Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

https://eliot.blog/e-ink-frame

by ea016 • 3 years ago

537 202 3 years ago

eliot.blog

robszumski2• 3 years ago

This is great! I would love to see a sample of the color input images and the resulting image on the display.

itishappy• 3 years ago

It's monochrome.

robszumski2• 3 years ago

The video has a lot of glare and the dithering seems like an important part. I wanted to contrast that process with the original.

freedomben• 3 years ago

When are we going to have cheaper e-ink screens available? Anyone know if the situation has changed in the last couple of years? See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779

grawlinson• 3 years ago

Realistically, it’ll be when the patents expire.

GaggiX3• 3 years ago

Which patents need to expire to have cheaper e-ink displays?

eli• 3 years ago

My understanding is it's much more about demand than patents.

LED panels got cheap because we built factories that pump out a lot of them.

dheera3• 3 years ago

Yeah I built one with 10" screens

https://dheera.net/projects/einkframe/

I really want to upgrade to at least 31" but it's rather expensive.

Separately in the next irritation of this project I'm hoping to use an ESP32 instead of an RPi Zero to power it, and use the deep sleep mode so it can periodically update but sleep through the rest of the time, allowing a few months of battery life with no wire sticking out.

Even more ideal would be putting a thin strip of solar panel on the top edge of the frame to keep it charged, and use some kind of supercapacitor to power the ESP32, though I don't know if the parts for that exist, especially solar panel that is 1cm wide.

ea0163• 3 years ago

OP here. Your project is really cool, thanks for sharing. I was considering the same idea, but it means updating the drivers to work on an ESP32

The best option I found so far is a timer shield that can wake up the Raspberry periodically: https://www.pishop.us/product/sleepy-pi-2-power-management-s...

tonoto• 3 years ago

Fantastic project, thanks for sharing! Prohibitive pricing for home use, but I would really love to have that as a picture frame on the wall. One can dream for the future..

lionkor• 3 years ago

That's a very neat project. The only issue I have with it is that it's basically a passive energy waster. It produces images by burning GPU power, when it could instead curate art from an existing amount of art (of which there is more to ever go through, almost in any category). Some projects that use AI could be replaced with other tech and be much more efficient.

GaggiX3• 3 years ago

I think it simply uses some API to generate the images.

evrimoztamur• 3 years ago

How does the API generate the images then?

dheera3• 3 years ago

It doesn't take a lot of GPU to produce one image, and you could always just keep a single image on the wall for a longer time if you want to reduce that impact.

You can also have it not produce images at night or when you are not around the house.

Lots of ways to save energy. The impact of an image every few hours or whatever is nanoscule compared to your transportation and heating needs.

(Also if your apartment uses electric resistive heating, fire away with your GPU, you're just producing images in the process of producing heat instead of passing it through a resistor. It's no less efficient.)

xnx6• 3 years ago

The cost (and environmental impact) of generated images is a rounding error compared to the $7,500+ project cost. As an aside, I wonder how much smaller and faster a diffusion model could be if trained (quantized?) to 4-bit grayscale images.

1-63• 3 years ago

$2,500 for a display isn’t too bad considering that real art can cost much more.

bee_rider• 3 years ago

They should render these images when there’s excess renewable energy, then store them for later.

lawlessone5• 3 years ago

This is just a little too close to NFT art for me lol.

mk_stjames• 3 years ago

My home computer batch processing prompts thru Stable Diffusion can generate and then nicely upscale images at at rate of about 1 every 5 seconds. Or 360 per half-hour. Which means a newly image on the display every day to look at for a year in just an half hour of computation.

At about 300W of GPU + 120W of PC, that is 420W * 0.5hrs = 0.210kWhr. This is a rounding error on my monthly electric bill. About six cents.

I've spent more energy than that likely just sitting and reading HackerNews this week.

whoibrar• 3 years ago

I would like all my future electricity bills to be calculated in terms of "HackerNews Read time"

93po2• 3 years ago

How is this any different than using a GPU to play games? They're both something people enjoy. Should I go play with sticks in the yard instead?

sho_hn9• 3 years ago

Posh frames e-ink friends! Here's my generative newspaper: https://i.imgur.com/tD1t9u3.jpeg

My wallet stopped at 13.3" though :)

Update for those who saw me post it before: I recently charged the battery for the first time since hanging it in March, which met my expectations.

Shout-out also to the people at Halbe Rahmen, the best picture frames in the world.

dheera3• 3 years ago

Wondering if you have by any chance shared code and plans for the long battery life setup?

Mine is still wired but I'm thinking of using ESP32 + deep sleep.

sho_hn9• 3 years ago

I _still_ haven't set the GitHub repo to public :( Real-life intruded in a major way (first baby).

esp32 + deep sleep + external RTC is what this is using. I posted some of my experiences with getting it as low as I could here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37663913

Here's a few more pics: https://imgur.com/a/NoTr8XX

I found the mention of Blue Noise Dithering in this project quite interesting! I've not put a lot of effort into picking the nicest possible dithering method (just a basic Floyd-Steinberg) for the embedded article photos, partly because the whole newspaper look didn't seem to warrant it, but it might be worth taking stock of what the latest on dithering is.

yohannparis2• 3 years ago

Where is the information on how you built it?

sho_hn9• 3 years ago

There's some info on my Hackaday project listing: https://hackaday.io/project/190478-hyepaper

Also the album link in the other comment.

adolph• 3 years ago

In terms of battery powering it, I wonder how many amps it takes to power a refresh. The Salt driver is 12v, which I guess can be shut down between refreshes.

sho_hn9• 3 years ago

In my e-ink newspaper, I have the driver board behind a relay (because it had an annoying idle current draw even when you tell the driver chip to go to standby, and they even added an annoying power LED ...) and do just fully shut it off between refreshes.

There's some projects that forego a driver ASIC entirely and drive the waveforms directly from a MCU, although I guess this large panel has a different voltage domain.

xnx6• 3 years ago

Well done. There would be so many more cool applications of e-ink if it wasn't $2,500 for a 42" display: https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/42''MonochromeeP... (minimum order 3)

For comparison a 42" full-color 60fps TV with remote, speakers, wifi, etc. etc. is $140.

It seems like the patent holder could be making a lot more money if they dropped the price.

layer8• 3 years ago

Well, Apple’s 32” Pro Display XDR is $5000, there’s always something.

graypegg• 3 years ago

Hmm. I wonder what the whole-sale price is? A TV with wifi is partly subsidized by the ads you see when you turn it on. This 2500$ display seems like it’s for small run signage, so they know it’s being sold for government/business use. Probably a bit inflated.

Does Rakutan/Amazon/Pocketbook really pay a similar cost/size ratio for the panels on their ereaders? I hope not!

lawlessone5• 3 years ago

so they know it’s being sold for government/business use. Probably a bit inflated.

You just reminded me, a few years ago i wanted to buy a transparent screen for a DIY project. The company said they couldn't sell it to me because they're b2b.

I think it was both a volume thing and a tax thing.. and possibly a liability thing.

FirmwareBurner7• 3 years ago

For comparison a 42" full-color 60fps TV with remote, speakers, wifi, etc. etc. is $140.

Because it's a lot easier and cheaper to manufacture large LCD panels at scale than E-ink film.

It seems like the patent holder could be making a lot more money if they dropped the price.

I don't know any company or shareholders that would say no to making more money so if this would actually be true then it would, but that's not the reality.

The FUD that large e-ink displays are expensive because of some patent conspiracy needs to stop.

Large e-ink screens are expensive because manufacturing yields are very low and so are sales volumes.

Source: worked with e-ink on products with big and small displays

Edit: So I'm saying the truth and getting down voted for it? Fine, then feel free to keep believing whatever you think is the truth. No point in discussing it further.

xnx6• 3 years ago

I didn't realize e-ink manufacturing was such a tricky process. I would think there would be a lot of applications for larger e-ink panels even if they had a number of stuck pixels.

bigfudge3• 3 years ago

I think it would be interesting to hear from an insider (with examples/evidence etc) what the mechanism is for eink to be more expensive. I/e/ the fundamentals for why this is the case beyond economies of scale. Given this history of the patent it looks to the outsider like this probably isn't the case and short sighted rent seeking is the problem. Would love to be wrong though, so if you do have a good explanation then here would be a great place to air it. I've not seen anything elsewhere...

BoorishBears6• 3 years ago

I didn't downvote... but if you're being downvoted it's probably for ignoring the flywheel effect needed to scale novel tech in the market.

Yes e-ink has high wastage, and yes demand is low, but having had a strong arming expensive patent holder didn't help the situation. The patents are actually expiring/expired but at some point the damage is already done.

A great corollarly to e-ink is 3d printers: they were very expensive, very low volume products that needed to recoup expensive development costs... but when the 200 lbs gorilla sitting on the market in the form of patents started to die down, a lot more players start to iterate, which unlocked advancements, which made things cheaper and more accessible, which improved demand, which then incentivized more advancements... and now we have $400 printers that outperform $10,000 printers from not that long ago.

Most display tech starts high wastage, low demand. Patents aren't a guaranteed death, but e-ink was just a bit too far off the path for absolutely required innovations to overcome the added resistance. In the mean time other technologies got better: sunlight performance of non-eink displays has improved dramatically for example.

Now the moment has probably passed and e-ink is doomed to stay a niche sideline product as a result.

bigmattystyles• 3 years ago

One thing I don’t understand - why are the iPhone screens that can run in display mode run at 1hz a feature - what’s hard about driving a display typically driven at 120hz(?) at 1hz to save on power difficult? Or it’s not and the it’s a differentiating feature price.

GuB-42• 3 years ago

So I'm saying the truth and getting down voted for it?

Don't worry about that. Posts that go against the general opinion always get downvoted at first. But if it is insightful and not demonstrably wrong, the upvotes will win.

dantheman• 3 years ago

You say that, but patents traditionally hold back progress. If you look at the amount of horse power generated by steam engines - it spiked after the patents expired.

There are probably many techniques and processes that would be tried and developed if it wasn't locked up by patents.

solardev7• 3 years ago

I didn't vote either way, but this is news to me. As long as e-ink has been around, all I've ever heard were the patent issues. If you're saying it's actually manufacturing difficulties, can you provide any links or additional info? I believe you, but as someone not familiar with the field, I'd love to learn more both to counteract the patent narrative and just for my own curiosity. What is hard about e-ink at scale that other products don't share?

squigz• 3 years ago

I don't know any company or shareholders that would say no to making more money so if this would actually be true then it would, but that's not the reality.

I've never quite understood this sort of thinking. Companies aren't perfect omniscient systems - the people in charge of various companies make poor decisions all the time, based on the same human biases we all have. So yes, it's entirely possible they could make more money that way, but executives simply hear "Lower the price" and run away. I'm not saying that's certainly what's happening, but this implication that a company could possibly only do the thing that's most beneficial to it is... strange, and very common thinking.

simple10• 3 years ago

Sometimes patent holder enter into initial deals with manufacturers and then can't lower the royalty price for other manufacturers. Even if they'd make more from higher volume, the initial manufacture might be serving high-end customers and doesn't want other manufactures entering the market at a lower price. So they refuse to agree to a lower patent royalty even though it would save them money. It's counterintuitive, but rationale under certain circumstances. This is pure conjecture for the e-ink patent on my part, but I've seen it first hand for other products.

TaylorAlexander4• 3 years ago

Question for you. I always saw the problem as: only one company or limited companies can manufacture them. Those companies are having issues manufacturing them so the price is high. But if more companies were allowed to manufacture them, wouldn’t we see more people solving production problems and lowering prices? If there is one company with low yields and high prices, if everyone is allowed to make them then there is a monetary gain for new entrants willing to solve yield problems. But if things are heavily patent encumbered then the whole world is at the whim of one organization to succeed or fail - there is no competition.

That is to say, it’s not that they’re charging high prices out of greed, but that there’s no competition forcing prices down.

mikepurvis• 3 years ago

I've read (probably on prior HN discussions about this?) that the manufacturing process still has major yield issues— when you're making small displays, you can slice around the bad pixels and not have to waste as much, but making a large display requires a huge sheet to all be perfect.

Then again, if that was really it, surely there'd be a market for people who want a 42" e-ink display and are willing to accept some proportion of bad pixels in exchange for a deep discount. Which really shouldn't matter much, particularly for applications where distance-viewing is the expectation.

diggan• 3 years ago

if it wasn't $2,500 for a 42" display

Try $3000 :)

Driving boards are not included in the display module package. E Ink Salt kit is designed to support this module
Salt Driving Board - $500.00 - https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/SaltDrivingBoard

ThrowawayTestr2• 3 years ago

The first flat panel tvs started in the $x000 price range. I'm amazed an eink display this big is actually affordable (minimum quantities aside).

bufferoverflow• 3 years ago

E-ink has been around for a long time. It's not one of the first panels.

qingcharles• 3 years ago

My first 40" flat panel TV ran something around $6000 IIRC.

red_hare• 3 years ago

My dream is, when these finally come down in price, to build a dynamic DnD map.

spullara• 3 years ago

Why not just put any other kind of display flat and put glass over it to protect it?

Edit: Someone has your dream display already :) https://www.etsy.com/listing/1463146123/43-4k-dnd-tv-table

prewett• 3 years ago

If it's a 4k TV it also has more pixels and better refresh rate. And color. But for that extra $2360 you get the feature that your image is still there when the power is off. I expect that feature would be substantially more costly regardless of the patent holder's extra.

nomel3• 3 years ago

you get the feature that your image is still there when the power is off

How is that a realistic feature? Who is losing power and being happy that they spent a few thousand more, nearly 40x, than a 36" photo quality print, just so the image can remain while their lights are off?

malfist• 3 years ago

But that's not the only benefit of eink.

EInk doesn't have a backlight. So it's easy to see in glaring light. It's also not disruptive if so, you want to use it as a digital picture frame and you don't want light from the display bothering your eyes day and night.

EInk is a more peaceful display technology, and some people put a lot of value on that.

slg• 3 years ago

Who is going to do the math and figure out how long you need to hypothetically have these screens on before the power costs of the TV actually make up the $2360 difference in price?

mrd3v0• 3 years ago

The E-ink patent holder is one of the most egregious cases of patent trolls. They won't lower the prices.

bmitc• 3 years ago

When do the patents end? They've been around for a while now.

mahdi7d1• 3 years ago

I guess people only care and notice theire own prefrences. I never thought about 42" eink display but I'm constantly wishing for the price of 10" and 13" modules to drop cause that's the usecase I'm interested in. I think their demand would be much much more compared to a 42" panel (what even is the use of such thing) so they can benefit from scale.

herpderperator• 3 years ago

Where does it show the minimum order is 3?

xnx6• 3 years ago

The article. "Some advanced Google-fu was used to find a supplier shipping to Europe. Minimum order quantity: 3 pieces."

adql5• 3 years ago

Yeah I'd love to have big display/dashboard on a wall that isn't acting as extra light in the room but not at those prices.

Transflective LCD is other option bit also pretty hard/expensive to get a big screen...

semi-extrinsic• 3 years ago

Really cool project!

If you're into looking at different dithering techniques, there are a few interesting ones compared in this old CodeGolf question (disclaimer: I'm the one with the Fortran answer)

https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/26554/dither-a-...

landgenoot• 3 years ago

Love it. But way too expensive, especially because we don't know what the quality / price will do in the future when the patents expire.

For that price, you can buy a 42" color printer.

xnx6• 3 years ago

I thought I'd heard of all the dithering options from https://tannerhelland.com/2012/12/28/dithering-eleven-algori..., but surprised to read there's another one (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/3288) that was used in this project.

cubefox3• 3 years ago

Blue noise dithering seems to be a form of ordered dithering which is better than other forms of ordered dithering, but in terms of quality it is not as good as error diffusion dithering (look up the Wikipedia comparison on the statue of David). But blue noise dithering has the advantage that it can be implemented as a pixel shader, unlike error diffusion. So it can e.g. be used for video games. So I think for the picture frame error diffusion would have been a bit better.

vanderZwan2• 3 years ago

It's called blue noise dithering because it's not ordered. Error diffusion dithering approximates blue noise dithering (poorly, I might add). What error diffusion has going for it is very low overhead, and built-in edge-enhancement if you pick your kernels right.

datene• 3 years ago

This excellent article on dithering also explains blue noise in a simple way

https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/

esafak• 3 years ago

Samsung sells an LED TV specifically for this use case. Currently only at 4K.

https://www.samsung.com/us/tvs/the-frame/highlights/

renewiltord• 3 years ago

A friend has the Samsung Frame and I think you can only interface with it via the Samsung SmartThings app. It's quite closed. So you need an online thing for the TV and then you upload it into their app.

mholm• 3 years ago

Yep, it's very locked down, and Art Mode behavior is often anti-user to promote their $10/month Art Store subscription. There are limited matting options and I believe it intentionally crops photos incorrectly, even if you upload in the correct aspect ratio. It also takes about a minute to scroll down to 'User Art' sections with how slow their UI is.

rjvs3• 3 years ago

They make it superficially closed but it's pretty simple to get around it with a USB drive. Really all you have to do is ignore their subscription system and size your images to match the screen.

huehehue• 3 years ago

I have one of these, and only in a very specific environment is it convincing as not-a-TV (aside from the concerns of privacy and their proprietary app).

Especially at night, I find the backlight makes it painfully obvious that it's just a TV and I'd much rather have something like e-ink which blends into the surroundings.

bigfudge3• 3 years ago

They look cool. Would be great to have an oled version without a backlight.

tambourine_man2• 3 years ago

I’m browsing this link for a good 5min. Looks interesting. I get that it tries to simulate paper, but I have no idea how.

Even the “explore technology” link has little extra detail. I don’t even know if it’s backlit.

ffgjgf1• 3 years ago

It’s just a tv with a picture frame and some additional software/wallpapers

ThrowawayTestr2• 3 years ago

It's just a TV with a matte screen and a way for Samsung to sell you public domain art.

rjvs3• 3 years ago

The main tech is a very anti-reflective coating; the best I've seen on a mainstream TV. It is backlit but in Art Mode the backlight is turned down (you can control how much and there is an ambient light sensor that fine-tunes your choice). The combination of low emission, quite low reflection and static content is pretty compelling for me in a lit room.

I have the white frame on the bezel against a light-coloured wall and when displaying art it's much less imposing on the room than an empty black screen. Obviously it uses more power than standby but it's also quite a bit less than a dynamic screensaver.

Don't know that I'd get another one; the bugs in Samsung's software are annoying (I just want it to display the art, or a picture from a single HDMI input, how hard can they possibly make it?) but perhaps that's standard for modern TVs.

chromakode• 3 years ago

Awesome project! I'd strongly recommend swapping in some antireflective glass. There's a couple affordable options with less than 1% reflection [1][2]. Made a huge difference vs. stock acrylic on my frames that get lots of environmental light.

[1] https://www.groglass.com/product/artglass-ar-70/

[2] https://www.framedestination.com/prod/sh/ultravue-uv70-pictu...

sho_hn9• 3 years ago

I second this recommendation! Frame manufacturers sometimes call these products "museum glass", which combines anti-reflective properties with UV filters, usually with price points at 70% and 92% filters.

Some E-ink panels can be somewhat susceptible to UV light and perform better under a filter. You will sometimes find warnings in data sheets about refresh performance in direct sunlight, and danger of long-term permanent damage. Some of E-ink's signage products have, I think, filter layers built-in.

But also if you're using a passepartout like in this project, and the frame will hang in sunlight and you're not sure how the paper will perform, it's worth springing for the UV protection to avoid yellowing over time.

andrewstuart4• 3 years ago

I would love two wall mounted e-ink displays showing chess boards so my 14 year old son could play chess with his grandfather.

I imagine the game keeping track of whose turn it is and being able to give voice commands to make moves.

Then they could play games over a longer period of time, maybe make one move per day.

jareklupinski• 3 years ago

what's your budget :)

the Lilygo T5 with Touch screen + a lipo battery would have all the hardware you need

just need to port chess to the platform after that https://www.hackster.io/Sergey_Urusov/arduino-mega-chess-d54...

figuring out NAT traversal to get them talking to each other from each other's homes might be tricky/fun, but there may be ways around that...

andrewstuart4• 3 years ago

Pretty cool at $36.36 USD

https://www.lilygo.cc/products/t5-4-7-inch-e-paper-v2-3

It would be great to be able to buy this in a size that would mount easily into common photo frame formats.

Ideally with a battery that could last months and optional power.

If I was retired it's the sort of project I'd happily waste time on.

93po2• 3 years ago

10 inch is probably workable and is also $2800 more affordable:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/soldered/inkplate-10#products

schlarpc• 3 years ago

I have a similar display, and also use blue noise dithering. Mine is driven in the backend by a web browser, which means I was able to abuse CSS and mix-blend-mode to do the dithering for me:

  ha-card::after {
    content: "";
    background-image: url(/local/visionect-dither.png);
    background-repeat: repeat;
    position: absolute;
    height: 100%;
    width: 100%;
    display: block;
    mix-blend-mode: multiply;
  }

The dithering texture used is 128_128/LDR_LLL1_10.png from https://github.com/Calinou/free-blue-noise-textures

lawlessone5• 3 years ago

what are the 3d and 4d textures?

webkike• 3 years ago

(I could be wrong, but here's what I'm guessing) 3D refers to RGB, and 4D refers to RGB plus Alpha

jalict• 3 years ago

Usually something like volumetric data, animations, or other forms of data packed into something the GPU can swallow. I am not sure why you would apply the filters to those kinds.

ghusbands• 3 years ago

Looking at the example image in the article for the dithering, it does unnecessarily reduce the quality in some areas, like the water on the left, the buildings in the bottom left and the background on the right.

andrewstuart4• 3 years ago

Tablet manufacturers would do well to consider that the picture frame is the desirable form factor for E-ink tablets, perhaps more so than the iPad style hand held tablet.

Look to what hobbyists are hacking to find commercial opportunity.

bazeblackwood• 3 years ago

Got excited, but then you qualified it was AI.

AI art is not generative art, it is reductive "art". It requires samples of the art style you wish to cop, and it always produces something artificial and less than the sum of its parts.

On the other hand, generative art is procedural, and represents the thought process of a human being.

Better luck making meaning.

lawlessone5• 3 years ago

I despise how some companies opted to scrape artists works without their permission.

But aren't the prompts used also representative of a thought process? The chosen network architecture and the choices of images used to train also represent thought.

chefandy2• 3 years ago

Is use of a thought process the standard for calling something art?

Walking into a convenience store and buying milk also requires a thought process, but it's not creating art. Walking into a home store and selecting from various linens to assemble a complementary set requires a creative thought process, but it's not art. The closest analog is commissioning a piece from an artist-- that requires a creative thought process about art but that doesn't make the commissioner the artist.

Most commercial art directors have more granular control of their project's outcome than people generating their AI art have over theirs. While they are credited for their direction and curation of those multiple pieces to create a unified project, they are absolutely not credited for the individual pieces-- the artists that created those pieces are.

Maybe deliberately curating a collection or collaging AI-generated art that, through juxtaposition or some other method, elicited a response or communicated something emotionally that each piece individually could not. But that's not what's happening here. People are commissioning pieces of art from a computer which makes them out of other people's art.

chefandy2• 3 years ago

You'll get downvoted into the earth's core here expressing the philosophical stance that asking a computer to make art from other people's art isn't actually making art. I wonder if they'd commission a painting with a 50 word description, and after a few rounds of alterations when it was finally delivered, cross out the painter's signature and add their own.

numpad0• 3 years ago

Is the control board actually wrong, or is the cable supposed to be origami folded for adjustment? A control board that works should be really close to the right one if it weren't.

supportengineer2• 3 years ago

> instantly nerd-snipped

er, what?

mcphage• 3 years ago

It's a term from an old XKCD: https://xkcd.com/356/

supportengineer2• 3 years ago

Oh, snipe not snip.

Aspos• 3 years ago

You have plenty of space behind the screen. Wondering if you could harness wifi signal to generate power. Given days between changes, perhaps you could harvest enough amperage to make a change.

Or maybe you could hide a Qi charger into the wall?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23181-1

nealeratzlaff• 3 years ago

This is really cool! I've wanted to buy something similar for a long time, but in RGB. I know Samsung makes the Frame, but its not hackable, and its a waste of power. I don't ever want the thing to function as a TV, just a way to display generative art.

At one time there apparently was this: https://mono.frm.fm/en/shop/ But the price was crazy. There's not much out there in terms of appropriately priced digital picture frames.

NKosmatos• 3 years ago

Don’t get me wrong, I like this project and the write up, but it seems a little bit overkill. These e-ink displays are 3 thousand each and this guy is the CTO of PhotoRoom. Hey it’s not coming out of my pocket and I don’t know if it’s company or personal money, but it seems a little bit off.

KomoD• 3 years ago

What makes E-Ink so damn expensive?

1-63• 3 years ago

Good question. It has been answered before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143407

archontes• 3 years ago

Casey Muratori has a decent blog post on the topic of blue noise dithering.

https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0010

1-63• 3 years ago

E-Ink is a classic example of an artificially constrained supply chain designed to compete with far more advanced technologies.

Aeolun• 3 years ago

You can hardly manufacture 1000 if only 20 will ever be sold.

scotty79• 3 years ago

Cool thing would be to listen to the speech in the room and use it as a prompt

Dave_Rosenthal• 3 years ago

I've looked, and it doesn't seem to exist, but I still can't believe there isn't an emissive display on the market that can just emulate the look of a passive display. (i.e. match the 'white' of the display to inbound light)

All you need is a high quality RGB light sensor or three and an accurate way to dim a backlight. None of this seems very hard. Sure, it wouldn't show the shape of shadows or whatever, but it would still be highly effective. Why can't the image just go black when I turn the lights off?

ggm• 3 years ago

The Samsung art series TV has fooled me in an AirBnB. It took me quite a while to realise it wasn't an expensive framed print.

It was daylight in a well lit bright room. The frame and background were just right to look like modern simple poster framing. The minute sun set, of course it stopped looking right. Thats when I realized we had a TV after all.

My partner pointed out the art had changed at least two times across daylight hours. I had just blanked that out.

worldmerge• 3 years ago

Your company seems really cool! I love the maker spirit! Sick flip dot display, I have some from AlfaZeta, would love to get a bus one but they seem rare in the US. Photoroom seems like a fun place to work.

dsp_person• 3 years ago

I remember seeing those Thinkpad X230 mods with an eink display and how a challenge was availability of the specific discontinued e-ink screen of the right size.

The mfg from the article has a 13.3" screen that would be fun to try a mod with: https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/13.3''ePaperDisp...

and impressive 1600 x 1200 pixels

moroark• 3 years ago

I love it. 2 Ideas:

You should upload a massively complicated where's waldo like scene and have waldo appear in different places each hour.

Have a portrait with lots of subtle details but they change slowly over time. Ex. girl goes from earing-less to small earings to big earings. Just have lots of small details subtly change but at a rate which makes them hard to detect.

levi0214• 3 years ago

This is cool!

Charon77• 3 years ago

We found that running 2 full white images did a good enough job, without disrupting the experience too much

Some devices actually clear by outputting the invert of the image. Maybe this will be faster

kevinpiac• 3 years ago

Well done!

clash• 3 years ago

Shameless plug: I build devices like that and sell them. Battery powered.

https://framelabs.eu/en/product/artframe-31/

I use the 31.2" panel because it is 40% cheaper and has higher DPI, but the 42" panel is also possible.

itsTyrion• 3 years ago

anything to not ask artists for display permission or pay a dime

Show HN: Building a 42-inch E-Ink frame for generative art

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