Are there non-backlit e-ink digital picture frames for displaying photos at home?
Asked 9/8/2010
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2 answers
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I’d like a digital frame that can rotate through my photos without the bright backlight of a typical LCD frame. Do e-ink or electronic-paper picture frames exist, and if so, are they practical for displaying photographs?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
8
As of March 2012 nothing like this exists in the color e-ink picture frame market. The Mirasol display made by Qualcomm is the only color e-ink display that I have heard of. I suppose one could try to tap into that reader to turn it into a picture frame style display, but from what I can tell they do not offer it prepackaged that way.
The original question did not say that color was a requirement, but from reading some of the posters comments it sounds like color is really the goal.
You could setup an Amazon Kindle(classic, touch, wifi, etc) as a photo viewer, and hack do exist to do this. Unfortunately for photography they aren't really great. The classic Kindle is only 4-level grayscale and the newer models are only 16. This isn't going to make any images look great, but it is acceptable for newspaper reading as the unit was designed.
Originally by user4892. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4892
14y ago
0
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At the time reflected by these answers, dedicated color e-ink photo frames were essentially not available as normal retail products.
What did exist were a few workarounds:
- E-readers such as Kindle could be hacked or configured to show photos.
- Some e-readers had a photo-frame feature.
- But these options were grayscale only, with limited tonal levels, so they were not great for photographic display.
For color, respondents noted that color e-ink technology was still immature and mostly speculative for picture frames then. One answer mentioned Qualcomm Mirasol as a related display technology, but not as an off-the-shelf photo frame. Another mentioned an upcoming Kickstarter product (VersaTile), suggesting such products might emerge, but not as an established option at the time.
So the practical answer is: if you want a non-illuminated frame for photos, e-ink options were either unavailable or compromised, especially for color photography. Grayscale e-reader hacks were possible, but image quality was limited.
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