e-paper signs

[AlanHK]

A few days ago I saw a bus sign in Sydney that I'm pretty sure used e-paper. Monochrome, it refreshed about once a minute and flashed a negative image when it did. First time I've seen e-paper used except on a ebook tablet.


Looked it up and yes, they are e-paper:
https://www.sixteen-nine.net/2018/07...ey-au-rollout/

The displays use eInk technology developed by the Slovenian firm Visionect and a design by Australia-based Mercury Innovation. You can think of these units as nicely packaged and ruggedized Kindles, in terms of the core concept.
The bus stop signs are run entirely off solar panels, and are IoT-connected using mobile networking or WiFi. The panels are updated in real-time, in part, by GPS tracking information for buses.

[SleepyBob]

How big was that?
I see epaper a lot in clothing stores like Kohls, advertising prices of items, but those are small devices, at most 5", maybe smaller.

[AnotherCat]

Also used quite a lot for shelf labeling (item description, weight, price, per unit cost, special, etc.) in supermarkets and big box type stores, for example, instead of paper labels.

The supermarket we use uses the red and black on white ones (in their case, red used to designate specials). They used to have older ones which were pretty poor and inferior to paper labels to read, but the newer ones are OK.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

Also used quite a lot for shelf labeling (item description, weight, price, per unit cost, special, etc.) in supermarkets.

Haven't seen any of those here.

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

How big was that?
I see epaper a lot in clothing stores like Kohls, advertising prices of items, but those are small devices, at most 5", maybe smaller.

Much bigger. 50cm or more.
Not shilling for them, but more info and photos at the maker: https://www.visionect.com/urban/
And a news report here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBdXFYivSNI where you can see the screen updating.

Aside from the visual aspect, the low power allows them to be run by solar power, and they're networked wirelessly, so they can just replace existing signs without digging up the street for new wiring.

Large e-ink tablets might become more affordable with more diverse uses for the technology. Though currently the signs cost A$10,000 each, that must go down.

[binaryhermit]

I work at a grocery store, and they pay multiple people to come in when the store's closed to change tags. You'd think that eInk price tags would be cheaper over the long run but then again, since there's a union involved, they might not be willing to poke that hornet's nest..

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

How big was that?

They are actually two screens. The bus stop that I have seen one at, I didn't realise it wasn't just paper inside plastic protector until I caught the black flash of a screen refresh. The two halves refresh separately. According to https://www.visionect.com/product/urban-dual/, they have two 13.3" screens with resolution 1600 × 1200 each.

I see epaper a lot in clothing stores like Kohls, advertising prices of items, but those are small devices, at most 5", maybe smaller.

I haven't seen anything like that here.

[ZodWallop]

Where I work, we have a small e-ink sign outside one of the meeting rooms. About the size of an index card, like 3"X5". I've also seen the signs at Kohls. The ones at my local store are older and to me they can be hard to read.