BLOOMIN8 E-Ink Canvas

[lunaticitizen]

I think it's interesting. It's based on E Ink Spectra 6 color ePaper.
https://www.eink.com/brand/detail/Spectra6

The official page is here:
https://bloomin8.com/product/einkcanvas

You can follow the link on that website to their Kickstarter page if you want to know the specs.

Their 28.5" Canvas' expected MSRP is 1,428 USD (and maybe plus 145% tariff for US customers )
The Kickstarter price is of course lower although it still feels astronomical to me.

Their YouTube vid:


What do you think?

[DanK]

The video is useless: the image is extremely low resolution, and there is no way to tell how accurate the colors are. At a quick glance, the web page doesn't address that either. Does it even cover the sRGB gamut?

Even leaving aside tariffs, I can't see spending anywhere nearly that much on something like this. Yes, it would be nice to have a frame that lets you change photos with one click, but I think I would rather have high-quality prints on the wall. If you stick with a standard aspect ratio and size (I generally don't), you could print additional prints for a few dollars apiece and swap them out once in a while with a few minutes work.

[lunaticitizen]

The thing is that even the base E Ink Spectra 6 display already costs around 600 USD. Developers can of course lower the cost when they buy in bulk but it's indeed not an inexpensive product 😕

Unfortunately the spec sheet is only available upon formal request to the E Ink company.

I wonder if it's possible for users to calibrate the display using our own calibration device.

I found it bothersome to swap my own pictures that already are hung on my walls. Do people do that regularly?

[DanK]

I found it bothersome to swap my own pictures that already are hung on my walls. Do people do that regularly?

Not as often as I should. Most of my photos are printed at nonstandard aspect ratios, so swapping them is a chore. However, in the room that serves as my study and studio, I have hung prints made to standard sizes in part so I can swap them easily.

[LenR]

I am inclined to agree with Dan on this score. A little too gimmicky for my taste and priced exorbitantly.
A carefully crafted, mounted and framed print is also my preference.....

[Manfred M]

I wonder if it's possible for users to calibrate the display using our own calibration device.

Unless the device can be colour managed, the answer is no and I see nothing in the specs suggesting this feature. The 30:1 contrast ratio is quite low. Better computer screens are at least 1000:1.

I would agree with the others and would give this a miss. eInk is low power, but the tradeoffs to achieve this appear to be colour accuracy and contrast.

[lunaticitizen]

Unless the device can be colour managed, the answer is no and I see nothing in the specs suggesting this feature. The 30:1 contrast ratio is quite low. Better computer screens are at least 1000:1.

I would agree with the others and would give this a miss. eInk is low power, but the tradeoffs to achieve this appear to be colour accuracy and contrast.

FWIW they said:

Colour Calibration
It is not easy to calibrate a colour e-ink display, but we did it

And...

Does it even cover the sRGB gamut?

60000-color gamut


If you guys think current the color e-ink technology is not acceptable for displaying photos, what about black-and-white-only e-ink panel? I couldn't find any info about the exact panel it uses, though.
https://www.galari.design/

[Manfred M]

FWIW they said

That really says nothing. There are two parts to this - calibration which takes care of things like brightness, contrast and saturation and profiling which makes sure the colours are displayed accurately.

The statement would be much more meaningful if they showed a chromacity diagram comparing where their product fits with other well established colour spaces.

60000-color gamut

That works out to about 37 discrete colours per channel. Even good old sRGB has 256 colours per channel

If you guys think current the color e-ink technology is not acceptable for displaying photos, what about black-and-white-only e-ink panel? I couldn't find any info about the exact panel it uses, though.
https://www.galari.design/

Again, same questions - how many discrete values does the display handle.

[lunaticitizen]

Afaict for Galari they use either Spectra 6 which is the same as the one in the first post, or Gallery 3. They're color e-ink panels, but apparently for the Galari one they programmed it to display black-and-white only.

What do you think the minimum specs are for e-ink panels until they can be thought as acceptable replacement for photo papers?

[Manfred M]

Minimum Adobe RGB colour space, 7-5 - 8 stop dynamic range, with at least 64 discrete colour steps per channel.