Got the killer application for ePaper?
It reads like real ink on paper, can achieve 5-10 year battery life and comes in screen sizes bigger than your desktop monitor and smaller than your business card.
What's so eye-catching about ePaper? ...nothing. It's not supposed to be. One of the most under-appreciated aspects of ePaper is definitely its clear, gentle aesthetic nature. Viewing an ePaper image from your bright computer screen does not do it justice. The unobtrusive beauty of high resolution ePaper can only really be received face-to-face.
Epaper is best known for its usage in ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle. But as pricing of ePaper screens have steadily drawn closer to the market 'sweet spot', new product concepts and ideas have begun piling onto my desk for evaluation. There are just so many applications where paper from a tree doesn't cut it (excuse the pun).
Anyways, you have an idea for ePaper...
My advice: take the time to understand which wireless technology is best suited for your use-case; how will your Epaper screen be updated? There are quite a few options out there.
Here are some of the current mainstream choices (listed from short range to super long range)
- Technology: NFC
Range: centimeters
Good for: Signage for the front of your coffee shop, menus for a restaurants, or other consumer products as any android phone with NFC capability can be used.
2. Technology: UHF (ultra high frequency) RFID
Range: 1 meter or ~3.2 ft
Good for: industrial applications where UHF readers are already being used. Factory and warehouse employees aim a UHF handheld reader at ePaper tags placed on crates, shelves, and other assets to update information.
3. Technology: Wi-Fi
Range: 10-30meters or ~30-100 ft
Good For: Signage in a smaller area; a single store or household
4. Technology: Proprietary Mid range. Many companies have developed their own proprietary technology that requires purchasing their base station to communicate to their large amount of small sized ePaper tags.
Range: 100meters (line-of-sight) / ~109 yards
Good for: Digital Price Tags for retail also known as ESL (electronic shelf labels)
(image from DisplayData)
5. Technology: Weightless-P ~ a bidirectional LPWAN (low power wide area network)
Range: +20km (line-of-sight) ; +2km dense urban environment / over a mile range
Good for: city-wide signage, factory-wide signage, healthcare signage, hospitality signage, mall advertisements, & could also do digital price tags for retail
Hope you enjoyed reading this little write-up.
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website: www.ubiik.com