Android with E-Ink display

Question

I'm interested in using Android for a E-Ink based platform. I know it has been demonstrated once by MOTO, but I'm interested in using it for a commercial grade product and not 'just' a technology demo. I have got a question on the ability to change the platform to cope with specific display effect caused by E-Ink. I'm asking this question from the role of system architect and have no prior experience with Android.

E-ink has several characteristics which are very different than the common LCD displays:

• time to update display (50-700ms)
• it costs power to change the display (none to maintain)
• display life time is determined by number of display updates!
• tradeoffs can be made between quality, performance and display lifetime
• grayscale versions available

The great thing: it costs no power to retain display information and they can be read in bright sunlight with no backlight. Also the display can be literally as thin as paper...

This means that the platform software needs to have a degree of control over the number of display updates and the type of display updates to get the best performance. Otherwise, an application which is unaware of the display characteristics could quickly drain the battery, or worse, shorten display life time to months instead of years. Conceptually I'd be interested in replacing a display driver, but I'm not sure if this part is open. I know it is hard to get info on the Qualcomm chipsets....

My question: can this be done? Can the Android platform be modified to support a drastically different display effect? Any pointers to an android roadmap?

The reason I find Android interesting for this application is because there is a significant overlap in functionality (from cell phone to browser).

Thanks!

Answer 1

I know this is an old question, but I have found it through Google - others might want to know this too.

PocketBook Pro 902/903 are based on Android and feature e-ink screen. You might want to check them out. There might be other models too - I am interested in these because of their 10" screen. YMMV.

Answer 2

In this case the application domain is e-reading, in which case the advantages of E-ink are more imporant than the disadvantages (slow display updates).

I've done some further studies of Android. I believe the trick is to perform display updates asynchronously; to provide applications with an environment which mimicks immediate display updates, whilst detecting the relevant updates (i.e. by using graphics processor and/or MMU) to have an intelligent display update. Not all types of applications would be suitable; i.e. games and video playback require immediate display updates.

Making such a platform will be less than trivial; however, with the growing number of different hardware platforms, abstractions are becoming better all the time.

Answer 3

I cannot agree more and started to lobby with app and OS developers on improving readability on e-ink:

Make scrolling and page turns e-ink friendly http://github.com/aarddict/android/issues/28#issuecomment-3512595

Looking around on the web I find a recurring theme "we had to rebuild WebView from scratch to adapt it to the e-ink display"

There are already coding solutions which reduce flicker and page refreshes. Most of them are kept by those who market the e-ink readers who prefer to keep them as frontends to their shops.

I contacted the author(s) of cool reader on their implementation of smooth scrolling on e-ink devices and got the following reply:

Hello, Look at N2EpdController.java Author is DairyKnight from xda-developers. At least you can use it under GPL. For use in closed project I would recommend to contact him.

Ideally, display components for e-ink devices should be part of the Webkit's WebView framework. I've submitted a feature request via http://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76429

Answer 4

http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/112707-kernel.html

Answer 5

fyi, E-Ink has an Android on E-Ink development kit, AM350 that's being sold now. http://www.eink.com/sell_sheets/AM350_Kit_Sell_Sheet.pdf