Packaging

Ynvisible announced a strategic collaboration with Switzerland-based Hive-Zox to integrate Ynvisible's ePaper displays in a new smart label device that is designed for pharmaceutical and healthcare shipment monitoring. Hive-Zox anticipates scaling the solution to over 1 million units annually.

The project centers around a new cost-effective, automated monitoring smart label solution, called the ConnectedLabel, that Hive-Zox is now launching into the market. Ynvisible's thin, flexible and cost-effective e-paper displays were selected as the "ideal visual interface for the smart label solution, for their compact
design and low power consumption".

IoT solution developer SpotSee deployed a new temperature indication solution that uses Ynvisible's electrochromics displays.

The new TempSafe Electrocard is a low power, branded, calibrated temperature indication label for cold-chain and temperature-controlled shipment and storage of goods such as blood bags, premium foods, biomaterials, and medicines. ‍

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.

Molded fiber packaging specialist RyPax Wing Fat announced that it will showcase sustainable packaging prototypes for pharmaceutical applications. These smart packaging solutions adopt small E Ink displays.

Smart packaging helps consumers to authenticate products, while giving easier access to product information. RyPax will roll out these new e-paper packaging solutions to their pharmaceutical and electronics clients as soon as next quarter.

In 2017 HP announced its IonTouch system which enables cheap and easy "paperless" printing on small E Ink Cards. Fast forward to 2019, and now E Ink announced a new technology called JustPrintIt, which is based (and licensed) on HP's IoNTouch.

The JustPrintIt system is a "rewritable, digital, electronics-free display medium" that E Ink hopes to get adopted in smart office, transportation, retail, healthcare and IoT applications. Possible usage cases include ID badges, gift cards, loyalty cards, packaging, healthcare and public transportation cards.

ynvisible was established in Portugal in 2010 to develop flexible transparent electrochromic displays produced using a simple printing method. In 2011 the company started producing sample products (we tested one in August 2012). Fast forward to September 2018, the company has gone through a reverse take-over, and the now Canadian headquartered Ynvisible Interactive Inc. has inaugurated its new production line near Lisbon, and we had an interesting discussion with the company's CEO, Jani-Mikael Kuusisto who updates us on the company's technology and business.

ynvisible is focusing on developing the inks that are used to print these relatively simple displays for use in everyday consumer goods and printable surfaces. The electrochromic displays are cost-effective and highly energy-efficient. The company used to have a capacity to produce a few thousands of displays each month, but the new production facility can produce hundreds of thousands of displays each month.

E Ink announced a new collaboration with Texen, a provider of product solutions for the luxury and beauty market, to bring personalized packaging solutions to cosmetic customers. The companies demonstrated a smart packaging design for customizable packaging displays for makeup compacts, perfume bottles and other cosmetic packaging.

The E Ink display is powered purely by near field communications (NFC) and can be updated by a smartphone that generates radio frequency signals carrying both the information and energy needed to update the display. E Ink and Texen are already taking customers orders for the new solution.

E Ink announced a partnership with HTC Healthcare and the Palladio Group to develop E Ink smart medication packaging labels. The three companies will develop an IoT-based smart device and smartphone software that will improve medication adherence.

The E Ink label will display personalized content that can be pushed to the packaging label as a communication interface, delivering vital information to patients and creating a gateway to improve patient engagement.

Pharmaceutical packaging solution developer Palladio collaborated with E Ink to create a new advanced packaging solution specifically for pharmaceuticals, called PhutureMed. The new solution supports a number of features to monitor the quality of medicines shipped to patients and improve the adherence of patients to prescribed drug therapies.

PhurureMed packaging has a small integrated E Ink display and sensors to constantly monitor the ambient conditions of the medication. The E Ink display shows the patient or customer any events that occur outside the required handling conditions, even if the batteries are completely drained.