E Ink faces growing competition in the "paper-like" display space - Liliputing

Alphane Moon@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 69 points –
E Ink faces growing competition in the "paper-like" display space - Liliputing
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I wish they made more e-ink watches

I'd love a successor to Pebble which doesn't require an account. There are a number of options, but my issue is that most require creating an account with vendor, and app integration with - no doubt - copiuos data harvesting and reselling. Many are absurdly expensive.

There are several cheap options on Alibaba.

Goodreader.com lists a number of expensive e-ink watches, some of which look quite nice.

But I've got my eye on Watchy (github, old review); it was introduced a couple of years ago and is still being updated. It's also available from a couple of vendors, including preassembled through Amazon.

Tried https://bangle.js? Loving mine so far. Edit: my bad https://banglejs.com/

What battery life are you getting on that?

I had an Amazfit BIP for a while that had a color e-paper display with a battery that lasted over 30 days. I think they have since gone OLED but one cool thing about it was, while they had their own app with a login, I could alternatively sync it directly with a third party app on Android that was called "Notify And Fitness". I only mention it because within this particular app the info never left the device. Perhaps there is something similar today, but I have since just given in and gone Garmin.

my eye on Watchy

Have one after the Pebble, let me know if you have questions.

I switched to garmin because of the transflective LCD. So much better than AMOLED for a watch. But e-paper would definitely be nice, too (if I didn't use active maps when backpacking).

Which one do you prefer?
And don't say Pebble, that's an e-paper (sharp memoryLCD), not an eink. I personally haven't really encountered any actual eink watches that would seem any good.

I know E Ink is a company, but for most of us it's become a de-facto term referring to the technology, like kleenex, or q-tips.

I have every Pebble model, and used them until the last one's battery finally gave out. I've been using various e-ink (e-paper) readers, from the first Sony to my current Kobo & reMarkable (one for leisure reading, t'other for PDFs and writing). Are those displays different technologies than E Ink's? Does the display process E Ink uses differ from other e-paper technologies? Are they not all based on polarized, bi-colored balls?

I have nothing against pedantry, but I also think E Ink has lost (or won, depending on how you look at it) the identity game; I suspect the majority of people - if surveyed - would neither realize E Ink is a specific company, nor that the correct generic term is "e-paper." Everyone I know (with whom the topic comes up) just call it "e-ink," whether or not it comes from that company. Similarly, I've never heard anyone call it "e-paper" IRL.

P.S. I just did a search for "e-paper watches", and most results call them "e-ink." Maybe they all use E Ink-brand displays, but I can't really tell since none seem to capitalize or (tm) the term. There's a bunch of cheap watches on Alibaba which are called "e-ink" watches - are those all really using E Ink brand displays?

E-paper is the category for any display that looks kinda like paper. E-ink is a specific technology (by a specific company, yes,) that uses blobs suspended in oil in small capsules that are controlled by magnetic fields.

Pebble uses a Sharp memory LCD, which as the name suggests, is a liquid crystal display. If you categorize pebbles as a "eink watches", then a gameboy is one low-power memory chip away from being an eink handheld gaming console, the display tech is otherwise identical - a transflective lcd.

The Fossil hybrid watches are pretty awesome. Very sad they are now discontinued.

I had one of those! So cool, loved not having a giant glowing thing on my wrist but still receiving notifications.