Ynvisible - Page 2

Electrochromics display developer Ynvisible is pleased to report the first commercial delivery of wholly customized roll-to-roll printed segment displays to Pickletech, for portable Pickleball tournaments scoreboards. This is Ynvisible's largest roll-to-roll display production by size to date.

These displays are used in real-life situations where large audiences will see the displays in use, which is a great milestone for Ynvisible - large area roll-to-roll production of electrochromic displays.

Electrochromics display developer Ynvisible has partnered with Finland-based Agiler Oy to prototype a smart label technology to verify surface sterilization. The label will include a sensor that detects modern ultraviolet C (UVC) sterilization with a low-power ePaper display.

This project will demonstrate a cost-effective, scalable printed and flexible electronics and displays product and it is funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 financial instrument, under the Smartees 2 project. The project aims to conclude within 9 months, and by then the companies expect to have demonstrated a first of its kind solution that can be taken into mass-production.

Electrochromics display developer Ynvisible announced that its displays were chosen by Mimbly, a GreenTech laundry solutions startup. Mimbly will adopt Ynvisible's flexible segmented ePaper displays in its Mibox, a solution that connects to washing machines to recycle water, save energy and capture microplastics.

Mimbly says it chose Ynvisible's displays as these are highly energy-efficient and sustainable, and in addition it offered high freedom of design. The Mimbox display communicates water savings to the users and instruct in the product's use. Ynvisible provided prototyping services to Mimbly, and is now ready to deliver industrial-scale production as Mimbly is rolling out the Mimbox to 22 of the Nordic region's largest property owners (hotels, laundries, cleaning companies, etc) as part of a pilot program to show how the solution works.

Electrochromics display developer Ynvisible announced that it has entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Sweden's RISE research institutes. Ynvisible will have access to RISE's printed electrochromic displays IP which will enable Ynvisible to complement and expand its product offering.

Ynvisible aims to adopt RISE's technology into its high-volume production capability in Sweden. The new technologies will enable Ynvisible to offer displays that directly compete traditional segmented displays such as LCDs.

Ynvisible announced a collaboration with Evonik Creavis to combine Evonik's TAeTTOOz printable polymer battery materials with Ynvisible's electrochromic displays. The two companies have also jointly developed a technology demonstrator.

The two companies say that combining the printable battery and display could be used to create novel IoT products. The demonstrator is an ultra low-weight, minimal-energy flexible and transparent system. Both the battery and the display are manufactured in a single step which lowers the production cost and eliminates design and production restrictions of conventional electronics.

Ynvisible announced that it has acquired the electrochromic display developer rdot, for $123,000 plus time-limited performance remuneration. rdot's two employees will join Ynvisible's team. Ynvisible says that it will adopt rdot's display prototyping business and transfer the technology to its high volume industrial production facility.

Ynvisible also announced that it will be closing a non-brokered private placement to raise gross proceeds of $1.5 million CAD (around $1.08 million USD).

Most people when they think about ePaper displays immediate think about E Ink. E Ink Holdings (EIH) has been very successful in bringing its ePaper displays to the market - and today these are prevalent in e-readers, electronic shelf labels, e-notebooks and many other applications. While EIH indeed has a clear leadership in the ePaper market, it is not alone.

But first of all, it is important to note that there are many display technologies that could be called ePaper displays. Most people would only consider truly bi-stable displays able to show dot-matrix images as ePaper displays, but some other technologies that are not truly bi-stable also exist and some consider these as ePaper displays as well - for example Memory LCDs. In addition some simpler displays technologies that are similar to ePaper in properties also exist. We will discuss both these technologies in this article.

This is a sponsored post by Ynvisible

Fig.1 Example use case for printed electrochromics: a shock detector smart label with an interactive printed interface.

Expanding Need for Simple Electronic Display Functionality

Rapid advances in the miniaturization and reduction of costs in computing, electronic sensing, and communications have allowed the integration of “smart” electronic functionality into almost everything. ”Intelligence” is now embedded into a wide range of everyday objects, and spread throughout our working and living environments. Much of this intelligence, data collection and transfer is hidden from the human senses, requiring little or no human involvement. But as the number of human daily touch points and interactions with smart devices grows, so too does the importance of user experience design and the role of displays.

Conventional electronic displays cannot be economically and sustainably applied into all smart objects and environments and can often times be functionality overkill for the simple display requirements of many everyday objects. Also, user experiences built around the need for extensive use of separate reading devices, e.g. RFID or Bluetooth readers in smart phones, can be increasingly challenging especially with the high number of distractions and strong competition for attention on mobile screens. Further with a doubling of screen time over the past four years among certain user demographics, there is also a growing sense of screen fatigue leading to people “detoxing” from light emitting screens while still valuing user interfaces that are useful yet unobtrusive.

Ynvisible announced a new partnership with Electrochromic Polymers developer NxtGen Nano. The two companies will work together to incorporate NXN's color Electrochromic Polymers (ECP) inks in Ynvisible's systems and manufacturing services. This will enable Ynvisible to offer a new range of color displays.

The two companies announced that they already sold a prototype multi-color project to a Fortune 500 medical and diagnostics devices company. NXN and Ynvisible have earlier experience in working together and sold several commercial color electrochromic prototype devices to several premium consumer brand product companies.

Ynvisible sent us this nice Christmas card, that shows off the company's flexible transparent electrochromic displays. Ynvisible's displays are produced using a simple printing method, which allows them to be quite cost effective.

Ynvisible was established in Portugal in 2010, and in 2011 the company started producing sample products (we tested one in August 2012). In September 2018, the company has gone through a reverse take-over, and the Canadian headquartered Ynvisible Interactive Inc. has inaugurated its new production line near Lisbon.