E-ink Screen


Kiga

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Joined
Dec 5, 2013
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It may seems to be an incongruous, stupid idea. But I think it can be done and it would give to Pyra a lot.

I thought to this when I saw this

yotaphone-2_01.jpg


I know that Eink screens are: cheap, very thin and very low power-consumption. Like you can see with this watch:

140225090616202702.jpg


So the idea is to put a e-ink screen on the back of the Pyra lid.

We would be able to read ebook for longtime thanks to eink comfort, like a real book. It would be like we have all our books with us everywhere we go. It could also serve to display hour or informations on the Pyra when the main screen are closed.

For people who want to know what uses this could have, here are some examples an e-ink second screen on the back of the lid could give us:
  • Personalize your lid to have whatever design you want on the back when an app is not using it. Note that you can actually cut the power to an e-ink screen and it will continuously display the last thing it was displaying with no need for power.
  • Use it as an ereader when it is closed.
  • Show information from your music player such as current song, next song, etc. on the e-ink screen so you can check this information without having to open your Pyra
  • As Kiga mentioned, you could display the time and date
  • Display notifications sent by applications
  • Display caller id and text messages for those interested in using the Pyra as a phone.
Also, for the record, I would prefer we had regular e-ink instead of color e-ink. It has better dpi and refresh rates.

A video which show and explain all awesome unusual benefits:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ajqiG_4tLcc?feature=oembed
 
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2 screen, e-ink screen are thin and resistant (even flexible) it will not be a problem to have it behind the main screen.
 
Color E-ink screen isn't widely available and no motion fluently.

But e-ink would be mainly to reads books using side buttons and displaying hour for example or logo or alerts. Knowing that it use no energy.
 
Honestly, I had this exact same idea before, but never mentioned it because I didn't think anyone would agree with me. :\ I'd love to have an e-ink screen on the back of the Pyra lid so that I could read ebooks on it.

-God Ginrai
 
At least we agree on one point :lol:

People don't like to read or don't understand how much it is useful. That's why there isn't many device like phones which have an e-ink even if it is easy to do.

But as we are a niche which is in search of usefulness first of all, I think it can be done if people understand how it is cheap to do compared to the value.
 
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I also think this would be a cool extra feature. However I'm not sure that it can be done cheaply. How much does a thin, low-power, relatively high-res e-ink screen cost? How much would it add to the total thickness of the device? Would the device still be strong enough (scratches, lid strength)?
 
All e-ink screen are very low-power it cost 0W when you don't change displaying and even if you do it especially on a 5" screen you could last for year with Pyra's battery. But the issue would be lid strenght.

It worth enough to think about. Maybe to begin a little screen + led instead of glowing logo.
 
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So could these e-ink screens light up too, when needed?

I like the idea of it to read on, also for displaying a large digital clock which could be seen when Pyra lid closed, perhaps having to press the trigger to light it up, or if low power could just leave it on like a night-light alarm clock.

That'd be good
 
I always thoughte-ink displays look very dull, that picture doesn't say otherwise - although admittedly its on an angle. It is tempting though with the low power and all, but I think they still have a ways to go before the display is good enough.
 
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I always thoughte-ink displays look very dull, that picture doesn't say otherwise - although admittedly its on an angle. It is tempting though with the low power and all, but I think they still have a ways to go before the display is good enough.
Good enough for what? We're talking about a secondary screen. This is for reading, etc.

-God Ginrai
 
The reason I'm against it is because I prefer something else on the lid. 
 
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You would be able to chose what you want, since it's a screen which don't look like a screen and which don't cost energy. So you could display whatever type of information or a logo or nothing.
 
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oO I mis-read... and thought I read that the screens are combined, so just as the touch screen is a layer above the lcd layer, the e-ink was the bottom layer, set to black when off.
 
The reason I'm against it is because I prefer something else on the lid.
You're talking about your speaker idea, right? If there's room on the edges, there might be room for both of these to coexist on the back of the device.

For people who want to know what uses this could have, here are some examples an e-ink second screen on the back of the lid could give us:

  • Personalize your lid to have whatever design you want on the back when an app is not using it. Note that you can actually cut the power to an e-ink screen and it will continuously display the last thing it was displaying with no need for power.
  • Use it as an ereader when it is closed.
  • Show information from your music player such as current song, next song, etc. on the e-ink screen so you can check this information without having to open your Pyra
  • As Kiga mentioned, you could display the time and date
  • Display notifications sent by applications
  • Display caller id and text messages for those interested in using the Pyra as a phone.
Also, for the record, I would prefer we had regular e-ink instead of color e-ink. It has better dpi and refresh rates.
-God Ginrai
 
For all of those reasons, I would really like this now, especially the music player info for reference along with the physical buttons to skip without needing to open the device, and the caller ID display
 
You're talking about your speaker idea, right? If there's room on the edges, there might be room for both of these to coexist on the back of the device.
While that would be cool, I was thinking about not only that but a camera.
Would this E-ink have touch?
 
I'm at first repulsed because I want the outside of the closed case to be sturdy and scratchable without damage, but I don't actually know the limits of how rugged an E-Ink screen can be, I have no idea there.

In close second place, I love this idea if it can replace the label/graphic/icon all together, so we can display whatever we want on the back of our lids and nothing we do not want.  That's a beautiful idea to me, enough that I think I care for it more than I don't care for another fragile thing being on the outer surface of the case.  I've never seen one of these through just my eyes, but I hope that they can look very non-digital and solid, like the ink name leads me to imagine.
 
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