cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19284817
More and better e-ink, please. It’s just the best at the things it’s good at. Give me a foldable phone with one e-ink screen!
“E Ink” is a company, producing displays with a very specific proprietary technology. I think you mean to say more “e-paper”, which is a generic term for “paper-like” displays. And unfortunately, right now the only real competition is RLCD (reflective LCD), which is arguably not paper-like enough to qualify. Yes, it’s reflective, but other than that, it’s just a higher density Game Boy screen. Which is great and all, but it can’t compete with E Ink in a lot of aspects. It doesn’t have retention, you gotta power the screen, so no signage and stuff. It has LCD-grade bad viewing angles.
RLCDs are cool for certain uses though. For example, I sometimes choose to play on my AGS-001 over my Analogue Pocket if I’m outside in bright daylight.
Which one do you prefer?
And don’t say Pebble, that’s an e-paper (sharp memoryLCD), not an eink. I personally haven’t really encountered any actual eink watches that would seem any good.
The Fossil hybrid watches are pretty awesome. Very sad they are now discontinued.
No idea if it’s any good, but here’s an e-ink watch: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sqfmi/watchy
I know E Ink is a company, but for most of us it’s become a de-facto term referring to the technology, like kleenex, or q-tips.
I have every Pebble model, and used them until the last one’s battery finally gave out. I’ve been using various e-ink (e-paper) readers, from the first Sony to my current Kobo & reMarkable (one for leisure reading, t’other for PDFs and writing). Are those displays different technologies than E Ink’s? Does the display process E Ink uses differ from other e-paper technologies? Are they not all based on polarized, bi-colored balls?
I have nothing against pedantry, but I also think E Ink has lost (or won, depending on how you look at it) the identity game; I suspect the majority of people - if surveyed - would neither realize E Ink is a specific company, nor that the correct generic term is “e-paper.” Everyone I know (with whom the topic comes up) just call it “e-ink,” whether or not it comes from that company. Similarly, I’ve never heard anyone call it “e-paper” IRL.
P.S. I just did a search for “e-paper watches”, and most results call them “e-ink.” Maybe they all use E Ink-brand displays, but I can’t really tell since none seem to capitalize or ™ the term. There’s a bunch of cheap watches on Alibaba which are called “e-ink” watches - are those all really using E Ink brand displays?
I’d love a successor to Pebble which doesn’t require an account. There are a number of options, but my issue is that most require creating an account with vendor, and app integration with - no doubt - copiuos data harvesting and reselling. Many are absurdly expensive.
There are several cheap options on Alibaba.
Goodreader.com lists a number of expensive e-ink watches, some of which look quite nice.
But I’ve got my eye on Watchy (github, old review); it was introduced a couple of years ago and is still being updated. It’s also available from a couple of vendors, including preassembled through Amazon.
I had an Amazfit BIP for a while that had a color e-paper display with a battery that lasted over 30 days. I think they have since gone OLED but one cool thing about it was, while they had their own app with a login, I could alternatively sync it directly with a third party app on Android that was called “Notify And Fitness”. I only mention it because within this particular app the info never left the device. Perhaps there is something similar today, but I have since just given in and gone Garmin.
Tried https://bangle.js? Loving mine so far. Edit: my bad https://banglejs.com/
my eye on Watchy
Have one after the Pebble, let me know if you have questions.
Would that be because of creasing issues, or are there other practical differences?
Seen a noname Aliexpress phone with a normal display on one side and an e-ink one on the other.
Now make that an option on a flagship device (preferably a non-chinese manufacturer) and I would definitely look into it.
If I remember correctly there was also a flagship producer that produced such a phone as a sort of prototype some time ago, no?
