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Old 01-21-2017, 10:53 AM   #1
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Photochromic Kindle

This is an idea development thread, not a pre-packaged solution (no pun intended).

Consider:
This forum has had, and still has, posts by people who want changes to the Kindle's frontlight system to address various vision problems.

Also, user selected fonts (also a subject of visibility) is among our most widely used add-ins.

- - - - - -

It is the blue end of the spectrum, including Ultra-Violet, that is the most often cause of the problem.

To make a difficult vision situation worse, the front light system of the Kindles use a blue-white, LED, light source.
There have been posts here about changing the front light LEDs to ones operating at the red end of the spectrum.
At least I have usually answered that would be too technically difficult to be even worth trying.

But what if we tinted the outside of the front light layer of the display?
With a minimum of web searching, I find that the coating and/or dye materials are not hard to find.
For example:
http://www.phantomresearch.com/
Available in DIY quantities - at least if you consider 100 sunglass lens treatments: "DIY quantities".

Let me first address what seems to be a simple solution - wear specially treated eye protection when using a Kindle.

Consider first the light path(s) - an example of this can be easily seen from the "outside" of a person wearing sunglasses or from the outside of a tinted window.

The 'outside' light (to be reflected) travels through the coating, with selected losses -
That light is reflected (in varying amounts, all with losses) by the object to be viewed -
Then the light has to travel back through the coating, again with losses created by the tint of the dye or coating.
End result - you can't "see in" - either from the outside of sunglasses or the outside of the tinted window.

But that would be just great, when using the Kindle in unfavorable (to this user) conditions.

Now consider the front light, light path -

The light source is effectively the **inside** surface of the micro-etched front light display layer -
I.E: no 'first trip' through the outside surface of the front light display layer.
The light is reflected by the display (with varying losses) -
The light passes through the outside tint of the display, with losses.
I.E: This coating or dye would be selected to remove the UV and some amount of the blue from the LED sources.

Summary:
The troublesome part of the outside light (which is not easily controlled by the user - the Kindle does not have a button to adjust the sun) is reduced (about) twice.
The troublesome part of the 'inside' light is reduced once - the user can control this part of the light with the light level control of the front lighted Kindles and with the contrast range of the display itself.

With protective eye wear, all light has to pass through the filtering regardless of the source.

Properly selected 'filter' color - then we are affecting only the troublesome part of the spectrum to selective reduction.

But where am I going with this? One more consideration -

Why not use a UV sensitive, photochromic coating/dye?
(Photochromic - the technical term for what is widely known in the USA as "transitions lens (coating)" - a trademarked name.)

Now those products are not as easy to find, but for one (important) example:
http://www.qcrsolutions.com/Site/Pho...ions_Corp.html

Important when you consider how we are going to apply the coating to the Kindle display front light layer.

The first linked (non-photochromic) are heat cured.
This means somehow removing the front light layer from the display so that the heat applied during the process does not destroy the e-ink panel.

The careful reader will find that the photochromic dyes/coatings linked in the second example are available as UV (rather than heat) cure products.

Where the 'bath applied', 'heat cured', products give us the problem of how to protect the "inside" of the micro-etched layer during the application -
A UV cured product applied only to the outside (spray? spin coat?) could be cured 'in place' on the display assembly.

Which gives us a self-adjusting, blue/uv reduced, reflective display.
I.E: A good solution to the visibility problems of the Kindle display, not just for the vision handicapped but for everyone.

Comments and results from people with web-search time on their hands, etc.
web-search because there is probably a lot more information out there that could be included in this "thought project".

Last edited by knc1; 01-21-2017 at 11:08 AM.
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Old 01-22-2017, 12:22 AM   #2
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My last kindle's frontlight seems a bit yellow, it's said on the Internet that kinds of frontlight can protect our eyes and prevent the harmness of blue end of the spectrum. But I thought it feels like reading ancient books when I turn on the frontlight. So I changed for another one with a whiter light.

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Old 01-22-2017, 12:35 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Samuel View Post
My last kindle's frontlight seems a bit yellow, it's said on the Internet that kinds of frontlight can protect our eyes and prevent the harmness of blue end of the spectrum. But I thought it feels like reading ancient books when I turn on the frontlight.
I have seen similar comments here.

And a few of my Kindles do have a brownish yellow tint to the display. Similar to your description.

What I don't recall is if any of the people wanting to improve the Kindle's readability had one of these off-color displays.
It might be worth asking next time someone brings up the subject.
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Old 01-22-2017, 08:48 AM   #4
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I had some more time to do web-searchs;

For eye ware, in the USA, the most common brandname for Photochromic coated lens is: "Transitions (lens, lenses)".
The optical store where you purchased your "Transitions" coated glasses may have charged you 170.00USD for that optional coating.

Now the interesting news:
The actual cost of the dye used was less than $0.02, the other $169.98 of the price was profit for somebody.

Well, $169.98 - the cost of a skilled technician doing the processing.
"Skilled technician" :: If you can boil a pan of water, you are one of those "Skilled technicians".

Manufacturing tidbit:
The wholesale cost of an item is normally (materials cost) * 10.
The retail cost of an item is normally (wholesale cost) * 10.
Here we have a (materials cost) * 9,000

Now the bad news:
Since at this point in the thread I am still thinking that we can not put the e-ink display into a pan of boiling water ....
The dye (or coating) type to use is UV cured, Photochromatic.

UV cured, Photochromatic materials are relatively new ( less than ten years old) and are still covered by a hopelessly entangled mass of patents.

Note (in general):
You can not patent an idea.
You can patent an implementation of an idea.
The few of the patents I have read so far are very cleverly written to try to pass off the "idea part" as the "implementation part".

Example:
You can not patent: acetylsalicylic acid
But you can patent a little white tablet form of acetylsalicylic acid and call it: Aspirin

The lawyers that are writing these Photochromic dye patents are trying their best to drag all of organic chemistry into the patent exceptions enjoyed by drugs.

Our silent lurker, Jane Tizzy, provided assistance with the chemistry in this post.

Last edited by knc1; 01-22-2017 at 09:42 AM.
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Old 01-23-2017, 06:13 AM   #5
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Is there any possibility to change the KPW's frontlight?
And what's the specs of the frontlight?
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Old 01-23-2017, 07:44 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Samuel View Post
Is there any possibility to change the KPW's frontlight?
And what's the specs of the frontlight?
Change to what?
Give me an idea of what you want accomplished.

The specs. specific to what Amazon uses are unknown.
But I suspect they are using a standard part, not a specially grown LED.
Also, they are an edge emitting SMT package, fewer to choose from in that combination.
So I am assuming that information from what is generally available (plus similar in appearance to the eye) will be easy to look up.
I haven't (yet) looked them up.

Now the dyes, I am a little bit further along in looking things up.
What I have found so far seems to fall into two general groups:
Ones with a cut-off of 300nm and ones with a cut-off of 400nm.
That is, they block light of shorter (bluer) wavelength than the cut-off value.
Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color#Spectral_colors

If you look at the selection of tints available in an optical store, you will notice they also seem to fall into two groups: shades of brown and shades of gray.
I suspect that is not a coincidence.

For both reasons given as a non-answer to your question, it will take a bit of hands-on experimenting to determine what "works".

Too that end, I have ordered some sheets of plastic that represent my best guess at what Amazon is making that front light layer from.
Without their second surface micro-etch of course. That seems to be an Amazon (patented) exclusive.
But we only want to alter the first surface, so this material should be 'close enough'.

It will have to be a matter of trial and error (only guided by numbers) because of the human involved, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion

Last edited by knc1; 01-23-2017 at 07:55 AM.
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Old 01-23-2017, 11:37 PM   #7
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Change to what?
Give me an idea of what you want accomplished.
If I feel the color of the frontlight is not suitable for reading, I hope to change the frontlight for a whiter one/change for cool-toned frontlights.

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Old 01-24-2017, 08:41 AM   #8
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If I feel the color of the frontlight is not suitable for reading, I hope to change the frontlight for a whiter one/change for cool-toned frontlights.
I don't think that would be possible, the ones on the device are as blue as blue-white LEDs can be.

The above is from eyeball comparison with LEDs of known characteristics.
I do not have the equipment to measure their light output curve.

Of course, some LED grower might introduce what you want tomorrow and I have not dug into current manufacturer's catalogs.

"cool-white" is actually more red and less blue or filtered "blue-white".
Filtered blue-white is what I am trying for without hardware modification of the motherboard.
Changing those LEDs requires SMT re-work equipment and a lot of special skills.
Probably not a widely popular modification.
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Old 01-24-2017, 02:11 PM   #9
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I don't think that would be possible, the ones on the device are as blue as blue-white LEDs can be.

The above is from eyeball comparison with LEDs of known characteristics.
I do not have the equipment to measure their light output curve.

Of course, some LED grower might introduce what you want tomorrow and I have not dug into current manufacturer's catalogs.

"cool-white" is actually more red and less blue or filtered "blue-white".
Filtered blue-white is what I am trying for without hardware modification of the motherboard.
Changing those LEDs requires SMT re-work equipment and a lot of special skills.
Probably not a widely popular modification.
That's great for people who hates the color of frontlight if you do it successfully.
Formerly we just ask the Amazon's customer service to change a new device if we dislike the color of frontlight.

Besides, the fonts hack is useful for us. I posted the feedback to amazon for an advice of adding more fonts for Chinese books, but it's not accepted. So I installed the font hack and modified the /var/local/system/font.properties file to add the Chinese fonts in the Aa menu to 11 fonts.
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Old 01-25-2017, 11:06 AM   #10
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It seems that the refurbished kindle is more warm-colored than the brand-new one.
If we use the dye, does it reduce the brightness of the frontlight ?
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Old 01-25-2017, 11:28 AM   #11
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Yes, but less than 1/2 of what it does to outside light.
I expect that the front light control setting will dominate over outside light.

And again, keep in mind that its major effect will be in the violet to ultra-violet range.
That range that provides the least useful information to sight.

Yes - I have done simple experiments with "sunglasses" on my eyes.
But that effects both the outside light and the front light equally.
What I want to try is to put the "sunglasses" on the Kindle.

Literally -
First I will try a tinted "screen protector".
If that works, it would be great, simple to install (and remove) by the Kindle user.
Also a heck of a lot easier to make than tinting the actual assembled display.

= = = = =

It seems that if I include the question:
"Are your dyes made under license of the various patent holders?"
with my queries to off-shore suppliers, the e-mail falls into a black hole.
100% non-response.
Somehow I am not surprised.
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Old 01-25-2017, 12:00 PM   #12
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Screen protector is a good choice if it can filter the violet and ultra violet range of outside light.

Before I use kindle, I use an MP3 player as my e-reader. I modified the background color to light yellow. I think that color is most suitable for reading especially reading at night.
However , someone on the Internet says that the screen protector has bad influence on the kindle's reading experience .
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Old 01-25-2017, 09:28 PM   #13
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I considered doing a cheap factory run of a Kindle amber screen protector film a while back. Figured I could easily sell a few thousand on Amazon.

Realized that best case it'd be cloned almost instantly as it's a super easy thing to produce. Probably not worth the effort.

But yeah, I'd pay $10-15 for a three pack of these.
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Old 01-26-2017, 08:30 AM   #14
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Quote:
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- - - - -
However , someone on the Internet says that the screen protector has bad influence on the kindle's reading experience .
The very few I read all where complaining about reflectance from the top surface.

An anti-reflective coating probably wasn't added.

I have just been assuming it would be a 'standard' feature.
It might add a whole $0.015 to the cost of materials.
Which is why I haven't mentioned it.

The example plastic sheets I have on order already have UV blocking incorporated into both surfaces.
It is possible that with only the anti-reflective coating added it will not need any other treatment.

= = = = =

I think that high production runs of these screen protector things for other devices are die-cut. The ones I purchased for a cell 'phone last year did not even have the edges de-burred.
A thousand of them would probably not pay for the die.

But there are other ways to cut plastic to an exact size.

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Old 01-30-2017, 10:00 AM   #15
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Quote:
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Screen protector is a good choice if it can filter the violet and ultra violet range of outside light.
- - - - -
I located two (same manufacturer) that are described as:
Quote:
UV and blue light protection for individuals with albanic eye syndrome, corneal dystrophy, diabetic retinopathy and early cataract formation. Tints to a warm amber color and absorbs up to 530nm.
Quote:
UV and blue light protection used to help individuals with Glaucoma, macular degeneration, retinitis, pigmentosa and photophobia. Tints to red color and absorbs up to 550nm.
Notes:
  • It is not photochromic, it is a fixed density product.
  • Made in USA by a reputable company of long standing.
    One can assume that they have dealt with any licensing requirements of their product compounding.
  • Available in reasonable quantities (less than a railcar tanker load).
  • At a reasonable price, hardly more than 4x or 5x the price of the off-shore, "mystery dyes".
  • Can be applied to polycarbonate (which is the plastic I ordered).
  • No on-line ordering, I will have to put on my business owner hat and give the sales department a call.

Going by the technical specs and the absorption graph, it looks like only a very light tint of this stuff will do the job intended.

Last edited by knc1; 01-30-2017 at 10:10 AM.
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