Why is there no large scale eink displays?

Data visualization in bbc Manchester

I took a picture of a paper display in the BBC Manchester office the other day

It seems like every week they may replace the old informational display with a new one. But it got me wondering… its quite a simple visualisation and yes you could project the same thing or even put it on a large lcd screen but why not a massive eink screen instead?

Then I did some digging around… Where’s all the large scale eink screens?

From wikipedia

Other proposed applications include digital photo frames and information boards

But where are the information boards? Sure they will be expensive but over a course of years they can’t be that bad compared to a projector or a large LCD display

My only thoughts are…

  • A large eink display won’t be as cheap as paper, so no ones really attempted it
  • eink is difficult to scale in some way?
  • eink power consumption ramps up the larger you go?

So odd because I can certainly find reasons to use a eink display, even a A3 and A2 sized display. Imagine photo frames which you can change every once in a while but very flat and light. Perfect for hanging on the wall…

Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io