E ink for the Shanghai Bus System
I was surprised to see this new bus schedule display screen using what appears to be e ink for its display:
I did a double-take at first, thinking it had to be paper. (Obviously, it’s a screen.)
Pretty cool! I had no idea that this technology was being applied in this way. Curious if this is just a tiny experiment, or if this kind of display is rolling out at a larger scale already. E ink totally makes sense as a way to roll out more dynamic (networked) announcement boards across the city at a lower energy cost.
One of my co-workers remarked that there’s a conspicuous lack of ad space on the display. Other similar bus stop displays have used conventional monitors to show the bus ever-changing schedule alongside video ads. This does seem like a user-friendly lower-cost option, though.
E-ink displays are great, and I wish they were used like this more often. However, unless something changed in the last year, large e-ink displays are considerably more expensive than the average equivalent sized LCD.