More and better e-ink, please. It's just the best at the things it's good at. Give me a foldable phone with one e-ink screen!
"E Ink" is a company, producing displays with a very specific proprietary technology. I think you mean to say more "e-paper", which is a generic term for "paper-like" displays. And unfortunately, right now the only real competition is RLCD (reflective LCD), which is arguably not paper-like enough to qualify. Yes, it's reflective, but other than that, it's just a higher density Game Boy screen. Which is great and all, but it can't compete with E Ink in a lot of aspects. It doesn't have retention, you gotta power the screen, so no signage and stuff. It has LCD-grade bad viewing angles.
RLCDs are cool for certain uses though. For example, I sometimes choose to play on my AGS-001 over my Analogue Pocket if I'm outside in bright daylight.
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.
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.
3-4 days easy. Thatβs with turning on all the gps/heartrate/iOS sync functions tho. Turning off the gps and heart rate monitor and Iβm sure I could get 7 days easy, and turning fewer notifications I have no doubt itβs go 2weeks.
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.
Thanks; TIL.
Pebble advertised their displays as "e-ink", and I never thought to question it. The best lay resource I found while digging into this was an article on TechRadar, which was about a new product but gives a good overview of the technology and history.
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.
This article has completely missed a selling point of e-readers for people like myself: no constant refreshing.
My eye strain, when reading for a long time, doesn't come from the light (or lack thereof), which is evident as a positive of backlit Kindles and other e-readers, though the constant flicker of screens. E-ink solves this issue perfectly, and with every device in that article mentioning "60Hz" on their alternatives I feel as though they've missed a big point of having an e-reader and what exactly constitutes as "paper like" (it's a lot more than just "low/no backlight").
Another point (which is a result of not refreshing the screen) which the article misses is power consumption. I can use my reader for several weeks without recharging.
Yeah, there's a reason people prefer Kindle e-ink type e-readers to just using a tablet like a Kindle Fire, even if the latter can do more stuff
Are you talking about pwm? Most screens don't refresh if nothing is changing
This isn't technically correct. CRT, LCD, and OLED displays are generally constantly refreshing the image. There are some niche exceptions like memory-in-pixel displays but they are few and far between. eInk displays are very different in this aspect because the display itself acts as a physical memory of the image because its mechanism of creating an image involves physical changes (pigmented particles moving closer or further away from the visible plane).
I just wanted to add this video to your comment because e-ink is so cool and this guy has a bunch of macro shots of the displays that are awesome and you can see the particles in the screen changing colors.
and generally arenβt very useful for high-motion graphics like videos or games.
I do like the fact that my e-reader is just for reading books without distractions. Thats also kinda the point of e-ink, to be as close to paper as possible and make digital reading better. I don't see the need yet for a paper like screen to animate video because it won't be as good as a normal screen. I'll prefer specialized screens over a catch-all type any day.
I mostly agree, but it would be nice if it was a bit faster to be able to use it for web browsing. I still like reading long form articles and such but navigating and scrolling isn't very viable yet on e-readers.
EinkBro lets you treat sites (or the reader mode) like pages and turn them accordingly. My boox go color 7 also has page turn buttons, and allows you to configure them to scroll x distance on a per app basis, which works like a page turn on apps that only allow scrolling. It makes reading articles with omnivore work pretty well. Example And switching to speed mode
I'm not sure if you can easily make the same tweaks on the other Boox devices or using volume buttons on other Android devices or whatever, but there are ways around it.
I definitely do agree with you that the capability of faster refresh would be nice to have, but right now isn't bad.
It would be neat to compare these new reflective LCDs with the 25-year-old ones used in the Game Boy Color.
Hot take, but the original GBA had one of the nicest reflective LCDs ever. I'd even prefer it over the SP in most (well lit) cases.
Welcome news, with the caveats others have highlighted. E-ink is still quite expensive for reasons I dont understand. Someone said there were only a couple of manufacturers.
Cheap (and by that I mean rubbish) 10β tablets are available for under Β£30 in china, but if you want e-ink itβs at least double .
The secret lies in patents and Monopoly.
Reflective LCD, like my palm pilot used? I didn't think we would see those make a comeback.
(Both do need either the front light cranked or a lot of ambient light to get that vibrance. They kind of fade a little in lower light without the front light)
:::
I don't hate the idea of better progress in rLCD. I'd be pretty interested in a steam-deck-like that worked well outside in harsh sunlight. But I have a hard time seeing it match eink in contrast for static content. E-ink has a lot less ground to cover to get to "flawless".
What devices are these, in the video and photos?
"Runs a custom version of Android". God fucking shitnuggets. I just want computing to be mine again.
reMarkable or PineNote then?
Am on the edge for the remarkable, but the pine note would be a definite buy. But I do know that the pine devices most often are tinkering devices. Don't know if that is the case for the pine note, just saying.
The article is a bit vague on the pros and cons of reflective LCD screens.
It seems to be pros that it has a good refresh rate, can be used without a backlight so is good outdoors and indoors in a bright room, and maybe better for your eyes due to the lack of the backlight/blue spectrum light. It also may offer better colour depth than e-ink currently.
The cons are not clearly addressed but presumably battery life is worse than e-ink but better than a backlit display such as OLED or AMOLED, that colours are still not as good as other LCDs even if better than e-ink, and it seems cost (although that may be due to the small market at present).
Also there is no obvious innovation noted in the article so its not clear what has changed about these displays? It sounds more like some small companies are just using the displays in a new way to try and mimick paper. But maybe thats wrong or will change?
Maybe this would compete with e-ink if cost comes down. The battery benefit of e-ink with a static image is one of its big benefits, to the point that its being used for shelf labels in supermarkets. E-ink isn't going anywhere but good to have more choices in the tablet space.
More and better e-ink, please. It's just the best at the things it's good at. Give me a foldable phone with one e-ink screen!
"E Ink" is a company, producing displays with a very specific proprietary technology. I think you mean to say more "e-paper", which is a generic term for "paper-like" displays. And unfortunately, right now the only real competition is RLCD (reflective LCD), which is arguably not paper-like enough to qualify. Yes, it's reflective, but other than that, it's just a higher density Game Boy screen. Which is great and all, but it can't compete with E Ink in a lot of aspects. It doesn't have retention, you gotta power the screen, so no signage and stuff. It has LCD-grade bad viewing angles.
RLCDs are cool for certain uses though. For example, I sometimes choose to play on my AGS-001 over my Analogue Pocket if I'm outside in bright daylight.
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?
3-4 days easy. Thatβs with turning on all the gps/heartrate/iOS sync functions tho. Turning off the gps and heart rate monitor and Iβm sure I could get 7 days easy, and turning fewer notifications I have no doubt itβs go 2weeks.
Cool, thanks
site is down
My bad itβs actually https://banglejs.com/
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.
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.
Thanks; TIL.
Pebble advertised their displays as "e-ink", and I never thought to question it. The best lay resource I found while digging into this was an article on TechRadar, which was about a new product but gives a good overview of the technology and history.
No idea if it's any good, but here's an e-ink watch: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sqfmi/watchy
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.
This article has completely missed a selling point of e-readers for people like myself: no constant refreshing.
My eye strain, when reading for a long time, doesn't come from the light (or lack thereof), which is evident as a positive of backlit Kindles and other e-readers, though the constant flicker of screens. E-ink solves this issue perfectly, and with every device in that article mentioning "60Hz" on their alternatives I feel as though they've missed a big point of having an e-reader and what exactly constitutes as "paper like" (it's a lot more than just "low/no backlight").
Another point (which is a result of not refreshing the screen) which the article misses is power consumption. I can use my reader for several weeks without recharging.
Yeah, there's a reason people prefer Kindle e-ink type e-readers to just using a tablet like a Kindle Fire, even if the latter can do more stuff
Are you talking about pwm? Most screens don't refresh if nothing is changing
This isn't technically correct. CRT, LCD, and OLED displays are generally constantly refreshing the image. There are some niche exceptions like memory-in-pixel displays but they are few and far between. eInk displays are very different in this aspect because the display itself acts as a physical memory of the image because its mechanism of creating an image involves physical changes (pigmented particles moving closer or further away from the visible plane).
I just wanted to add this video to your comment because e-ink is so cool and this guy has a bunch of macro shots of the displays that are awesome and you can see the particles in the screen changing colors.
https://youtu.be/1qIHCUWAgh4
So cool!
Thank you!!!
I do like the fact that my e-reader is just for reading books without distractions. Thats also kinda the point of e-ink, to be as close to paper as possible and make digital reading better. I don't see the need yet for a paper like screen to animate video because it won't be as good as a normal screen. I'll prefer specialized screens over a catch-all type any day.
I mostly agree, but it would be nice if it was a bit faster to be able to use it for web browsing. I still like reading long form articles and such but navigating and scrolling isn't very viable yet on e-readers.
EinkBro lets you treat sites (or the reader mode) like pages and turn them accordingly. My boox go color 7 also has page turn buttons, and allows you to configure them to scroll x distance on a per app basis, which works like a page turn on apps that only allow scrolling. It makes reading articles with omnivore work pretty well. Example And switching to speed mode
I'm not sure if you can easily make the same tweaks on the other Boox devices or using volume buttons on other Android devices or whatever, but there are ways around it.
I definitely do agree with you that the capability of faster refresh would be nice to have, but right now isn't bad.
It would be neat to compare these new reflective LCDs with the 25-year-old ones used in the Game Boy Color.
Hot take, but the original GBA had one of the nicest reflective LCDs ever. I'd even prefer it over the SP in most (well lit) cases.
Welcome news, with the caveats others have highlighted. E-ink is still quite expensive for reasons I dont understand. Someone said there were only a couple of manufacturers.
Cheap (and by that I mean rubbish) 10β tablets are available for under Β£30 in china, but if you want e-ink itβs at least double .
The secret lies in patents and Monopoly.
Reflective LCD, like my palm pilot used? I didn't think we would see those make a comeback.
I'm perfectly happy with the progress of e-ink in motion It's not good, but it's enough to follow the occasional animation in a mostly static environment.
::: spoiler Color isn't bad either.
(Both do need either the front light cranked or a lot of ambient light to get that vibrance. They kind of fade a little in lower light without the front light) :::
I don't hate the idea of better progress in rLCD. I'd be pretty interested in a steam-deck-like that worked well outside in harsh sunlight. But I have a hard time seeing it match eink in contrast for static content. E-ink has a lot less ground to cover to get to "flawless".
What devices are these, in the video and photos?
"Runs a custom version of Android". God fucking shitnuggets. I just want computing to be mine again.
reMarkable or PineNote then?
Am on the edge for the remarkable, but the pine note would be a definite buy. But I do know that the pine devices most often are tinkering devices. Don't know if that is the case for the pine note, just saying.
The article is a bit vague on the pros and cons of reflective LCD screens.
It seems to be pros that it has a good refresh rate, can be used without a backlight so is good outdoors and indoors in a bright room, and maybe better for your eyes due to the lack of the backlight/blue spectrum light. It also may offer better colour depth than e-ink currently.
The cons are not clearly addressed but presumably battery life is worse than e-ink but better than a backlit display such as OLED or AMOLED, that colours are still not as good as other LCDs even if better than e-ink, and it seems cost (although that may be due to the small market at present).
Also there is no obvious innovation noted in the article so its not clear what has changed about these displays? It sounds more like some small companies are just using the displays in a new way to try and mimick paper. But maybe thats wrong or will change?
Maybe this would compete with e-ink if cost comes down. The battery benefit of e-ink with a static image is one of its big benefits, to the point that its being used for shelf labels in supermarkets. E-ink isn't going anywhere but good to have more choices in the tablet space.
So, like the screen in the PlayDate?