E Ink - Page 12

E Ink Holdings' president, Johnson Lee, says that demand for electronic shelf labels (ESL) displays is high - and in 2018 the company expects ESL displays to surpass e-reader displays in terms of area shipments.

This is very good news for EIH as the e-reader market has stagnated for years - and it is rather surprising for many as we have all been used to consider e-readers to be the main market for e-paper displays.

Japan Display (JDI) demonstrated its latest high-resolution (198 PPI) 30cm-wide e-paper displays for the electronic shelf-label market.

JDI is also developing much higher density e-paper displays (400 PPI and 600 PPI), these were detailed at E Ink's booth at SID but JDI did not demonstrate any of these next-gen e-papers at its own booth.

Here's a short video showing E Ink's booth at SID Displayweek 2018, where the company demonstrated its latest E Ink displays, devices and prototypes. Some of these displays looked very good, especially the new color panels!

E Ink had some very interesting displays in there - including the new medical patch developed with LTS, the high resolution (400 PPI and 600 PPI) E Ink developed together with JDI, a range of new writing pads (from Sony, ReMarkable and Onyx Boox), the GVIDO music stand display, plastic logic's OTFT-powered panels and E Ink's upcoming beautiful color e-paper displays.

E Ink Holdings say that it expects low demand for e-paper displays in the first half of 2018, as the e-reader market is set for a low season as customers are transitioning to new models and are not ordering new displays (but rather use these in their inventories). E-reader displays account for about 70% of E Ink's revenues in 2017.

Displays for e-notebooks and electronics shelf labels are expected to grow in the period, but apparently this won't be enough to offset the low demand for e-reader displays.

Japan's Aizuwakamatsu city is launching a new pilot smart bus stop display project, developed by Papercast in collaboration with E Ink holdings.

The project is administered by Aizu Riding Car Development, a consortium that aims to improve service convenience and reduce ongoing costs by digitally connecting bus stops. The E Ink displays will show real-time passenger information, and these displays will be wireless and solar-powered.

Ubiik released an ultra-low power E Ink display tag that can stay connected via low-power WAN (LPWAN) networks for over 1.5 km. Aimed towards factory environments, the new display tags has a typical lifetime of 2 years on coin cell batteries.

Ubiik offers starter kits with 2.7-inch displays (seen above), and the company will also release 4.2-inch e-paper tags in Q2 2018.

Bus stop information display pioneer Papercast has deployed its solar-powered E Ink bus stop displays for the Jerusalem Transportation Master Plan Team (JTMT) passenger information system in Jerusalem, Israel.

Papercast deployed these systems at several bus stops in Jerusalem as a pilot, with hopes to extend the deployment to all bus stops in Jerusalem. Papercast says that the E Ink displays are 36 times more efficient than previously-used LCD screens, which makes solar power feasible.

E Ink Holdings (EIH) reported its financial results for Q3 2017, with revenues of $158.8 million (up 7.8% from Q3 2016 and 29.8% from Q2 2017) and a net profit of of $38.8 million.

E Ink says that these excellent results were due to a sharp increase in e-reader and e-paper notebook sales and improvements in operation efficiency and production yields. E-reader and notebook sales accounted for 70% of EIH's revenues.

The Vienna Airport line shuttle installed outdoor E Ink signage in its stations in Vienna to show real-time passenger information to guide travelers to the airport. The project includes signage for all the shuttle bus stations (over 25).

The two main stations use a large double-sided 32" 2560 x 1440 E Ink displays (shown below), while the rest of the stations show a 15" E Ink display (shown above).

Visionect is celebrating the end of 2017 and the company is offering a 6" discount on its JOAN family of E Ink signage displays - the 6" JOAN Manager, 6" JOAN Executive and 13" JOAN Board. Visionect also offers free shipping. To enjoy this discount, use the coupon code HELLO2018 when you checkout.

The JOAN signage solutions are installation-free battery-powered wireless E Ink conference room management signage solutions. Visionect says that since the launch of the JOAN series last year it has signed on over 1,600 customers in North America alone with thousands of devices deployed worldwide.