Outdoor sun-light readable signage.

A comparable high-brightness 1080p display is about the same price [1], but uses a lot more electricity and from my experience with them, they have definite lifespan (2-4yrs, despite the 100k hours light lifetime claim) if they're running 24/7.

[1] https://www.compsource.com/buy/DS322LR41/Dynascan-4769

Well McD uses Samsung's OHF series screens and I have yet to see sunlight diminish them. I expect other restaurants to adopt them or similar. Pretty much eating 200+ watts an hour in typical use for a 55 inch screen

https://displaysolutions.samsung.com/digital-signage/detail/...

I don't want to come off as a pedant, but "watts an hour" doesn't make sense in this context.

Watts are a unit of power, energy per time. Joules are a unit of energy. One watt is precisely one joule per second.

"Watts [per] hour" would be a change in power per time which is equivalent to an acceleration of energy and not an amount of energy.

To get an amount of energy, you multiply the power (watts) by an amount of time. If you want the energy in units of joules, you multiple the watts by the number of seconds in which the power was consumed. That's why kilowatt-hour a is a unit of energy; it's equivalent to one watt applied for one hour. One hour is 3600 seconds, so one kilowatt-hour is equal to 3600 kilojoules.

I believe you meant that the screens consume 200+ watts.

I actually enjoyed the clarification. Thanks for posting.

What's the lifespan of an e-ink display?

E-ink only actively uses power while it's changing the content on the screen. Assuming you want a static image, e-ink can outlast that easily while using virtually no power. Mine lasts for five years now even though it's "on" the entire time (because even when it's locked, it displays a wallpaper).

Power isn’t the main issue I’d be concerned about re: “lifespan” for signage. I wonder more about how it handles long-term UV exposure, day-night temperature cycles, changing humidity, etc.

Feels like a bit of a no-mans land size wise. Too small to be good menu boards or art displays, too big and expensive to be most of the other options I can think of.

I'm not sure. One benefit of e-ink is the low power use.

Some on-street transit stops have displays with live schedules displayed. I wonder if there are use cases where you'd want that sort of kiosk somewhere you couldn't run power (and would power by solar).

If it were cheap, it'd be amazing for displaying artwork

It only displays 4096 colors, I don't think that's enough to render art properly.

Well that's reminiscent of old amiga hold-and-modify, but good point.

Thanks for prompting me to read about HAM!

I could see using one for proofing color print jobs of artwork, but I'd want more data on the actual pigment color profiles before purchasing one.

It sounds like it only has a color depth of 4096.

4096 implies 4 bits per color. I don't think they can do that with their tech. Their tech is based on pigments. So I don't think they have 4096 pigments in each pixel. I think maybe 32 pigments at best and this isn't like LCD where they can control brightness so 32 is just 32, there's no 32 * 2^4 to get more.

I hope this will kill all LCD screens outside, the annoyance of those super bright screens loses against the friendly natural e-ink.

I hope so, too. But this is not likely to happen any time soon, as the refresh rate of e-ink displays are still way too low. Meaning, unless you can watch a Video on it ... it won't be a competition in that segment.

Old advertising displays in the analog era used prisms that would turn in synchronicity to display one of three images. Their refresh rate was many seconds, but they still found (and continue to find) use in advertising anywhere from low-cost highway billboards to low-power display stands in malls and parking lots.

There are definitely many applications for slow refreshing displays. But I would actually suspect, that advertisers would prefer the LCD as it is active. It catches the eye more, than the passive e-ink.

When they come down in price, I'm in for one of my displays. For reading documentation or news articles, it's probably much more comfortable on the eyes.

I agree. I'd like to try a color 10" Kindle with a screen like that so I can properly read graphic novels for example, not sure that big a screen would be very useful for that.