go for
something like this even with a price tag of 250.

~~~
Operyl
I can't even imagine what you'd add to make it useful for 250 dollars. Like,
look.. If I don't want to be disturbed, I close my door. If I am OK with being
disturbed, it is open. That's not going to cost me 250 bucks. If the product
were in the 100 bucks range, maybe I'd bite, but it is far from that. This is
trying to be pitched to me as a home solution, but with the price tag of what
I'd consider for a company instead.

~~~
ionwake
I don’t see what your problem is with the device - it’s an e ink calendar for
250 euros thats cordless, I like it. Even tho it is expensive for me.

~~~
Operyl
“ Comments on the Joan Home are welcome - as we're actively thinking of
developing this into a more feature rich product in next two months.”

Just giving my feedback. Like I originally said, it’s a cool product, but it’s
got a price tag that makes it not a “Home” product like you just said.

------
ThrowawayR2
32" e-ink panels exist but are still too expensive to be practical for home
use: [https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2˝-monochrome-epaper-
di...](https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2˝-monochrome-epaper-display-
ed312tt2/)

The only commercial product I know of that uses it is from Visionect but it's
a meant for digital signage rather than as a computer display:
[https://www.visionect.com/product/place-and-
play-32/](https://www.visionect.com/product/place-and-play-32/). It's less
expensive than their earlier system but still around $2500.

~~~
pplante
I thought that might be an awesome splurge someday, then I saw the refresh
rate of 750ms. Nearly an entire second to see a screen repaint every time I
move a cursor.

~~~
tekknolagi
For a smaller size, apparently the displays made by Dasung are pretty nice.

------
solarkraft
This isn't perfectly within your search criteria, but you may still find it
interesting. Just today I researched the available solutions for driving a
ED097OC1 (compatible) display, which was built into the Kindle DX, has a
diagonale of 9,7" and can be obtained for about 30€ [0].

There are some projects dedicated to driving the screen with an ESP32, which
already has WiFi built in, has good low power modes and is pretty cheap as
well [1] [2].

There's also a project driving e-ink displays with an stm32 [3] and one to do
it with an FPGA [4].

Beyond 13" things get really expensive and hard to find - best I can do is
12,48" for 150€ [5].

[0]:
[https://aliexpress.com/item/32983492389.html](https://aliexpress.com/item/32983492389.html)

[1]:
[https://github.com/dqydj/PaperBack_EPaper_Display](https://github.com/dqydj/PaperBack_EPaper_Display)

[2]: [https://hackaday.io/project/168193-976-e-paper-controller-
ki...](https://hackaday.io/project/168193-976-e-paper-controller-kindle-
screen/log/174926-v2-underway.A)

[3]: [https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekocal-an-e-ink-
calendar](https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekocal-an-e-ink-calendar)

[4]: [https://github.com/vd-rd/project_rorschach](https://github.com/vd-
rd/project_rorschach)

[5]:
[https://aliexpress.com/i/32929629021.html](https://aliexpress.com/i/32929629021.html)

~~~
solarkraft
So that's the current state of available stuff - The ESP32 stuff is quite
interesting because it's all you need for an IoT module and in the right
version it even has enough RAM for full screen updates.

I don't know specifics about the voltage conversion yet (these screens need
about -20V - 20V), but I reckon that if you're really frugal you could make a
battery powered wall display for under 60€ with this stuff - and that's part 1
of what I'm thinking of doing.

Part 2 would be to stick in a Pine64 SOPINE System On a Module [6], put on a
capacitive touch layer [7] and run a mainline Linux with KOReader and maybe
even a Wayland compositor to be able to run any Linux app (the high contrast
GTK theme seems perfect for this application).

All hopefully for under 200€, which is a lot less expensive than other
e-readers if that size and a whole lot cooler.

Any tips?

[6]:
[https://store.pine64.org/?product=sopine-a64](https://store.pine64.org/?product=sopine-a64)

[7]:
[https://aliexpress.com/item/32984143128.html](https://aliexpress.com/item/32984143128.html)

[8]:
[https://github.com/koreader/koreader](https://github.com/koreader/koreader)

------
robocat
I suspect you would be interested in this:

[https://hackaday.com/2016/01/19/a-digital-canvas-thats-
hard-...](https://hackaday.com/2016/01/19/a-digital-canvas-thats-hard-to-
spot/)

It matches the LCD lighting to the ambient light, so that it doesn’t have that
“glowing screen” look, but instead looks like a flat picture.

Something else irrelevant to your question, but trés cool:
[https://hackaday.com/2019/08/17/great-artificial-daylight-
vi...](https://hackaday.com/2019/08/17/great-artificial-daylight-via-broken-
tvs/)

------
agys
In Shanghai they are used as timetables at bus stops. Almost A2 size in some
stops and smaller ones, about A4 (vertical) at others... The small ones had a
clock which updated every minute (windowed mode) while the passenger data
updated in longer intervals, probably hourly.

~~~
riqbal
Thank you for the info. I just searched and found this post
[https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2018/11/15/e-ink-
fo...](https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2018/11/15/e-ink-for-the-
shanghai-bus-system)

~~~
agys
Yes. That's the bigger one!

It's strange that the list of buses is sorted by bus number and not by time…

Also: finally a display where advertisement is probably not so attractive.

~~~
yabatopia
> It's strange that the list of buses is sorted by bus number and not by time…

You don't randomly hop on the first bus that arrives at your bus stop. You
need the bus that brings you to your desired destination. The bus number is
important to know you're on the right bus. Sorting by bus number makes it
easier to scan for arrival time of the bus you actually need.

~~~
tda
Also, every route can be displayed on the board, even if the next ten buses
are all on a different route with better service. Better to have the next bus
for every route than just the next expected buses

------
Abishek_Muthian
There is a need gap for 'Affordable E-Ink large external displays'[1].

Dasung, Onyx have been market leaders in this category and they are expensive.
There are E-ink tablets from several other manufacturers as mentioned in other
comments, but they rarely are external displays.

Then there are reliability issues with cheap DIY E-Ink displays, they don't
last long and especially when displaying low refresh rate data like Weather,
todo list; there will be ghosting issues quite soon.

I'm not exactly sure on whether manufacturing large E-ink external displays is
just an unit-economics problem which will get resolved with improvement in
technology or there is some underlying Intellectual Property issues from the
likes of Amazon,Dasung,Onyx etc.

[1][https://needgap.com/problems/43-affordable-e-ink-large-
exter...](https://needgap.com/problems/43-affordable-e-ink-large-external-
displays-eink-displays)

~~~
scottlocklin
Not only are Onyx expensive; they're basically unusable. A rooted Kobo H2O
with koreader in landscape mode is vastly better.

Sony is apparently still selling the DPT-RP1, and it still doesn't connect to
Linux or read DjVu. I guess at least it has an OSX client.

~~~
j88439h84
Onyx boox note pro is expensive but fwiw I really like it.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Are you using it as an external display? Is it seamless as in traditional
color monitor albeit the refresh rate?

~~~
te0006
The BOOX MAX 2 sadly doees not expose its full native resolution through the
external monitor interface which is a real shame. Worse, none of the supported
resolutions are integer fractions of the native resolution so scaling
artifacts are unavoidable. It doesn`t even seem possible to sacrifice some
border area and use a suitably-sized subwindow of the screen (e.g. FHD
1920x1080) without scaling. (If somebody knows better, please leave a comment)
Onyx pretends there is no problem and cheerfully tells frustrated users to
adjust their OS theme and font sizes, over and over again [1]. Shame on them
for ruining what could have been a great and unique feature. because wouldn`t
it be for this problem, the MAX2 would finally be a decent sunlight-ready
external laptop screen, at least for text writing and some light coding. Well
perhaps the problem is solved in the new MAX3 device.

[1] [http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/max2-hdmi-not-useable-
wr...](http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/max2-hdmi-not-useable-wrong-
display-resolution/58)

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Thanks.

Reg feedback for Onyx, you can try passing it to this YouTuber; he covers
electronic shows world over and seems to have good relations with Onyx -
[https://mobile.twitter.com/charbax](https://mobile.twitter.com/charbax).

------
trevyn
Soooo surely someone here knows something about this... at the fancy Harry
Potter ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, they have “living paintings” as
part of the ambiance, which are very clearly digital. They are large and in
color, TV-sized. But they _look_ like they are not emitting their own light.
My best guess is carefully controlled brightness and some special coating
(they have a paint-like finish), but that’s just a guess. Anyone know more
details?

------
macawfish
I'm using the Dasung Paperlike HD and I really like it for writing code. 13
inches, but it's real nice.

I imagine in 5-10 years or so, we'll see what you're imagining.

~~~
PaulStatezny
Could you share about the refresh rate and how it impacts you when
programming? Is it at all an obstacle, at least at first?

Also, can you share more about the resolution?

This timing is superb; I'm this very week considering purchasing a Pro-F
(1600x1200) from Dasung, which has faster refresh but lower resolution. Also a
few hundred $$ cheaper. Really curious if you think the lower resolution will
be a bummer, or if the higher frame rate will be unnecessary.

~~~
macawfish
Go with your gut. The higher resolution means that the text looks more like
"real ink", but I'm not sure if this is a big deal for you. For me, the
refresh rate is just fast enough that I don't notice it while I'm editing
text.

One important thing to consider, which maybe I should have shared in the other
post: I don't really enjoy using the mouse on the e-ink display, because of
the refresh rate. It's doable, but noticeably choppy.

If using the mouse is important to you while you code, go for the faster
refresh rate!

The lower resolution might actually be nice too since it might better match
your other displays.

~~~
PaulStatezny
Thanks for the response, I just ordered a 2019 Pro-F from Dasung. I'm hopeful
it will help my eyes like it has helped yours.

------
keanzu
_A Canvas Made of Pixels (claybavor.com)_

The most interesting problem to tackle was “the blue glowing screen problem”.

One of the many ways that screens give themselves away as screens is by
emitting light that is “out of character” with the surrounding environment.
They can be too bright or too dark relative to the things around them, and
indoors, displays often seem too blue.

I solved these problems with what I call “luminance matching”. The basic idea
is to sample the light falling on the frame several times a second, and then
adjust the display and image parameters so that what’s displayed is “correct”
given the surrounding environment.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10900439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10900439)

~~~
ipsum2
This is what Apple is doing with True Tone.

~~~
keanzu
Clay Bavor published in Dec 2015 but Apple filed their patent on March 30,
2015 - seems Apple just got in under the wire there.

[http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.html&r=17&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=\(apple.AANM.+AND+20160623.PD.\)&OS=aanm/apple+and+pd/6/23/2016&RS=\(AANM/apple+AND+PD/20160623\))

~~~
heavenlyblue
So Clay Bavor did _not_ invent that

~~~
keanzu
"A year ago over the holiday break, I created a large-scale digital “canvas”"
posted December 27, 2015

[https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-
pixels](https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-pixels)

He claims to have invented it prior to Apple, but he didn't publish before
they got their patent in.

~~~
heavenlyblue
What makes him think they didn’t invent it earlier? It takes time to publish a
patent.

People like that are the worst. The sorest losers. I have unfortunately known
quite a few of them and they tend to overestimate their abilities by a lot.

~~~
necovek
There is no such claim on the blog post: instead, a commenter here is making
that case.

Anyway, I hate the use of "invent" here: people come up with similar ideas all
the time — mostly because the tooling and technology of an era makes a set of
problems solvable in a "novel" way that was not possible beforehand. Who gets
to patent anything does not necessarily mean they "invented" it.

~~~
keanzu
Good point. Clay at no point used the word "invent" \- that was entirely me.
My rather rudimentary understanding of law means that prior art would
invalidate any patent. Had Clay published his design when he claimed to have
built the device (Dec 2014) it would seem to have rendered Apple's patent
worthless, or nearly so.

A patent is a form of intellectual property protecting an invention. An
invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process.

If it was a invention worthy of patent in March 2015 - according to Apple -
then it was an invention worthy of patent in Dec 2014, when Clay claimed to
have devised and built the device.

------
Animats
They exist. They still cost more than color displays. Larger sizes are still
"call for quotation". The current sales pitch seems to be "you don't have to
wire AC power to the sign", for bus stops and such.

------
thomas
Relevant article with many related updates and context:
[https://cloudconfusing.com/2020/02/07/e-ink-monitors-
ready-f...](https://cloudconfusing.com/2020/02/07/e-ink-monitors-ready-for-
prime-time/)

------
JoshTriplett
Since the demise of Pixel Qi, does anyone else have a credible laptop screen
based on e-ink, that has a high enough refresh rate to be usable, and/or the
ability to switch from transflective/zero-power e-ink mode to a normal screen?

~~~
Waterfall
[https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2020/1/...](https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2020/1/6/21051340/lenovo-
thinkbook-plus-e-ink-screen-price-date)

There's going to be a big display revolution soon. Microled will probably
outclass everything until we're at cheap retinal laser displays.

------
j88439h84
Boox makes large e-readers. They're not cheap but they are good.

[https://shop.boox.com/products/boox-note-pro#custom-
tab-1](https://shop.boox.com/products/boox-note-pro#custom-tab-1)

~~~
akavel
Kinda look sold out... _nudge nudge hint hint_ at all the super fancy Business
People of HN...

------
matheweis
There’s an article on the front page right now about an individual who created
an art project displaying a newspaper page with a 31.2” eInk display:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22831323)

Unfortunately it looks to be quite expensive, but the technology is there.

As others have already pointed out, the newly released Remarkable 2 sounds
exactly like what you’re looking for.
[https://remarkable.com/](https://remarkable.com/)

------
TACIXAT
Also interested in reflective (non backlit) LCDs. The only ones I've seen are
very small.

~~~
mhh__
Like the sharp memory LCDs?

They're pretty cool but I think the limiting factor is demand rather than
technology (although they do have a pretty niche construction in that the
control sillicon is AFAIK actually fabricated inside/along the LCD panel)

~~~
TACIXAT
I'm actually more interested in a high refresh rate, non backlit monitor.
Power isn't really an issue for desktops, so that part of eink doesn't appeal
to me. I'm trying to limit my time looking at illuminated sources.

Something like [1] with no front light.

1\. [https://youtu.be/kDk-t6XkFvc](https://youtu.be/kDk-t6XkFvc)

~~~
namibj
Would greyscale be ok? If so, you should be able to delaminate a panel and
replace the backlight with a reflector. If you'd do that with a color LCD,
you'd have a very dark image, however.

------
Mikho
Here is E-Ink's 13.3˝ ePaper Display:

[https://shopkits.eink.com/product/13-3%cb%9d-epaper-
display-...](https://shopkits.eink.com/product/13-3%cb%9d-epaper-display-
ed133ut2/)

31.2˝ monochrome ePaper Display:

[https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-
epap...](https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epaper-
display-ed312tt2/)

And here is 42˝ monochrome ePaper Display:

[https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-
epaper...](https://shopkits.eink.com/product/42%cb%9d-monochrome-epaper-
display-ed420tt1/)

Pricey, unfortunately. But does the work.

------
sureklix
Good question, I wonder the same. I would say E-ink is still the best bet in
terms of no-light emission property. Someone from ReMarkable could give really
good insights as they are the hottest startup building a product within this
space. Other than that possibly the cheapest option would be to tile old
kindles and find a way to interface with them...

Sad that Amazon makes Kindle very closed to modification in terms of software.
Therefore I am a huge fan of ReMarkable because an underdog may allow us to
finally build e-ink apps: [https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-
reMarkable](https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable)

------
efreak
> It doesn't necessarily have to be E-ink proper, but I like the idea of
> having something that doesn't emit its own light.

Such as an older LCD panel without a backlight? It doesn't sound like you're
looking for anything special here.

~~~
tomxor
Was thinking something similar - rather than an old panel you could take a
newer large high res panel, chosen carefully so it's easy to separate from the
back-light.

I wonder what it would look like with just paper behind it instead? (or a
slightly more reflective white material). I wouldn't expect color to
"transflect" very well, but it might work ok as a simple 1-bit screen, fully
transmissible as possible reflecting off the paper, or fully opaque.

The LCD still needs continuous power, but far far less than the backlight.

That might end up being a superior balance... a small amount of continuous
power, with the benefit of up to 60hz refresh rate if you want it.

~~~
gen3
This sounds pretty similar to the display on the Pebble Time. It was a color
LCD, sometimes marketed as a low power LCD or reflective LCD. For the majority
of the time the display didn't use the backlight. They don't seem to be widely
manufactured in my attempts to look for them... I should check again!

~~~
numpad0
Sharp’s Memory LCD, I think. Combination of SRAM cells to hold state in each
pixel and improved reflexive backing, otherwise normal LCD, so data input can
be stopped without losing contents.

Also to parent comment: backlit LCD without backlight looks like brownish
tinted frosted glass. Transreflexives look like calculators and never like a
paper. There were high contrast monochrome variant in those Memory LCD
products and it looked like half silvered mirror, respectively.

------
numpad0
I forgot to reply to the previous post on topic but is there someone looking
for a single purpose typewriter laptop?

One that I know is Kingjim Pomera line. They have a few reflexive LCD models
based on some rare Toshiba uC, an E Ink model that runs on good old
ARM926EJ-S, IIRC, and a color backlit LCD model that just runs Android Linux
stripped bare(no Android GUI at all). Some people are running X on the last
one.

Those are only available in Japan with JP106 keyboard(think of ANSI with ISO
return, ISO symbols and two extra keys next to spacebar) and I can’t assure
hackability, but as an input...

------
hkiely
There has been a great deal of improvement in color sub 12“ displays in the
CPG space. Start watching for them at Walmart and Target.

------
myuseraccount
Artec Design offers products for digital signage based on E Ink's 9.7", 13.3"
and 32" panels:

[http://www.artecdesign.ee/products/e-paper-digital-
signage-p...](http://www.artecdesign.ee/products/e-paper-digital-signage-
platform/)

------
technobabble
I use a DPT-RP1 13”. I use it everyday, however the pen has an adequate
writing experience and the build quality isn’t great. I’ve used the ReMarkable
before and it has a much better build quality and a better writing experience.

Foe just an electronic whiteboard there are Boogieboards.

------
Vordimous
I found this on Hacker News. does it count? [https://onezero.medium.com/the-
morning-paper-revisited-35b40...](https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-
paper-revisited-35b407822494)

------
j45
QuirkLogic builds large 42" e-ink displays that double as whiteboards.

I would suspect they have smaller ones too.

[https://www.quirklogic.com/collections/all](https://www.quirklogic.com/collections/all)

------
macawfish
Check this out, a 32 inch reflective LCD:

[https://www.j-display.com/english/news/2016/20160520.html](https://www.j-display.com/english/news/2016/20160520.html)

~~~
solarkraft
Looks cool! Where can I get it?

~~~
macawfish
Good question!

I found a demo here on YouTube:

[https://youtu.be/4hu0B2F4HU4?t=12m](https://youtu.be/4hu0B2F4HU4?t=12m)

------
cosmoian
Visionect 32“ or for outdoor soofa.co 42“ EInk itself has a Whiteboard now

------
husamia
[https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-
revisited-35b40...](https://onezero.medium.com/the-morning-paper-
revisited-35b407822494)

------
cosmoian
Check out Visionect 32“ - we use 42“ for outdoor - check out Soofa.co

------
NiceWayToDoIT
ReMarkable 2 ?
[https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2](https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2)

------
lowdose
Magic Mirror?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696017)

------
arvinsim
An iPad-sized, Kindle-like reader would be a godsend.

~~~
solarkraft
These things do exist (Sony DPT, Onyx Boox, ReMarkable) - they're just more
expensive than you'd expect them to be considering what they can do.

~~~
beezle
Remarkable has a premium for the ability to write on the display with tactile
feel and response time near identical to ordinary pen/pencil.

~~~
namibj
The Eink Carta generation (300dpi, 4-bit greyscale) has about 15Hz refresh
rate when driven in 1bpp mode (black/white only). Combined with efficient
partial refresh, this sounds like it'd not be more than a stylus sensor behind
the display (as usual), and some software to properly translate this into
partial refreshes.

The premium is not really high just from them having to spend particularly
much. Either they make very nice margins on it, or it's really that expensive
to get a screen that size.

~~~
diffeomorphism
> this sounds like it'd not be more than a stylus sensor behind the display
> (as usual)

And that would be a wrong guess. Eink readers with wacom styluses are not
particularly new (e.g. Hanvon, onyx etc.). The remarkable 1's "claim to fame"
was a greatly improved latency _compared to these_ , i.e. to be much better
than what you describe.

~~~
namibj
I tried one. And the screen did not seem any faster than the "EInk Carta" one
in e.g. the Tolino Epos readers. I assume they fixed the issue with software
being in the way of latency, and seem to make extensive use of partial
refresh. And, yes, they did seem to integrate on a much lower level than any
other recent consumer HID->screen drawing pipeline.

Back in the days of the C64, it was normal to have sub-frame average latency
with +-0.5 frames jitter, due to low-level control that prevented artifacts
when drawing directly to the framebuffer.

------
csours
Hah, this question is a blast from the past! I guess I kind of gave up at some
point.

------
downshun
Is it that hard to tile smaller displays together?

------
CHsurfer
BVG

------
est
There are some large E-ink display at bus stops in China

[http://einkcn.com/post/216.html](http://einkcn.com/post/216.html)

[https://www.sohu.com/a/330365162_100238338](https://www.sohu.com/a/330365162_100238338)

I think it's a waste of tax-payers money. Besides why it's not been stolen
yet?

For consumer electronics I found modern e-ink tablets have very good refresh
rate. Watching video is pretty smooth.

~~~
missosoup
> Besides why it's not been stolen yet?

Because it's not really useful to anyone.

Anything worth stealing in China does get stolen, like their attempted solar
cell bicycle paths.

------
Waterfall
If you don't need refresh, a drawing board can be suitable. You can use this.
[https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4000550295706.html?pid=808_000...](https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4000550295706.html?pid=808_0000_0131)
OLED can work very well and I have used it for night reading over the eink
display Kindle use. You may be interested in reflective LCDs like epaper too.
A window outside is better for weather and writing a todo list is a better
reminder. If you change your goal from remembering to do things and knowing
how the outdoors is, you'll see that a large eink screen is not at all a
productive use of money nor will it be the most optimal for knowing the
weather or reminding you to do things. Writing notes in class helps you
remember more than typing it, which in turn is better than taking a picture of
the whiteboard. Famous tech enterprisers such as bill Gates and Steve jobs did
not allow electronics to be used as learning tools for their children because
they deemed them too distracting.

~~~
wolco
In fairness their children haven't done anything in the tech space or much of
anything near tech/science. Of the 7 children: Jobs kid's one is a writer,
celebrity son, goes to school. All Standford grads or attending. Of Bill
gate's kids one goes to art school, the rest not much.

I would not copy them unless you have the billions for them to fall back on.

~~~
Waterfall
In higher level education they also use the familiar chalkboard rather than
electronics. I use this not to say the merits of their children's occupations
(regression to the mean is common in families of great achievements) but as a
warning of what people in tech see as a threat to their own children's well
being. Electronics are wonderful but not for everything. If screens work
better for you, perfect! They have been a hindrance to me, addiction to
screens is very common today and I am weak enough to fall into they category.

~~~
necovek
Wow, "regression to the mean".

Creating something motivates most of the people on this planet, and without
going into specifics, I would claim that Gateses and Jobses of this world are
not all that rare as far as their abilities are concerned. Situation and,
well, luck, are a big part of where life takes people. And having been
provided for will discourage most from being as driven to "succeed" (in either
financial or tech/scientific sense, two most common accepted ways to success
on HN).

Which is to say: don't judge according to your standards of "success".

And raising kids is anything but science, unless you have such a large number
of them that statistics applies (though even then, you'd probably be breaking
a bunch of laws if you tried to be scientific :)).

As such, addiction to screens is usually, imo, an addiction to specific type
of content, or rather interaction (or lack thereof) type.

~~~
Waterfall
If they're not that rare, why are they rare? Where did I make a judgement on
their success or even use that word? Are you replying to the right person? I
doubt you've looked into the theory behind screen addiction (I didn't believe
it either). It's the vivid colors and the effects they have on your brain
according to neuroscience, plus the manipulation that companies utilize. I've
changed my screens to grayscale and have no such problems now.

~~~
necovek
I think I explained why they are "rare" even if they aren't: circumstances,
motivation and drive to succeed in a particular way, a way you classify as
"great achievements" (not success, sorry for equating it: I might have missed
some nuanced differences there).

It's actually quite interesting that you even consider Gates and Jobs having
"great achievements" (other than business success, which is clear), yet
condone screen addiction (which their core business were mostly about).

A quick search does not give me any study relating technical properties of
screens to addiction-like effects: do you have any pointers? (Other than the
common "LED-light-interferes with sleep patterns".)

