What do you think about a full e-ink screen phone witch solar panels in the back and weeks of battery life...

What do you think about a full e-ink screen phone witch solar panels in the back and weeks of battery life? Would it be an advancement in the phone industry? Would you buy such a thing? why/why not

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adafruit.com/products/2542
adafruit.com/products/1393
digikey.com/product-detail/en/sharp-microelectronics/LS013B7DH06/425-2905-ND/5300389
adafruit.com/products/2796
vowe.net/archives/015010.html
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

I must add that it would have an extremely fast refresh rate as opposed to the current e-readers in the market such as amazon kindles and kobo's

kys

On who's authority?

Maybe as a backup phone just for basic stuff (like voice calls, sms and email messages, and such), but not as a replacement for a regular smartphone.

Is it because of the lack of a colored screen? Like Steve Jobs used to say I guess.

I would by the shit out of one if it had a slide out keyboard and a wifi hotspot for my other devices.

As long as I can use a terminal and use basic chat and navigation software, of course I would!

Not same user but ya, video would suck even with a fast refresh rate and nice looking web pages would be shit as well, even most apps would be kinda lame, but I think the idea is cool but a little backwards

I could get behind that, but I feel like I would be inclined to get a small full color tablet as well, since you're effectively removing the multimedia function of the phone by making it grayscale.

I'm actually more interested in something like this, a large e-ink tablet Sony made. It's about the same size as an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. Only problem is it's way to expensive for what it is.

Cool idea but it cuts away to much functionality we have grown to need. Would work as a good backup phone

Isn't the low refresh rate one of the main reasons why e-ink displays use so little power?

Yeah, though if it had a variable refresh rate you could get the best of both worlds.

You still have the advantage of no backlight, and while theoretically you could throttle up the refresh rate to make smoother animations, when nothing is happening onscreen you would not be refreshing, whereas you would need to send a signal to a traditional LCD.

These tiny solar panels won't do shit

Especially in your pocket

Hirohito. *hands you katana*

Even without the painful refreshes like ereaders, it would be so much worse than a regular smartphone (remember that everything is made for color displays, so unless apps, websites, videos, etc are purposely made for it, they will look impossibly bad) that the battery advantages won't be enough imo.

It's called a memory display. Sharp makes them. They're basically a normal LCD with SRAM inside of it so the only power needed to maintain the state is the power required to keep the SRAM. The refresh rate is variable. But due to the nature of the displays, the color depth is limited. Most of them are monochrome but one has 3 bit color. The pebble smart watches use this technology and originally used the displays from sharp but now they either make their own custom 6 bit memory displays or contracts sharp to make them and sharp doesn't sell them to anyone else.

TL;DR: it exists

Well, the display exists but it hasn't been put into a phone. If you were dedicated enough you could do it yourself using a 3d printer and parts like these:
adafruit.com/products/2542
adafruit.com/products/1393
and a few more parts. The total cost might be around $100-$150. You could of course use one of these:
digikey.com/product-detail/en/sharp-microelectronics/LS013B7DH06/425-2905-ND/5300389
instead to get color. I've already modified an existing library to get that display working, I just haven't bought a cellular module to turn it into a phone. Maybe if I get the time I will.

I like the dual screen phone idea more

Samefag here. I've thought about doing this before. considering the size of the display and to relieve my physical keyboard autism, I've considered designing it to be similar to one of these. If you wanted it to have a long battery life you obviously would use a really low power microcontroller rather than a powerful arm processor running android. You'd sacrifice it being a "smartphone" but you could program it to do whatever you want.

This is damn cool, I've been reading about memory LCD after getting a pebble time steel and was wondering why I couldn't find anywhere selling the same display. Sharp's website had some stuff but most was indeed b&w.

Post on Sup Forums or /diy/ if you do anything with the memory LCD, I'll be interested to see it.

Not to mention it's much slower than flipping through pages of a real book.

If you're any interested here's a picture I took a while back of me getting the 3 bit, 128x128 display working. I apologize for the shitty image quality. If I wind up making something practical out of this i'll be sure to post it. Unfortunately I'm a poorfag and pretty busy right now so I probably won't get much work done for another month or so

I would get one in a heartbeat but it doesn't work with my country LTE bands.

Why does the eBook meme still exist?

Just make a PDF file of the book that you can scroll through an edit/bookmark.

I can see a solar powered e-ink phone being popular, but I dont see it ever competing with smartphones.

It seems to me like a great idea for a dumb-phone or to improve the run of the mill flip phone. E-ink displays really do use hardly any power, I think it would be feasible running a low performance device (like a dumb phone) with an e-ink display on nothing but solar power for the majority of the year.

I've been solar charging my kindle paperwhite since I got it and it sips power, charges to full in a few hours of direct sunlight with my 19w solar kit, probably all afternoon with a phone sized solar panel. and that battery lasts all week.

I dont think smartphone functionality would be very good, I think you'd have to eliminate most of it completely to keep the power low. I think you'd want to stick with the slower refresh speeds too, for power management.

That's cool, what did you use to drive the display? Yeah man whenever you've gotten something done with it just put it up, its definitely of interest.

How long would that charger take to charge a regular Android device with let's say 3000 mAh battery?

Can you e-ink that is fast enough for video at expense of battery life?

Not currently. Wait for a faster refresh rate e-ink to come out, and maybe.

I'm using this microcontroller to drive the display:
adafruit.com/products/2796
It's one of the few microcontroller boards with enough ram to hold a buffer for the display. If I were to make something more practice, I'd probably use an STM32f3 or something on a custom pcb

This is a video of the display showing the 8 colors available.

Is this LCD hybrid good for the eyes like the normal e-ink screen?

Heh, don't worry kid, I always carry mine.

A smartphone with this kind of display I can see happening.

Well like an e-ink display, these have no backlight so it's very outdoor readable and easy on the eyes indoor. You do need to use a backlight or frontlight if you want to see in the dark, though.

I know, but its not like paper, its still an LCD screen,like the old gameboys. Would this thing be suitable for extensive periods of reading?

>referring to tenno by his birth name

>Would this thing be suitable for extensive periods of reading?
Considering most of them have pretty low resolutions, probably not. The highest resolution one they have is 336 × 536 but I can't find a price on it. The physically largest display is 4.4 inch and costs $71.42 for 1
www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sharp-microelectronics/LS044Q7DH01/425-2910-ND/5054070

That's one cute board, thx for link.
Noice, good stuff you got there user.

I wouldn't buy this but if I got one for free I would use it

I'd rather just have my S7, which I could put on ultra power saving mode for several days of battery life if I really needed to.

>needs an "ultra power saving mode" just to make it more than a day without dying
kek

Bullshit. In normal mode I get 7-8 hours SOT. With mid to low use I could net three days easily, but I don't use my phone like that.

>needs any powersaving mode for more than one day of battery
kek

If PDFs could wrap text depending on how much you scale the fonts (different reading habits, different eyesight, different device size and resolution), then yes, sure, go with PDF.

I would if cameras weren't a thing. Or videos.
Maybe if my laptop was better at that sort of thing so off the cuff, and/or they add back a mirror/rangefinder for that purpose.

It really is a pity, since e-ink is great for everything except a few things.

>implying this can happen

oy wey

there is a huge pro about e-paper or better say transflective screens with optional led illumination in those kind of gadgets.

I'd take it over IPS/OLED anyday because of the powersavings

vowe.net/archives/015010.html

i just wish the pixel density and color saturation was better on my pebble time round

But in the movie he told the truth...

thanks for ruining this movie for me, fuckface

>solar panels on back
Overheats and cooks the insides

If it was a sat phone I might get it. Seems like it could be really useful if you're into exploring wilderness or climbing mountains n shit and you just need a phone that werks and lasts forever. I wouldnt use it as my everyday phone though, I've grown way too accustomed to modern smartphone technology

>because silicon and fibreglass pcb's melt at under 100 degrees

Plastic.png

and please now tell me that there is only 1 type of quality and mixture out of "plastic" which can't sustain this scenario

It would be neat to have when one goes hiking or camping. It would be a full phone but due to the e ink, you could use dataless navigation apps and the like. I don't think all apps would translate well to the slow refresh rate and grayscale context of e ink.

I don't think it would really have weeks of battery life though unless you're not making a lot of calls. If you're constantly using the network then it's still going to run out sooner or later. Even my e-reader doesn't last weeks when I'm actually binge-reading stuff for multiple hours a day. That's mainly for if you use it low to moderate amounts.

When you're collecting that solar power you're also collecting the heat.

Plastic normally melts at around 100c or so. However they lose their strength much earlier and can deform your phone shell. Becuase it's an absorbant the heat also gets trapped inside and causes high temps which might loosen up shitty soldering jobs or plastic wirings.

Yeah it's shit.

Navigation on e-ink would be acceptable for hiking, but sounds like a nightmare if you're in the car. Constantly be missing turns because the screen blanked or didn't update fast enough or something.

Rather than solar why not make it kinetic powered so it charges up as you walk around? Seems like it makes more sense for a cell phone, though obviously the power usage would need to be pretty low to adequately power the device this way.

what if I don't need a colorful phone faggot

what if I only want to use basic stuff you turbo homosex

I can go about my day without having to see pictures.

then it wouldn't be a backup phone, would it? you fucking queer

yea, I thought so.

you and your dumb assumptions

I already get 6 days on my Droid Turbo 2. Why the fuck would I want a piece of shit phone just to get marginally better battery?

because muh reading without eyestrain

Just get an e-reader then. You can get one cheap enough that it doesn't make sense to build one into a (generally significantly more expensive) smartphone and sacrifice other features that people would usually have a smartphone to have.

No because e-ink sucks at reproducing motion picture content. In other words they suck dick at watching youtube.

>eyestrain
U wot m8? I read for 2-3 hours a day on my AMOLED screen and don't have any eyestrain.

When I was carcamping across the US, losing battery in my power sucking phone was my biggest fear, I spent like 300 dollars on solar and crank batteries. So, for hikers, backpackers, campers, etc. I can see this kind of thing being great.

no
eink doesn't have a refresh rate, they only use power to change the image, they dont have to use any power to keep the image. What is slow is it's latency to change all the pixels, not to mention due to ghosting the screen has to be essentially cleared with a quick flash. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be but its by no means great.

We really need to have the mods wordfilter kys, shits becoming normie tier at this point

because i only use a phone to make calls, shit would be awesome.

add in a small email reader and a browser that cut all moving content, and you got a fairly capable news reader.

that said, read this thread, normal people cant use a phone as just a phone.

there is a difference between reading something off paper/e ink that feels better then a lcd/oled

that said, i have add like a motherfucker and cant sit still, if i have an e reader im usually in a real fuckin uncomfortable position, so reading off a monitor feels better long term for that reason, but im a minority there.

Don't believe his lies.

wow

>using ARM M0 for 20$+
>not buying a Cypress PSoC 5lp prototyping board that is much better than that crap and for only 10$

i am disappoint tbhfam

I remember an user who said he dreamed of an ultra low power e ink laptop. He doesn't watch videos or play games so the refresh rate isn't important. A laptop that could last for weeks and be used outside all day sounds good to me. I wonder if Stallman would like that.

There are multiple e ink Android phones senpai

Can you imagine one of those with a cellular card in it so you can ssh into your more powerful machines from anywhere?

Are you sure? There are plenty with dual displays, but dedicated e-ink phones are only limited to prototypes.

Old people would love that shit.
Throw in some loud as fuck speaker and remove anything that isn't texting, phone calls or found on a phone from last century.