Crowdfunding: E-ink dev board & SDK with screens up to 9.7"

KevinShort · 10-05-2013, 08:07 PM

The same group of people who started the campaign to fund an E-ink Monitor / Ebook Reader have come up with another idea: an E-ink-compatible board just for developers.

The new Indiegogo campaign has been set up so that you can pick from a variety of displays. There's the standard 6" display with or without capacitive touch and/or a frontlight, and they also have grayscale 9.7" and color 8" E-ink displays. If you don't care about electronic paper, you can also choose a 7" LCD with touch.

The board itself has a 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU, 512MB of DDR3 RAM, 4GB flash memory, Wi-Fi, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a speaker, USB host and OTG support, and HDMI output.

Now, I do quite a bit of tinkering with my Kobo devices, and I'm quite happy with how hackable they are. But If I had the extra cash I'd seriously consider getting myself one or two of these dev boards

Lbooker · 10-07-2013, 05:29 AM

Their first project did not make much sense because no large screen with front light is available. Who would like to use a small vertically positioned E-ink screen next to a large and bright regular desktop monitor ? Indoors, placed vertically and without front light, an E-ink screen is much grayer than the front lit readers people have been using for a year, and really dark and unpleasant to read next to a bright monitor.
Their new project lacks the software side. We know the difference between a buggy e-reader and a bug-free pleasant reading experience. It might become interesting later if some programmers develop the software side real well.

pdurrant · 10-07-2013, 06:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lbooker

Their new project lacks the software side. We know the difference between a buggy e-reader and a bug-free pleasant reading experience. It might become interesting later if some programmers develop the software side real well.

This project is not for end users. It is specifically for people interested in doing interesting things in software on an eInk device. It certainly shouldn't be considered an e-reader.

Jessica Lares · 10-07-2013, 08:02 AM

Home automation.

moz · 10-14-2013, 05:36 PM

Having recently got my mini-eink displays (via kickstarter) this seems kind of interesting. But since I mostly want a big e-ink display for books I do wonder how useful it would actually be. Their dev board is wildly overpowered for static content, so I'd be looking at replacing it with a circuit board I'd have to design and build myself. But then, $150 for a 9.7" e-ink display is pretty reasonable. But that's quite a lot of work... so hard to decide.

szobt · 10-18-2013, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moz

Having recently got my mini-eink displays (via kickstarter) this seems kind of interesting. But since I mostly want a big e-ink display for books I do wonder how useful it would actually be. Their dev board is wildly overpowered for static content, so I'd be looking at replacing it with a circuit board I'd have to design and build myself. But then, $150 for a 9.7" e-ink display is pretty reasonable. But that's quite a lot of work... so hard to decide.

Kindle, Kobo and co all use a Cortex ARM CPU. The dev board there uses a RK2918 Cortex A8 CPU too. Such a CPU is necessary to have a good user experience. Therefore, i do not think it is overpowered.

10-05-2013, 08:07 PM	#1
KevinShort Addict Posts: 348 Karma: 209937 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Virginia, US Device: Kobo Wifi, Kobo Glo	Crowdfunding: E-ink dev board & SDK with screens up to 9.7" The same group of people who started the campaign to fund an E-ink Monitor / Ebook Reader have come up with another idea: an E-ink-compatible board just for developers. The new Indiegogo campaign has been set up so that you can pick from a variety of displays. There's the standard 6" display with or without capacitive touch and/or a frontlight, and they also have grayscale 9.7" and color 8" E-ink displays. If you don't care about electronic paper, you can also choose a 7" LCD with touch. The board itself has a 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU, 512MB of DDR3 RAM, 4GB flash memory, Wi-Fi, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a speaker, USB host and OTG support, and HDMI output. Now, I do quite a bit of tinkering with my Kobo devices, and I'm quite happy with how hackable they are. But If I had the extra cash I'd seriously consider getting myself one or two of these dev boards

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10-07-2013, 05:29 AM	#2
Lbooker Addict Posts: 316 Karma: 1021312 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: Sony PRS-T1	Their first project did not make much sense because no large screen with front light is available. Who would like to use a small vertically positioned E-ink screen next to a large and bright regular desktop monitor ? Indoors, placed vertically and without front light, an E-ink screen is much grayer than the front lit readers people have been using for a year, and really dark and unpleasant to read next to a bright monitor. Their new project lacks the software side. We know the difference between a buggy e-reader and a bug-free pleasant reading experience. It might become interesting later if some programmers develop the software side real well.

10-07-2013, 08:02 AM	#4
Jessica Lares Wizard Posts: 2,240 Karma: 5759170 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Near Dallas, Texas, USA Device: iPad Mini, iPod Touch (5th gen)	Home automation.

10-14-2013, 05:36 PM	#5
moz Addict Posts: 370 Karma: 1553 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Melbun Device: Kobo H2O	Having recently got my mini-eink displays (via kickstarter) this seems kind of interesting. But since I mostly want a big e-ink display for books I do wonder how useful it would actually be. Their dev board is wildly overpowered for static content, so I'd be looking at replacing it with a circuit board I'd have to design and build myself. But then, $150 for a 9.7" e-ink display is pretty reasonable. But that's quite a lot of work... so hard to decide.

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