Fresh Hacker News | Modos Color Monitor Pushes E-Paper Displays Further

▲Modos Color Monitor Pushes E-Paper Displays Further(spectrum.ieee.org)

143 points by Vinnl 6 hours ago | 9 comments

▲varun_ch 4 hours ago

There is an awesome YouTube video about this from the person who made it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nHbA2-_qzH4

▲nzach 4 hours ago

This link is way more interesting than the original ieee.

It was submitted to HN 2 times already but unfortunately it flew under the radar: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwa...

▲ckemere 3 hours ago

Upvoted them both. I’m an ECE prof, and the video summed up why working with students is so rewarding.

▲techwizrd 1 hour ago

I found the video on YouTube before the IEEE article. It's a fascinating story.

▲adolph 49 minutes ago

Wow, I'm glad to see that person is getting some more recognition for this work.

A claim in the video that I can't verify but makes economic/logistic sense is that the speed problem isn't the panels but the controllers. The current crop of controllers are optimized for low power, which fits the e-reader use case but that is not optimal for the interactive use case.

▲jackb4040 3 hours ago

Between this, the Daylight computer (I know it's RLCD), and some of the flagship Boox devices, I'm very excited for where alternative display technology is going in the next couple years. Displays that you can use outside and that drain the battery way slower open up so many possibilities for auxiliary devices. My ideal device would be an ultralight android tablet with a keyboard case and an outdoor display good enough to watch youtube on, that needs to be charged less than once per day. Hopefully this product is super successful and Modos move on to standalone devices next.

There are counter trends, like Garmin discontinuing their e-paper smartwatches. But hopefully that has more to do with that market being too narrow for viable alternatives, and not a fundamental issue with the economics of the displays themselves.

▲afandian 3 hours ago

Pebble is back, with MIP reflective LCD. I have one. It's great.

https://repebble.com/

▲abrowne 2 hours ago

Bangle.js 2 (https://banglejs.com/) also has a transflective LCD. It's very fun product with a great community.

Bangle.js 3 is being discussed: https://github.com/orgs/espruino/discussions/7341

▲xnx 4 hours ago

> two-person startup is back fund-raising for Modos Flow, a 13.3-inch color e-paper monitor with a higher native resolution of 3,200 x 2,400, touch input, and a 60Hz refresh rate

Those are some mighty specs. Godspeed.

▲user_7832 3 hours ago

If I had the 600-odd dollars, I'd absolutely buy this. It's a damn shame it's so expensive.

▲unshavedyak 2 hours ago

I'd buy it but i want it in a laptop form or maybe tablet, or something. Being a monitor means the usefulness for me, ie being able to program outside, is kinda moot.

▲throawayonthe 1 hour ago

i think it's a portable 13in monitor, you can plug it into your phone or something if you want

▲unshavedyak 1 hour ago

Yea it's definitely portable, it's just not a friendly formfactor for where my compute sits, where my keyboard sits, etc. If i'm in a chair at the part i'd need a literal lap-top, three components (keyboard, compute, monitor) without a frame connecting them would make that difficult.

▲ 1 hour ago

▲acc_297 3 hours ago

I think the 600 dollar price is more than double the price of the same diplay as a mass-produced product it's a price for enthusiasts of the technology

and it's open source so nothing stops a bigger producer of copying the exact technology with institutional funding and manufacturing expertise

▲dleeftink 2 hours ago

> Don’t make yourself regret the things you didn’t do

Nothing to add, but it bears repeating. A shimmer of indie tech resilience

▲mikeweiss 1 hour ago

This paired with LLMs....Looks like we'll have harry potter magic portraits soon! You could have a conversation with a portrait on your wall....

▲MrPapz 1 hour ago

The Crowd Supply website mentions the high power consumption but it would be great if I could connect it to a smartphone to work on the go!

▲smlacy 38 minutes ago

So this is basically an advertisement for their product?

▲throwwwll 4 hours ago

Price?

▲nzach 4 hours ago

U$ 619 for the black and white model and U$ 719 for the color model

https://www.crowdsupply.com/modos-tech/modos-flow#products

▲good8675309 3 hours ago

Not bad considering this is a niche specialty product and cutting edge. The price will come down if the demand and market grow. Assuming raw hardware costs stop rising

▲imglorp 2 hours ago

Will it? The whole e-ink market seems like it has never priced flexibly.

▲throwwwll 3 hours ago

thumbs down

▲acc_297 3 hours ago

that is almost guaranteed an at-cost production figure for the limited run of kickstarter funded displays there isn't a production line producing these things - watch the youtube video this guy quit his job for over a year to build a passion project into a prototype

▲borg16 3 hours ago

saw the video - that was so much better than this ieee link.

learnt a lot in the process too - kudos to him

▲functionmouse 6 hours ago

Unfortunately the pen is probably USI, making it borderline useless as a pen. This will not be like S-pen or Apple Pencil.

▲varun_ch 4 hours ago

I think this device isn’t so much about a pen. It seems like it could be a really nice typing or coding or reading display. Maybe a future model could improve on the pen

▲WillAdams 3 hours ago

The thing is, to get a pen right, all that they have to do is license Wacom EMR/Samsung's S-Pen (Samsung owns a 40% stake in Wacom, hence using their stylus tech).

Styluses w/ batteries/capacitors were okay once upon a time, but Wacom EMR "just works" and makes my life simpler/nicer (I couldn't count how many styluses I have around my house/in my bags so as to allow me to use my Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360, Galaxy Note 10+, Kindle Scribe Coloursoft, and Wacom One display (attached to a MacBook).

▲hgoel 1 hour ago

As a fellow EMR stylus enjoyer, which one do you prefer the most? The thin one in the phones tends to be too small to use comfortably and the one that comes with the Galaxy Book/tablets is decent (but the Galaxy Book has very inconsistent support for the buttons). The Wacom One stylus used to be my favorite, but lately I've been enjoying using the Kindle Scribe stylus/the fat Staedler stylus (I think they're both very similar in usage experience).

▲WillAdams 38 minutes ago

My favourite stylus is the Staedtler Noris Digital Stylus which stands in for the classic #2 pencil quite nicely.

That said, these days, I mostly use the Premium Pen included w/ my first-gen Kindle Scribe, or a Wacom One stylus (where the Staedtler used to be, prompted by my chipping and cracking the screen on my GB3 and having to apply a screen protector --- the harder tip on the W1 being a better match).

The Staedtler Noris Jumbo is nice, but I wish it had a side switch. The pens bundled w/ my Samsung Galaxy Books (panic-bought a spare when the afore-mentioned screen incident happened) are fine, but I am annoyed that there's no silo (agree w/ Samsung being hobbled by their agreement w/ Wacom being annoying). Don't like the feel of the white Kindle Scribe Coloursoft stylus --- too rubbery.

My backup is a Lamy Safari Wacom EMR which I keep in my travel sling bag --- if I could justify a second, I'd probably EDC it and it would get promoted to favourite.

There are a few others which I've been meaning to try....

▲functionmouse 3 hours ago

EMR patents and design specs expired. It's free. China's tooling simply hasn't caught up, because the output doesn't have to feel or work good, it simply has to look good in a kickstarter. Conjecture: I feel like this is like half the reason styluses as a technology are dying; the other half is the untimely death of the resistive display.

Bring back resistive touch!

▲WillAdams 1 hour ago

Radio frequency/compatibility seems to be a consideration --- also, don't understate the importance of tooling/tolerances even w/ Wacom overseeing things, I've had to return name-brand/licensed styluses which would not work consistently across all of my devices.

▲Palomides 2 hours ago

I think licensing anything from wacom or samsung is a big ask for a two person(?) project that's making a very small run of open source/open hardware devices

▲zipy124 4 hours ago

Although I can't find an authoritative source on it the indications do support that assumption that it is USI. Technically USI doesn't have to be bad, it just appears that quality control on the standard is bad (similarly to how USB cables often don't meet the spec and can cause troubles as a result).

Firmware can be checked here: https://gitlab.com/zephray/enchanter

▲functionmouse 3 hours ago

Sure. But USI is bad unless the OEM goes out of their way to make it good, whereas EMR is good unless the OEM goes out of their way to make it bad. EMR is the better tech, and with patents expired, and numerous other benefits such as no batteries needed in the pen, it should be standard now.

▲alex-a-soto 1 hour ago

The stylus solution is provided by E Ink to us. E Ink made the switch from EMR to USI a few years ago, so most E Ink devices, including the Modos Flow are using USI now.