E-Ink for productivity: Software and General Updates

[@dizzym9554]

We definitely need to make companies realize this kind of thing is worth putting out as a product, something with better performance and a higher end e-ink display with a better refresh rate. As a programmer I would totally use this to do work on to save myself the eye strain of staring at an LCD for hours.

[@demonicbunny3po]

Agreed. I mostly want a new e-ink device for reading on and would love to see companies make better versions. Maybe even one day a color screen.

[@jimstanley_49]

The new version, the Max 2 Pro, has double the RAM at 4GB. It's probably a chicken-and-egg problem. No one makes it because no one knows they need it; no one knows they need it because no one makes it. I don't know it better refresh is even possible. I think this thing probably has about as "high-end" a display as you're likely to find. Again, being a niche "reader" component, pushing the technology is probably a low priority.

[@demetreasandrews]

I agree, I work at a bank and most of my programs look like they are from the DOS era. I don't need a flashy 27 inch lcd screen just to look at a black box with green text

[@0Raik]

I'm a writer and I agree. Would love to have one of these even with all the bugs. Too bad I'm poor.

[@jimstanley_49]

@@demonicbunny3po There have been a couple of readers with color e-ink. I think it's just hard to make waves in a puddle. If a Kindle came with a color screen people _might_ sit up and take notice, but since it was Tiny Japanese Co, nobody really even heard about it.

[@TechnologyConnextras]

Yes, that is indeed a CD-ROM of RollerCoaster Tycoon in the corner. Because reasons.

[@MarceldeJong]

It's still a great game. That's enough reason Wait, wait! I also like that WBEZ mug.

[@scj643]

@@MarceldeJong wait wait don't tell me is the best NPR show

[@JackRosenthal1]

This game was awesome. Interested to see what you do with it =)

[@matthewtuel2747]

Good times! I used to save my games to floppy because I'm that old. The 20gig hard drive was filling up with The Sims and expansion packs, RCT, Warcraft, Age of Empires, Napster downloads, etc. We did eventually get a Zip drive, which allowed us to save even more crap, much faster!

[@MuttFitness]

Your secretly LGR!

[@jmurray01]

E-Ink technology would be perfect for say a call centre environment where staff are staring at their monitors for 8-10 hours per day and usually just using text based CRM systems.

[@076657]

Sure and keep the caller waiting for the page refresh

[@1121494]

@@076657 We let Customers wait for more useless pointless reasons. Where is the problem with this?

[@dm95c]

I think it would perfect for using command line interfaces as well

[@oleg..]

It depends. Good sleep and low brightness do their job sometimes. Some of us switch between 5+ programs and a gazillion browser tabs. As a niche device, like Gameboy in 2020, with compatible price - I'd buy it.

[@1337Shockwav3]

Haha, I wish. Our callcenter software is still running in Flash(!) to this day [going to be replaced in the next few months ... being 5 years overdue ... at least], with some "mini games" for ordinary functions (which is annoying as hell), as it was coded by someone who originally did flash games 15 years ago.

[@console]

I'm really impressed that you try to work with this type of device. I'd rage-quit very hard after just a few minutes.

[@Darieee]

oh yeah .... like ... also physically inflict harm into it as a form of revenge too

[@scott8919]

It's one of those things where you enjoy the tech so much that, despite all its flaws, you're willing to put up with them. Other people, of course, won't have that patience.

[@Darieee]

yeah but ... yeah ... nah you're right ... just a real damn shame they botched it that badly ..

[@tparadox88]

I get a perverse joy out of wrestling a piece of technology into the most useful form I can wrangle out of it. I think there are a lot of people in engineering and technology fields (and hobbyists, which better describes myself) like that. Though in my case it's usually in the form of "I just got a new device and I'm going to spend several hours over the next few days installing the right apps and trying new ones as well as tweaking settings before I have the rough idea in place, and then it still won't be completely right for a couple of weeks." But there's so much satisfaction in getting that result.

[@reggiep75]

I'd been inclined to get a sturdy kitchen knife and thrust it at this device and then revengefully carve its circuits up!!

[@BenjaminVestergaard]

At my previous job (developer), I was handed a Kindle just because... It's a productivity/learning tool, so the company basically just bought the relevant books to our kindles, we all had them instantly and it's much more used than having a bookshelf in the office where we can go look up what's good practice. It helped us in the way that we were all on the same page (figuratively) because we all had the same documentation to base our development on, and if one had to read up on best practices on how to do a job, it was nice and easy to do it on the train/metro to and from work. If one hit a paragraph which could be difficult to understand, we could always hit each other over chat, tell where to find the paragraph and someone else in the team could read it and come back with their interpretation, because we all had the same full "library" at our fingertips. Another productivity boost is that you can look something up and have it stand on the relevant page while, for instance, designing a database... Never had the option to have it as a second-screen tho, but exactly because it is a limited device which is easy to read, you don't get distracted by it, as you would with a phone or an actual second screen attached to the computer.

[@CZpersi]

I like the vocabulary and Wikipedia integration in Kindle and other e-readers. You hit an unknown word and you can get instant definition or background information for it.

[@clairep.ronalds897]

Hey! I know this is a TERRIBLY old video and this comment will likely get lost BUT I would highly recommend checking out Boox's newer products. They've smoothed out a ton of these issues. The one I have was their cutting edge device in August 2020, and it can run video (badly), websites (quite well), and regular ole' text (fantastically). By now they've done color eink, and done other eink monitor upgrade things... Maybe take another look! Boox is (as far as I can tell) the most innovative and risk-taking company in the eink-display-device market... all of their stuff seems light years ahead of Kindle, Nook, etc. ESPECIALLY for the kind of things I want to do with my device.

[@jjk-9]

For the keyboard issue I install a Null keyboard app to remove the keyboard allowing you to use only the bluetooth one.

[@superluig164]

Actually, any other Android software keyboard would work. The software keyboard manages the hardware keyboard, so as long as the software keyboard supports hiding when the hardware keyboard is being used, it will work.

[@0Raik]

@@superluig164 ^^ This. You can configure hardware keyboard to hide soft keyboard when in use. This may cause issues with some bluetooth joysticks but is inconsequential with this device.

[@jan_h]

This. Installed one of those when I was using a hardware keyboard with one of those cheap Android "TV" dongles. (not actual Android TV, just the tablet interface with a barely functional touchpad)

[@jerm1027]

There are two workarounds for some of the issues: The touching words for the correction menu in document: I had the same issue with my Galaxy Note II, and I installed Null Keyboard, and switch to the keyboard whenever I connected my Bluetooth keyboard. Null Keyboard, as the name implies, is null, so whenever something calls for the onscreen keyboard, nothing happens. The other workaround is using shift+F10, which is the shortcut for the menu option (right-click); I use this shortcut all the time on my Chromebook. There is a also an add-on for Firefox to change the user-agent so it will persistently give you the desktop website.

[@fakjbf3129]

I just finished watching your old video about installing LED's in your fish tank, and in it you offhandedly mention that you use tiles left behind by the previous owner as coasters. I happened to check my subscription feed and saw this video, and what's the first thing I notice? The old tile being used as a coaster!

[@theMoporter]

Deep lore

[@Shasha_Mynx]

@@theMoporter the plot thickens

[@pollosasadosalcarbon]

the thick plottens

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

@@pollosasadosalcarbon we are all out of ketchup... it's really disgusting to be honest... how do you explain this?

[@MacTX]

Seems like E-Ink would have been more competitive with LCD had the tech come to market in the 1980's and had the last 30 years to develop and evolve.

[@matthew8153]

MacTX One day, one day.

[@theallknowingsause8940]

E-ink now is literally what LCD technology was in the late 80's early 90's It'll become a usable type of display... Eventually

[@liyifenn]

Too many inherent limitations of the format imho

[@mattymerr701]

Also if innovation wasn't tamped by patents. The only company that can do anything with ePaper is eink

[@HebaruSan]

If you're hitting RAM and CPU limits, maybe try remotely displaying apps running on a more powerful system? Remote desktop or SSH with display forwarding are both options depending on your platform of choice.

[@thec2n14]

Wouldn't that introduce yet another layer of delay of input though?

[@HebaruSan]

@@thec2n14 In principle yes, but in practice that delay is usually undetectable. The overall impact depends on why things are running slowly; if calculating the pixels is more costly than transmitting them, then using a remote display can be helpful on a weak client system.

[@Slash0mega]

i feel that some of the compatabilitie options would fail if you tried that, because it would be a picture stream instead of natively drawn, for example any options that tweak text drawing would fail, because its a picture instead of text.

[@ThetaReactor]

If you're only dealing with text you could just run a terminal emulator and really cut down the necessary bandwidth.

[@awesomeferret]

You clearly did not watch his last Eink video. He did exactly that since that functionality is built in.

[@scaredfolks5923]

I love e-Ink displays, i wish they were used more often. I just love the look, it's so much easier on the eyes.

[@DanielMReck]

Thank you for supporting WBEZ. It's great to have your awesomeness here in Chicago!

[@SuperCookieGaming_]

Noticed you were using the thermostat script. I used the knowledge in that video to help me fix our thermostat after it broke. And as a cheap replacement we have the same honeywell you used in the video except it can also cool. I can send you the pictures on twitter of the mechanism. its is very similar to what you described.

[@draggonhedd]

For the keyboard, There should be an android option for "disable onscreen keyboard when bluetooth keyboard attached" or something in the android keyboard settings.

[@unitrader403]

im pretty sure some Keyboard apps have support for exactly that (i vaguely remember one which minimized to just text prediction when using a hardware keyboard)

[@damionlee7658]

Keeping a close eye on developments, because I am seriously considering a similar setup for reading and writing. Working on my notebook is okay, but after a day I can definitely tell my eyes have had enough. The tooling lag would probably need me to adjust my typing. Also a touch typist, and if I were transcribing from a text document I would be okay. But if I am typing and reading the screen, even having the input lag by a letter or two throws my typing off. I'd probably have to type with my eyes closed with that display.

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

1. A broken item demonstrated for the repair person will work perfectly! 2. A _working_ item demonstrated for the public, or potential buyers, more specifically, will be a piece of crap!

[@stevethepocket]

So what happens if you bring your phone with you to the repair shop to record yourself demonstrating the device for them? Will it create a toast-strapped-to-the-back-of-a-cat type paradox?

[@sarah1390]

@ 9:43. I am a touch typer but I have learned to type without looking either at the screen or the keyboard. Back in my university days I would be doing projects late into the night when I was dead tired and under the gun. In order to keep going I just started closing my eyes and just started typing what I was thinking at least allowing me to keep working longer in order to get my projects done. In fact I typed most of this message without looking.

[@Studio23Media]

Sarah1390 I used to be able to do that on my phone, but my phone has gotten so much bigger over the years that it's not really doable anymore. Back in the good ole days of T9 I could send a text without ever taking my phone out of my pocket

[@ThetaReactor]

I did part of my typing training on a daisy-wheel typewriter. It's pretty easy to outpace those and sit back and watch them type most of a line. I also did lots of typing on a TI terminal with a 900 baud printer. But that was mostly TMNT ASCII art.

[@Brayden421]

Lol Sarah that ain't special, fuck even I can do that and I'm basically retarded.

[@oafkad]

I'm calling those things "Way-Com" until the day I die. Until folks start calling it "Frankenstein's Monster" again I'm standing my ground! We can pronounce or interpret things anyway we want! English is a madhouse!

[@Yet_AGOTI-2]

English is won of the only languages where you can use a wrong word, say it out loud, and still get the same meaning. It really is are strangest accomplishment.

[@ikmnification5737]

What if I told you how "Zombie" is used today is also a misnomer. Most "Zombie" movies feature Ghouls or some kind of infection that turns people into Ghoul like humans. Frankenstein's Monster is actually closer to what a Zombie should be.

[@marenjones6665]

That is an insult to mental institutions everywhere XD

[@Michael-Archonaeus]

I pronounce it the same way, and I don’t care. People will always get offended by something LOL

[@dafoex]

But its not "way-com" its "far too many proprietary drivers than really necessary to run a mouse" I'm sorry, I hope my rant is taken as humour.

[@HenningGu]

For people who do a lot of text work, like Office work or programming this looks pretty nice

[@CZpersi]

I can imagine a laptop-like e-ink device with a proprietary software used as a dedicated field workstation in railway, oil industry etc. It does only the thing it is supposed to do. It does not need frequent charging. It works excellent under bright sunlight and it can be easily designed to be waterproof. In those situations, you basically need a display that will once in a while show the latest data or schematics and into which you input couple of commands to adjust a value here and there.

[@BoDiddly]

That would be perfect for musicians if... It was less pricey, and maybe an inch or two bigger. I'm 52, play multiple instruments (sometimes with a band) and carrying around loads of sheet music in a 3-ring binder is a pain in the A%%. Also, during rehearsal having something like that would be great for marking up the changes in the music. As I mentioned, I am 52 and my eyes aren't getting any younger, which is why a larger display would be great. I tried using a 10.5" tablet, but that was way too small. Something 12" or larger would be great! As long as it has a PDF reader/editor and something that can open .jpg/.png images life as a musician would be improved substantially.

[@kirbyyasha]

Oooh, air conditioning just switched on, thanks to that amazing Thermostat! I actually pulled my e-Reader out of storage because of you, and put some of my textbooks on it. Only complaint is just the software is trash so changing pages is a pain. I like digital books due to the search feature, but I miss the feeling of paper. Also, I like your WBEZ mug!

[@ArleyMcBlain]

Thanks for this series. I'm currently struggling through a concussion injury; and looking for something like this to reduce strain.

[@AnjelicSwagAMuffin]

I'd love to see a double screen, folds on the edge like a laptop for double pages. I'd mainly use it for my manga and some regular novels, I just never liked reading them even on my tablet because of the glare and single page view is just odd to me.

[@popenieafantome9527]

I have gotten used to single page with continuous scroll down. So it works like reading an online article. I like it on tablets. Two pages mode i only really use on a monitor since i feel like that needs much larger screen than what tablets offer. Even then, i just use single page since have two pages of text seems overwhelming.

[@f1ggyc]

Teletext!! at 16:30 hyped for that

[@anotheruser9876]

There's this new-fangled thing called curtrains. You should do a report on it.

[@finkelmana]

The blind, curtain, shade format war was an epic technological battle. Now there is the upstart, tint. What will the future bring?

[@frojoe2004]

@@finkelmana While blinds seem to have won the format war, I stand by my assertion that curtains are the superior format!

[@finkelmana]

@@frojoe2004 You are an idiot! Blinds allow precise control of resolution! Curtains are notorious for being ugly. Clearly, you are in the pocket of Big Curtain.

[@frojoe2004]

@@finkelmana Clearly you are a "blind" sheep (see what I did there) lost in the dark, oh wait, you can't experience any dark with your blinds which always allow at least some light through them no matter how far you attempt to "close" them! Curtains ugly? HA! your cheap plastic sticks that break at the mere presence of a cat in the room can't hold a candle to real drapery embroidered with the finest patters! Blinds... you have to be blind to like blinds.

[@300DBenz]

Zhong Ping Polarized Smart Tinting is just biding its time.....waiting...preparing...to send the slattern blinds and dusty curtains to their rightful place: the dumpster behind Home Depot.

[@ClutchTheChords]

The mug coaster looks like a slice of tofu

[@GhostGlitch.]

It's a tile

[@VisaCardholder]

@@GhostGlitch. I thought it was Styrofoam

[@chubbyadler3276]

@@GhostGlitch. I agree. It looks like a piece of ceiling tile, but that stuff flakes everywhere.

[@trueriver1950]

Ceiling tile, i think

[@over00lordunknown12]

25:19 Chromebooks are extremely good if you want an always-online laptop, with Apps you can get some more offline functionality, but in general if you are always around WiFi then it’s a very good option! (Personally I use the Acer R11, with touch screen, 1 3.0 USB port, and 2 2.0 USB ports, and a sd card reader (full size, not micro).)

[@stephenbeck6410]

As a coder, I love the idea of the e-ink screen for a solution to eye strain, but the delay is a deal killer-I look at the screen as I write code, and the delay would be horrid for productivity

[@EinTypOhneHandle]

So yesterday I ordered a “Remarkable” E-Ink Tablet. I’m quite interested in how that’ll work. It’s not Android based, so I’m confident that the performance will be better.

[@Nattosoup]

+Technology Connections 2 I'd love to get your thoughts on this machine for basic sketching. I know you aren't a visual artist, but it's awesome it comes with a Wacom stylus. Could you Could you try Medibang Paint or another free drawing application and just get a feel for how responsive it feels when drawing? Does the pressure sensitivity work? Does your hand activate drawing or UI elements when drawing? Does it refresh the screen when you stop drawing? Is there a noticeable lag in input? My boyfriend just became a patron. We watch your stuff pretty often so I'm not sure why we hadn't sooner. Good luck with work / life balance. I think anyone who creates for the public strives with those boundaries. I love your videos.

[@marenjones6665]

Hmm. If the ram is struggling to keep up with Firefox, I doubt an art app would work well. But If you do try one, could it be Autodesk Sketchbook?

[@BaumInventions]

Sometimes limiting the tools for a production makes you more creative and productive. Thats what i always say :D

[@CodytheDeer]

Oh dang, never thought of using 4k for cropping. Ever since I've started with non-phone cameras I've always been an optical purist so that was a pretty interesting strategy to me

[@EpicLPer]

Why aren't you using the dedicated Google Docs app for such things? I bet it'd make just normal writing a lot easier and a better experience, of course you won't have most of the fancy formatting features but when do you really need them for just typing mostly text.

[@EpicLPer]

Oh wait you addressed this, totally missed that...

[@tparadox88]

I definitely feel more focused reading on an ereader than reading the same book on my phone or tablet. There's a psychology of having to do more to switch between tasks. Yeah, I could set this down and open my phone to look up that passing curiosity, but that's several seconds of physically switching devices rather than just a couple of taps and swipes. Personally, I feel more focused on a screen than on print too, because I've spent thirty years being trained to look at screens.

[@LongPeter]

God I love eink. I wish it was more widely applied.

[@Jayenkai]

"Health Tablet" The advertising writes itself! Ps, my Bluetooth Keyboard (currently hooked up to my MacMini) is the one I got with Pokemon Typing Adventure for DS!!

[@Marin22427]

Yes, I agree. The fact that e-ink tablets or readers are slow is not a problem relating to the screen. I upgraded to a Kindle Paperwhite 4 a week after release, after my Paperwhite 3 broke when I dropped it. To my surprise, it has exactly the same processor and RAM, with slightly more storage, and (to be expected) with the most recent software, it performs noticeably slower than my last Kindle. When my Paperwhite 3 would take 2-3 seconds to load an eBook, the Paperwhite 4 sometimes takes up to 10 seconds to load the same eBooks I used to read on the former, altogether failing to load at all on some occasions. I suppose with a newer (or faster) processor, plus a bit more RAM, most of the issues with e-ink tablets or readers could become a thing of the past.

[@BanjoNoob2]

I have a theory about why it defaults to using the arrow keys on your Bluetooth keyboard to select keys on the on-tablet keyboard: When you are typing in Chinese with pinyin, you often type the phonetic sounds e.g. "shi" and then select a character from a list e.g. "是，时，使，事..." (These all come up by typing 'shi') It looks like despite having flipped the language back, the software is still really designed around Chinese. Which is cool but also frustrating.

[@the1exnay]

Watching this makes me really want there to be a display like that but with higher refresh rate. I think 300 milliseconds or whatever would drive me crazy. I'm really hoping some clever engineer will look into it and find a way to improve the refresh rate. Get it under 50 milliseconds and I'll have to seriously consider buying one

[@RedstoneNinja99]

Have you seen the video on E Ink on the main channel? There are pretty hard engineering challenges, I wouldnt say its impossible though

[@TheaHFrancis]

I’m really in need of buying a good e-ink device for reading textbooks, academic papers etc.. My main requirements for such device are good syncing functions between devices, good os system, reliable software maintenance, fast response, good wifi/Bluetooth/LTE connection. I would totally pay $2000 for it.

[@bbayu123]

I have completely disregarded your warning and bought myself a Max3 half a year ago, and I was today years old when I was curious enough to set up some kind of remote control software that I can use to control the tablet from my phone, and the output of the RC software is in grayscale instead of colour, meaning BOOX (or at least the one I have) outputs natively in grayscale instead of it being colour on a grayscale monitor.

[@aromaticsnail]

Is it too late to ask for an update on eink devices? Maybe with an upgrade to ReMarkable 2? Also a 65% mechanical keyboard would be a couple made in heaven

[@AlyssaNguyen]

I kind of want a calendar on my refrigerator, like one of those dry erase ones, but with the functionality of Google Calendar. An e-ink display would be perfect, particularly in terms of power usage.

[@BeefIngot]

I believe there are addons for firefox that will do the desktop thing you want.

[@DaveJacoby]

Are those bone conduction headphones behind the coffee cup?

[@TroyKing777]

Yes, my wife has some, and she hears better through them than regular headphones somehow. I think the ones in the video are the Trekz Air.

[@caidengarcia175]

As many of you have probably noted, there is now a color e-ink device that is on the market today, the two that I know of are called the Hisense A5C, and Pro version of the same model called Pro CC. The "refresh rates" of the two models in the second half of Q2 2020 are what I would consider to be quite similar to that of a new smart phone from circa 2015, which doesn't sound very exciting nor fast, but it is faithful progress towards a faster processing power in e-ink screens, especially that of a colored e-ink screen, where it is required that more pigment is to be controlled within each refresh of a capsule on the screen. I have recently purchased the lesser, and thus older, model of the Hisense line called "A5" as where the later phone models derive their name. My phone is certainly my new main phone as an update of the OS, called Vision which I assume is an accompanying software to the Android, has quite recently been offered a new update, in which four modes, initially exclusively available for the "Pro CC" model, allow for a clear and quite beautiful appearance, or a fast mode in which offers the quick speeds I had mentioned earlier, and two modes in between that decrease the "ghosting" effect the is synonymous of e-ink devices today. I personally always have my apps on the "Fast" mode due to its incredible speeds, this is coming from a former iPhone 8 plus owner albeit it is not nearly as fast. Anyway there is good progress that is being made already with e-ink devices, tablets/e-readers and smart/mobile phones alike.

[@caidengarcia175]

The "iReader C6" is yet another colored e-ink device, although it is a tablet rather than a smart phone.

[@cardboardsnail]

A day with a new Technology Connections video is a good day (:

[@ptonpc]

If it was just a display, it might be useful. But my word, that thing runs like a bag of bolts. It's worse than useless for what I would need.

[@yodrewyt]

Dasun Paperlike seems to get it right. They focused on low latency so it truly works as a desktop monitor. The issue for tablets was power consumption. As a device designed to be plugged in all the time, Dasun did not have this design constraint.

[@MasticinaAkicta]

Bigger e-ink screens also usually don't give 300 dpi. A small bugbear but still shows the limitations. Yes around 8" is the optimum for e-ink even now.

[@altpersonas]

Hey we have exactly the same Bluetooth keyboard!

[@tyttuut]

What is it? I have a similar keyboard. Inland, maybe?

[@blankpage9277]

@@tyttuut someone else said it was from Walmart. So maybe?

[@tyleralberico9340]

The Tyttuutface Anker Bluetooth Ultra-Slim Keyboard for iPad Air 2 / Air, iPad Pro, iPad mini 4 / 3 / 2 / 1, iPad 4 / 3 / 2, New iPad 9.7"(2017), Galaxy Tabs and Other Mobile Devices (Black) www.amazon.com/dp/B0096M8VR2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_dzi9CbCJ0YZMF

[@ELECTROHAXZ]

In Android settings, you can turn on hardware keyboard option that will disable the on screen keyboard if a hardware keyboard is connected, so that should be there unless they removed the setting. I'd also suggest trying Via browser since it is faster on mobile than Firefox, the Firefox app isn't all that optimized on mobile, Via works better.

[@seanclark8452]

Intelligent refresh mode: Track pace of requested updates and switch to fast mode until the rate drops, then do a final slow update to clear ghosting. You'd scroll and it'd switch to fast mode, then clear ghosting when you stopped. You could detect the need for speed mode in 100ms or less so it'd be nearly transparent. Why doesn't it have something like that? Lots of the manual adjusting he's doing wouldn't be needed anymore, even without any hardware improvement.

[@Pici3k]

A tip people usually don't know: To create a new: - document: visit doc.new / docs.new - sheet: visit sheet.new / sheets.new - presentation: visit presentation.new / slides.new / slide.new - form: visit forms.new / form.new unfortunately haven't found an address for Google Drawings :(

[@SteelSkin667]

I hope that one day E Ink gets some more competition in the paper-like display market and things get moving a bit more. Alternative technologies exist, yet for some reason are rarely seen in consumer products.

[@SecretHat]

I really want something like this to work. I love e-ink and want a device that has color, a frictional surface to be as close to pencil and paper as possible, note taking/drawing, something that can make it so I don't need to buy physical notebooks and paper that end up cluttering my house.

[@Jdbye]

With that stylus, this would be great for making grayscale drawings on, which actually gives it a good reason to be running Android.

[@bubnikv]

The reason for an e-ink display for me has a lot to do with low reflections from the plain touch only matte surface, and low weight. As somebody pointed out, light is a light independent from whether it is reflected or emitted. But to fight the reflections you have to emit a lot of light. This is a reason why I am fine with non touch laptop screens, but why I hate tablets with glossy touch surfaces. Phones are not that bad because it is much easier to avoid disturbing reflections by tilting the screen a bit, while there will always be some disturbing reflection on a large screen no matter how much you wiggle it.

[@samharms4351]

That is significantly less lag than I would have expected from an e-ink device. I just ordered one of these, specifically for word processing, because I have a hard time organizing my thoughts while staring directly into a lightbulb, lol. This little bit of lag seems like a small price to pay for being able to think clearly again.

[@rh9909]

I know I'm like almost 3 years late, but I have a theory on the popping keyboard: you see, in many language that is not English, such as Chinese, one entry (e.g. dazi) could lead to multiple actual words (打字or鞑子or大字, and so many more), and the meaning of those words could be (and usually is!) colossally different. So, there must be something popping up (the IME, in this case), showing you all the candidates, and you use those cursor to navigate between them. I know they could have came up with better solutions (like, only showing those candidates instead of bringing up the whole keyboard), but that's my hypothesis.

[@Pr0jectFM]

Finally. Since your first video, I bought a Nook, rooted it, and read a 700 page book about David Bowie on it (Ashes to Ashes by Chris O'Leary).

[@tj_2701]

Why a Nook? Should of gotten a Kindle. 😁

[@RandomNullpointer]

I'm happening to watch this in 2022... I believe the reason why typing is lagging is not because of a screen delay not a bluetooth thing. It is mostly because you're typing in a large document in a webbrowser, and the slowness is coming from the weak CPU first of all which is working hard to reformat the document with every letter typed.

[@chubbyadler3276]

Although I would like to see more adoption of eInk-like displays and other transflective displays, especially in mobile devices that we interact with the most, I really don't see them taking off outside of certain niche applications, mostly being passive signage and e-readers. I think most people will continue to remember transflective displays for the fuzzy, pale GBA-SP display. There's also the issue of eInk being known for being grayscale, when they do have a color model available. Although I myself would be fine watching KZbin on a portable device with an eInk display at around 7-10 fps, most, if not all others would absolutely insist on color, and would not touch grayscale. I would also love to see RGB lighting on the frontlit displays (Kindle Paperwhite, Nook Glowlight, etc) as well.

[@Dixavd]

Pressing keys on the physical bluetooth keyboard not causing the on-screen keyboard to disappear seems like an accessibility choice. It allows someone access to a full keyboard with just 4 buttons and no positional movement. Lots of bluetooth accessibility devices have a few huge buttons but are read as "keyboard and input devices" by computers to capitalise on this.

[@magfal]

External keyboard helper is a great app if you are uaing external keyboards over USB OTG or Bluetooth.

[@MichaelPhillipsatGreyOwlStudio]

I'm catching up with this video a year later. I'm glad you made this because I've been seriously considering getting an e-ink monitor of some kind to combat eyestrain. I'm a writer, so I need something that not only won't cause eyestrain but will be usable in all lighting conditions. I did order a Freewrite Traveler but, a year later, it has yet to arrive and has a tiny screen. I'm not sure how much it will help in that regard. Formatting in the software they provide might be tricky. I guess it could be used for creating raw text, and then editing could take place in Word on a laptop. I'm definitely with you though-we really need some common use form of this technology in an external monitor.

[@byolock6244]

I understand your arguments for E-Ink for productivity, but I doubt that there are many people who would be able to work with it's downsides. Im working at an IT department where our employees are working on a remote session. The technology behind that is quite simple, there is an encoder on the virtual pc which is the remote session. It does encode the displays picture into a standard h264 video stream and sends this to the client which when decodes it. Encoding, sending and decoding takes some time but in perfect conditions you get around 30fps & under 50ms latency while working from home. In not so great conditions like a weak wifi link some employees experienced at worst about 16fps and up to 200ms latency. That should still be much better than your e-ink experience. However we constantly get complains about the remote session being slow or inputs laggy (sometimes with the urge to do something about that immediately because it is "impossible" to work like that) . Work for them is pretty much what you try / tried to do on that E-Ink : research and writing. Multiple times we needed to invest countless hours to optimize someones connection because typing in their word document, it would be missing about one word if they looked up while typing. Of course that is just a small amount of people that I know how they react to not immediately refreshed displays, but at least these would never work on an e-ink.

[@Lesesmo]

If it was just android... can’t you install other keyboards?

[@dragons_advocate]

Probably, the settings showed already 3 different ones installed. 1:31

[@Vynncent]

I'm fairly certain that most of the comments about the on-screen keyboard showing up don't take into account that Android has an option buried in the settings for this. As far as I know, it's been an option since Android version 4.0.3, in the 'Language and Input' settings, click the option for 'Physical Keyboard'. In there, turn the toggle for 'Show on-screen keyboard' off, and then you're done! No reason to install a null keyboard or do anything special, it will function as expected. What the option does, is when a keyboard, plugged in over OTG or connected over bluetooth, it just doesn't show the OSK. On many devices (well all of the ones I have), it is enabled by default, and I have a fairly large sample size of 10-15 Android phones and a tablet.

[@MissFoxification]

I'd like a simple eink screen that is compatible with DLNA/Miracast/etc so I can just toss a document over to it. I'd clip it to the side of one of my screens. It could also be something that is implemented as part of an LCD, kind of a two in one. As for your experience on it in Firefox I suggest getting the "user agent switcher" and selecting a mobile device so the pages you are served are simpler and designed for limited or constrained devices.

[@luigimaster111]

To get a distraction free writing environment on a laptop, what I did is I installed Ubuntu and stripped everything down to the bare minimum to the point where it lets me write documents, sync those documents to Dropbox, and only barely allows me to browse the web for research purposes. I'm easily distracted so all this effort barely works for me.

[@destrierofdark_]

If you want to get past the home button annoyance, use a launcher. I would also *greatly* suggest multiwindow.

[@veggiet2009]

Any updates after 2 years? I'd say another thing holding it back might be marketing, I bet it would find a market if it were sold and hyped for it's easy on the eyes nature.

[@limaofarofa]

Looks a lot like a big sized PDA setup, optimal to get stuff done. BlackBerry and WebOS had great multitasking - and both could've benefited greatly if Progressive Web Apps were a thing back then - but I feel like the current paradigm really pushes me to look for either battery saver restrictions or something like parental lock and vendor mode in order to get a more restrained use from a phone or tablet. Maybe there could be a Thoreau tablet with E-Ink display and less mortifications getting in the way, if one can dream of such device.

[@imacg5658]

The display has a grid of electrodes that provide power to the pen and the pen sends location and sensor info to the device. Like a galaxy note.

[@StephenHind]

I know that the screen refresh rate is horrendously slow due to the technology, but why is the tablet so slow in general? Can you connect a wired keyboard? It may stop the on screen keyboard from popping up so much. Web UI for Google Docs is several light years ahead of the Android app. With the new offline mode for Google Drive and Google Docs makes the Android app almost pointless and with Microsoft Office editing in Google Docs on the web is a fantastic update. Have you tried going to drive.google.com instead of Docs?

[@lauram5905]

The weird thing is, it's possible to overdrive an e-ink display to be able to refresh up to about 7hz with it being a bit uglier in terms of the updated regions being a little scrambled between off and on(Ben Krasnow did a video on it). There's so many ways they could have made this better. Especially if you want to boast a Wacom digitiser assembly.

[@AVeryCleverAndUniqueUsername]

Once e ink displays get better refresh rates and come down in price, i can see them being used on all sorts of things, but currently there isn't the investment into the technology which is quite sad really

[@crytocc]

Dunno, this seems like a problem of this particular e-reader. For partial screen updates, I've seen *far* better refresh rates than this, on both my Kobo Glo and my Pocketbook Touch HD. Even the scrolling experience in the browser is better on the latter! The Kobo Glo at one point even had almost perfectly responsive scrolling in the browser, but they nerfed that in an update for some reason. Bottom line: nowadays, refresh rates seem almost entirely down to the firmware, not to the panel being used. (I do agree that there's a lack of investment into the technology, but that's probably because E-Ink (the company) is sitting on a patent and preventing competition or innovation on the tech.)

[@mbirth]

Won't happen. There are just too many people who insist on having 16.7 colours on their wrist watches, because they might want to watch photos and videos on it. Same with phones and other devices. And manufacturers don't take any risks anymore.

[@Studio23Media]

It's too late though. Portable LCDs are cheap enough at this point and everyone already has a smartphone in their pocket. There's just no market for this.

[@jimstanley_49]

@@crytocc Those are both 6" devices. Processing requirements increase with increased screen size, and with the price of the display and the Wacom interface, you'd be complaining about the ridiculous price if it refreshed like an LCD.

[@bubnikv]

The E-ink display is capable of 8 frames per second in A2 mode. The problem is, that to fully utilize the e-ink display capabilities, the operating system would have to be designed for e-ink from bottom up. Companies as Onyx Boox or Boyue are doing a great job IMHO bending the Android system to einks. Also there is a problem with Google Play services, where the manufacturer needs to acquire an approval from Google. As the e-ink makes the user experience so much different from a conventional display, and the Android is so heavily hacked for the e-ink, they are not going to get an approval from google.

[@SyphistPrime]

Once you discover how awesome those battery packs are you'll use them all the time. I basically have one for just my phone because I get better position versatility with it. I'm no longer tethered to a power outlet and I love the freedom.

Reinkstone R1 (on Kickstarter now, i.e. July 2021) uses DES Slurry color e-ink display instead of E-Ink (the company) display. I don't know how much they have saved on using it, if any, because they use generic EMR layer instead of licensed WACOM one, from what I have heard.

[@SiriusXification]

Be sure to try a self-emissive display like OLED as well. with LCD the backlight is too aggressive, especially IPS. OLED doesn't do backlighting and is becoming more accessible with every year so it might make sense to give it a go ( Say, with a a 6th Gen Lenovo X1 Yoga 2016 + OLED display)

[@lpx819]

i would kinda love to see how this thing works with apps like termux ( or connectbot & juicessh) for terminal applications and server maintenance

[@GreatJoe]

I love messing with devices that aren't quite there, so I got the Note2, and there's a couple notable improvements. It's running Android 9, and they added an app that's just a weird orb that hovers over every other app. If you tap the orb it'll pop up 5 buttons, which make it so that you don't have to go to the drawer every time you wanna switch apps. There's actually more issues with having your own physical keyboard, until you switch from the default one, since the default keyboard includes some manner of Roman to Chinese conversion thingo that can override even just trying to type the URL into Firefox. There's a few more display modes, but the one that strikes me is the X Mode, which makes typing almost instantaneous, and videos play at 10-20 FPS.

[@petersage5157]

Your coffee mug tells me you are an NPR supporter. I like that. Looks like Lenovo has recently (early 2023) released a laptop with an e-Ink + OLED display; you might want to check that out if you're still interested in revisiting this idea.

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

12:08 "Why is this a thing" I guess that is intended for people using a bluetooth controller with cursor buttons. I have a little blue tooth remote with 4 buttons and a kinda joystick which can operate in controller, mouse or keyboard mode. So I'm thinking it's for supporting typing with a device like that?

[@bean_bttf3]

I believe you can set Firefox to set pages to Desktop View by default

[@dragons_advocate]

Something that I would really like to have is an E-Ink panel on the side of my monitor, where I can mirror/move over certain application windows for reading, but still be able to control them from the LCD for responsiveness.

[@antiedman]

better yet one for the couch so one could use it with a tv sized screen....

[@yeoman588]

I'd definitely be interested in buying an e-ink monitor for general use. Eyestrain is a problem for me as well, but never from my Kindle.

[@OwenJennings]

I have one for its intended purpose, reading, and it is a godsend for eye strain. Now that so much academic reading takes place with PDFs these large eink devices should really be standard issue among students. It's great for note taking and reading. I also wish academic libraries had banks of them on their tables for the same reason.

[@UpLateGeek]

I spend probably at least 80% of my work day staring at text on a screen, and I regularly get pretty bad eye strain, almost every day. It's gotten to the point where I have to regularly just close my eyes for a minute and relax the muscles. I dread to think what this is doing for my vision in the future. If I could buy a 24" e-ink display, and that solved my eye strain, that would be amazing! I would pay a ridiculous premium out of my own pocket if I could. But I think my employer would definitely be willing to get an e-ink screen for anyone that needed one, and I think a lot of other businesses would too.

[@PileOfEmptyTapes]

Before you go all out, I would look for a monitor that's known to be free from PWM flicker and can be freely adjusted, with a color temperature rather on the warmer side of 6500 K (~5500 K), adjust its brightness down to a sensible value (usually 35-50%-ish depending on ambient light levels), and use a text size that you can _comfortably_ read like this. Tiny text + blazing brightness = _Not Good._ Actually, the cheap Acer CB241H I'm using at one of my workplaces would qualify. It's just a basic FHD TN(+film) panel job (should be

[@prateekpoddar1890]

The optimistic part of me wants to believe that eventually someone will create a new kind of display that marries the best of both e-ink and current video-grade display.

[@trueriver1950]

It's the magic of having a thin screen with two sides....

[@Krahazik]

If I were to build something like that, I'd try to make the software side work smoother and market to business, large and small. Not only good for writers, but pretty much any environment where your dealing with paperwork. Regulations, manuals, forms, schematics, drawings (B&W types, architectural, engineering), spreadsheets, etc.

[@WubFuz]

I just happened on these videos and I am a HUGE fan of E-ink and despite all your warning about this I WANT IT SO BAD!

[@awesomeferret]

For the companies that "really matter", I assume that eink holdings has some fair prices. After all, Kindles and Nooks have been around for a long time, and the most popular ones always cost less than 100 dollars. I know Amazon doesn't sell Kindles at a profit, but that's still way less than 300 dollars per display, even for the better paperwhites.

[@AnesuC]

The arrow thing on the keyboard might have been intended for controllers. It could actually be an Android thing where the idea is it can be on a TV and you are using a controller to navigate and in which case this would be useful. I would think that there is an option to make the keyboard not show when a physical one is connected though

[@MichaelSacchi]

I'd like to see a terminal app (a shell) running on it. But yeah, we need better software.

[@qbradq]

I believe in your mission 😀 I would love an eink display to code on. Eye strain is awful.

[@Danny.._]

re wacom pronunciation: it's a japanese company and the way it's pronounced in japanese is wah-ko-moo (all syllables equally stressed, equal length) the english wikipedia page lists the IPA pronunciation as /ˈwɑːkəm/ that would be pronounced "WOK 'em," with the stress on the first syllable

[@TheGrooseIsLoose]

Danny I prefer to ignore the correct spelling and pronounce it as “Whack ‘em” because it sounds funny.

[@0xc0ffea]

Ive been wanting a good monochrome screen for years. from my experience it doesnt even need to be eInk (although for natural light I do prefer that). Straight up mono LCD with the old palm warm backlight would scratch the itch too

[@GhostGlitch.]

You could just turn on monochrome accessibility settings

[@ailijic]

Please review using the tablet as a second display or main computer display. This is the main reason I am thinking of buying it. I get really bad eye strain from programming all day. I already wear glasses which helps but I am always looking for something to improve the situation.

[@bubnikv]

The huge reason for the e-ink not becoming mainstream is not just the low refresh rate, but also a low contrast, around 15:1, and only gray scale. Most of the Android apps are hardly usable on such a screen, you often need to substitute big fonts for low contrast. Remoting to a PC produces often so tiny fonts with so low contrast, that it is not usable.