[varenc]

Awhile back the Founder of Visionect refuted this idea that patents are holding things back on hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25067824

My personal take: E-Ink screens have too many drawbacks for 99% of consumers to be at all interested in them.

[jessriedel]

That comment doesn't really have any evidence beyond the fact that it's the opinion of the founder of Visionect, it just makes assertions, so I wouldn't say "refuted".

Color e-ink has a killer app: Changeable photo display in homes. This is much harder to achieve with alternative technologies (any display emitting light is an immediate no-go for just hanging on your wall). In contrast, e-readers have a significantly smaller advantage over the alternative of just reading on your phone or tablet, yet that seems to have been enough of a market for them to become cheap. And unlike e-readers, where you only really need one per person, there is hardly any limit to the number of displays people would put in their home if they do not emit light, have nice UI, and are cheap.

[bee_rider]

Is that really a killer market, though?

People have tried changeable photo displays before, with LCD or whatever. Of course, these require more power, but they are plugged in devices and I'm not convinced non-technical people think about the power consumption of their devices outside of really niche situation where everyone knows they supposed to care (large appliances like washing machines). And, even the best e-ink screen looks kind of washed out when displaying color, right?

Like I'm all in for an E-ink terminal, latency be damned, if someone make a no-fuss one for less than a couple hundred dollars. But I can't imagine wanting an E-ink picture frame over (say) an OLED one (although I guess burn in would be a problem there).

[quirkot]

Think bigger. Not photo display like "pictures on the end table"... photo display like "teenager has band posters on the wall" or even like "changing the wallpaper on my actual wall to match the new pintrest trend"

[jessriedel]

Having used one, I can say that changeable photo displays with LCDs, OLED, or anything emitting light is a non-starter. It lights up the whole room (think about what happens when you turn off the lights!) and just doesn't feel at all like you're looking at a printed out photo.

I haven't seen a color e-ink display in person so I can't speak confidently, but the demo videos don't look washed out to me.

[cmrdporcupine]

For black and white photos / etchings, etc. I can see it. But yeah, the colour will always look washed out, like older newsprint.

I too would really dig an e-ink terminal. Just needs to do VT-100 sequences and let me run Emacs. But I think it's likely a niche product.

[eli]

"Why aren't prices of large eink panels cheaper?" is a question that can only be answered with opinions until someone actually does it.

Seems like the opinion of someone actually in the business of selling large eink panels should count for a lot more than speculation by an outsider.

Visionect sells some eInk signs for showing the status of meeting and conference rooms. I thought that was a clever application -- saves companies from having to run wires and mount a bunch of hardware.

Color photo displays could be cool, but I suspect it'd be hard to compete with the incredibly cheap Google Home and Alexa devices with screens.

[kortilla]

> Seems like the opinion of someone actually in the business of selling large eink panels should count for a lot more than speculation by an outsider.

Not really. That particular person’s entire business depends on eink being a high margin business product.

[robinsoh]

> Not really. That particular person’s entire business depends on eink being a high margin business product.

That claim doesn't seem to be very reasonable to me. Why would Visionect want eink to be a "high margin business product"? A Visionect panel is not a Veblen good as far as I can understand. Could you share your evidence for why you would think that?

[eli]

High cost isn't the same as high margin. If patent fees were a significant expense it'd be in their interest to say so even if the margins were already high (which I very much doubt)

[varenc]

His first comment says the opposite and that they've tried hard to get the price down. Of course we have to trust him on that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25063726#25067359

But I can’t really find any other large format e-ink displays with the driving hardware (which can be even pricier than the display), so I’m inclined to believe him.

[jessriedel]

> Seems like the opinion of someone actually in the business of selling large eink panels should count for a lot more than speculation by an outsider.

I agree it's certainly more authoritative than a random person (that's why I said "beyond"), but it's still just one man and we still don't know his incentives well.

[robinsoh]

> Awhile back the Founder of Visionect refuted this idea that patents are holding things back on hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25067824

Thank you for providing the link. I agree in general with that opinion as well.