

Ask HN: State of e-paper? - n0rm

My google-fu proved inadequate when trying to research this topic. Most resources I found were trying to sell me something.<p>Can you enlighten me as to the current state of e-ink and e-paper products?<p>I am mainly looking at printers who let you print out to an e-paper.
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vitovito
Do you mean "e-ink" and "e-paper" like in the Kindle? Or do you mean printable
circuits?

E-ink and e-paper isn't really ink or paper. It's a display, that requires
power (at least temporarily) and electronics to control it, like any LCD.

It's called "e-ink" and "e-paper" because, like ink on paper, whatever you
program the display to show will stay there without power, and it will give
you similar readability in normal lighting situations as ink on paper (if you
had a thick pen on gray paper, at least).

As such, you can't "print out to an e-paper." The closest parallel would be
"send to Kindle," that transmits a document over wi-fi or USB and has a
program on the Kindle display it on the screen.

E-paper (bistable displays) development kits are generally available now at
varying sizes from both manufacturers (like E-Ink) and distributors (like
SparkFun or Adafruit). You can also readily disassemble many older Kindle and
other e-readers and write your own programs to prototype things on their
displays.

If you mean printable circuits, where something resembling an inkjet printer
squirts out conductive metallic ink on a non-conductive sheet to make a
circuit "board," I don't really know the state of that.

