E-Ink Monitors: Ready for Prime Time?(cloudconfusing.com) |
E-Ink Monitors: Ready for Prime Time?(cloudconfusing.com) |
Source? Light is still hitting your retinas, whether it comes from reflection or from a backlight.
I really enjoy E-Ink displays, but not because of perceived health benefits from reflected light. I enjoy how readable they are under sunlight, how they consume zero energy to show a static image, and how this enables them to always show content even if the device has no power.
It's simply not necessary to use unsourced health claims to justify a great technology like E-Ink.
I will say, it does seem to make it easier to fall asleep at night.
Now, does this have any meaningful bearing on e-ink displays? The contrast ratio is closer to stuff you get in the natural world, but apart from that it's still a monitor.
>visual systems fed from a constrained input domain lose the ability to meaningfully represent real-world input.
Seems to imply that looking at a computer monitor for too much of your life means you won't be able to see the real world, or not "see it right", whatever that means.
The only example of that I've seen is some people (kids, presumably) commenting on the Nvidia RTX demo videos that the non-raytraced versions, which lack real world lighting dynamics, look "better" than the raytraced ones, which were, to me at least, obviously closer to physically realistic, representative images. Now, whether they were saying that because their eyes have literally programmed themselves for cheaply rendered video game worlds, or because they didn't want to face spending the asking price of the RTX hardware, is up to the reader.
If a monitor has bad contrast and you turn up the brightness, that's not the fault of the light source. That monitor still won't even come close to the amount of blue light that a blue sky emits, even at maximum brightness.
Personally, I think all monitors made in the last 10 years should be as legible at low brightness as a piece of paper is in an equally poorly lit room.
Edit: thank you, Dark Reader[0]
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/tablets/windows-tablets/yoga-bo...
Basically two displays: primary IPS and secondary E-ink. But keyboard is… virtual, you type on e-ink.
Curious - why didn't it work for you?
Polarized sunglasses help as well, and I have a color scheme for my terminal that’s dark-on-light that I switch to when it’s bright.
I think monochrome displays would be fantastic for distraction-free coding or reading.
What's interesting is that you just need to toggle VCOM signal either through software or external source every 1-2 seconds for about 10ms. Therefore, you can keep the content on the display's memory for years on a coin cell battery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914
I'm not sure if I'd be able to use one of these monitors without constantly thinking of that video.
The second step would be software support so that I could leave images on the screen when the computer is off.
Stuff mentioned in the article is interesting, but it sounds like the quality is quite bad for all 3.
It can be used as a display via a simple HDMI connection.
I read a few articles, and I'd like to try one, but I haven't convinced myself to put down $800 .
Here's a googled link that my browser history says I've visited before:
https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/onyx-boox-ma...
P.S. As I asked at the time, does anyone know the/a source for the panel? Although I guess the custom firmware and buttoned down access to same, may make getting a raw panel a non-starter.
P.P.S. Duh. OP article mentions it. Anyway... still wondering where the panel comes from.
The biggest display they have seems to be a 42" monochrome display for $2000 https://shopkits.eink.com/product-category/e-ink-display-mod...
It also shows that any decent Android tablet should be able to act as a portable screen as Onyx does. It would make Android tablets a whole lot more practical, without the trouble of using WiDi or Miracast
Note: the Max2 can also be used as a Wacom tablet with some software, which makes it double duty and outperforming the Wacom Bamboo Slate I have. (They share the same pens!!!)
Then decent software support will encourage more people to get eInk monitors, and that will encourage OS developers to turn decent software support into good software support.
A similar thing happened with SSDs. At first operating systems weren't TRIM-aware, but people used SSDs anyway. IIRC, first device drivers got support to send the TRIM command, then later filesystems got the ability to send the TRIM command automatically, then flash-oriented filesystems were built and went into wide(r) use.
I don't suffer from any medical reason to use one, but, I would absolutely purchase one this second (any pay a lot for it) if it worked well. Unfortunately, what I've seen so far from the Dasung and the Onyx, isn't worth $800. I just hope these companies have enough runway to continue improving the product such that early adopters like myself, will jump in.
[0]http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=windows+10+high+contrast
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15787026
might be of interested to some.
base16-grayscale-dark
base16-grayscale-light
They also have small, barely noticeable LED lights lighting the screen to be visible during night. Much more pleasant way of checking the time during the night than looking at a phone. And its battery lasts 2-3 weeks and charges in two hours.
The screen isn't always on though, and only activates on a click from the side.
ghosting and a lower resolution needed to have a better refresh rate, kills a lot of the charm.
imho, they can work but on a pretty niche way, but I wouldn't buy one just to use it as a display.
13.3" at $899. I guess that answers the question.
This was about the market for Monitors though... not just displays in general so this e-ink display just doesn't cover a significant portion of the market outside of tablets or very small laptops. Typical monitor sizes are 19-34", with the smaller "totable" 15.6-17" sizes accounting for <20% of the market. 13-14" aren't even listed as monitor sizes by the marketing groups like IHS or Display Search.
Display is perfect in sun, but contrast not optimal in shade, so I couldn't escape the burn. Next time I try a 20m hdmi cable with normal display set to max in the shade.
Note that it's another $500 for the controller module they recommend. (I know, I was asking after the Max2's raw panel. But in considering making one of the ones on this site work.)
There's also a listing for a 31.2" panel capable of 4096 colors (per the description). $2300.
On the other hand, passive displays (books, e-ink) by their nature inherently match ambient lighting conditions, because they simply reflect ambient light. This is the equivalent of a monitor with a much wider range of contrast and brightness levels equipped with an automatic adaptive adjustment with sub-nanosecond response times, something that simply does not exist with present technology.
So yes, in theory a monitor could potentially match a passive display in terms of reducing eye strain and tiredness but in practice it is beyond the state of the art for now.
They are good for low power daylight operation and I'm sure there is a small market for people who don't like backlights and emissive displays. I like my kindle for books, but I also don't mind the backlight for indoor use. As desktop monitors they have missed everything but the smallest niche.
Good luck if you really want to use one regularly as the writer says,"Based on my research, particularly great e-ink monitor comparisons, these devices are not ready for professional, daily use. They are laggy, have staining/ghosting problems, and perhaps worst, are quite unreliable. It seems that the failure rate on both of these devices is quite high and user happiness is quite low. If e-ink is your only option (because of health reasons) then these might be a savior, but short of that it seems like your best best is to wait for future development in the space."
OLED displays have a different problem; they have so much noise at low brightness that the image falls apart. Still, I think a monochrome OLED display is what the person who wrote this article actually wants. It would have better performance in every respect to E-Ink, and it doesn't sound like their application requires E-Ink's low power.
On the other hand, E-Ink is amazing in sunlight, where smartphone displays can't get sufficiently bright.
OLED displays have a different problem; they have so much noise at low brightness that the image falls apart. Still, I think a monochrome OLED display is what the person who wrote this article actually wants. It would have better performance in every respect to E-Ink, and it doesn't sound like their application requires E-Ink's low power.
My understanding too is that OLEDs can have "true black" pixels that emit no light at all. For "dark mode" style screens, this is a huge benefit, because the majority of the screen may simply be turned off. Conventional LCD screens still send current to each pixel, but the "black" is simply tuned to a dark frequency, rather than being altogether off.
The question is whether the intensity is discussed in the link. My point was that the discussion is more to do with the frequency of light than with intensity.
Sure, think of things like polarizing filters, lasers, etc.
Polarization is just related to the orientation of the electromagnetic waves, and it is a property I didn't mention, you're correct. I don't think it really matters here, though. It's kind of like which direction you shine a light, except whether the waves are all oriented the same way or not. I would almost argue that it's an extrinsic property since uniform polarization is almost exclusively the realm of external things like filters, not the light source itself.
Your "etc." is a little vague.
On the various Android devices I've owned, I've used a useful app called Screen Filter that adds a translucent layer on top of all apps to dim the screen beyond the artificial manufacturer-imposed minimum brightness, which worked especially well on OLED Android phones, but also LCDs worked fine too.
That said, I don't think reading in poor lighting conditions is a good idea for your eyes, no matter the technology.
Ok, light can be described by its intensity and wavelength. So what? Can you tie this to the original parent post?
You can break it down further - intensity is just the "number" of packets (photons). So, really, light is just frequency and travels at max speed (C) because photons are massless.
Where are we going with this discussion?
Edit: I am not able to respond to you below so I am responding here. You're right on this one - it doesn't matter what the originating source is, light is light whether it is reflected or emitted.
So, the saying that light is just "intensity and frequency" is naive and flat-out incorrect.
Which things can a light source vary, besides wavelength and intensity? It's easy to define intensity in this context as the photons being emitted per period of time. This isn't like trying to define the intensity of sound as an intrinsic property, when it really depends on a number of actually intrinsic variables.
*within a given medium, which is external to the light... which means it won't change based on reflected vs LCD.
Starting by pointing out that intensity and wavelength are the only intrinsic properties is a great starting place.
You still haven't pointed out any additional properties that have any bearing on how your retina is affected. I was wrong the say that there were no other properties, since we can endlessly discuss the quantum nature of light or how it experiences no flow of time since it travels at the speed of light or all sorts of other properties...
but none of these things change based on the light source. Light is light, except for the intensity and wavelength. Unless we're willing to consider things which could affect reflected light just as much as they could affect emitted light, since they're the same thing. Light.
I'm not sure why you're so set on this obviously inaccurate thing and are now moving the goalposts to stuff about retinas and what the meaning of 'intrinsic' is. All I'm saying is both light and especially the perception of it are fairly complicated. You can just read up on it like everyone else instead of building a weird messageboard logic hill fort.