The article is oddly written. It's not the e-ink display panels that are different; they're off-the-shelf modules from E-Ink that their controller is driving at 75 Hz. Presumably E-Ink themselves know that the panel can be driven at that rate.
And pixel-level addressing isn't innovative either. If you've written on an e-ink tablet and observed that the screen doesn't refresh with every pixel change under the stylus, that is surely because pixels are being toggled individually instead of doing a full screen refresh.
So perhaps the only difference is that it's an open source controller that's competitive with commercial e-ink display controllers? That's no small achievement and worth celebrating in and of itself. But it's not at all made clear by the article.
- Making the project open allows people to reuse displays they already own.
- Others can contribute and build on what’s been created.
- Open source firmware, documentation, and the driver board make development more accessible and help remove barriers that previously slowed community projects.
- It’s designed to work with a variety of electrophoretic panels, not only those from E Ink.
In the long run, this openness will strengthen the ecosystem, making it easier for new ideas to take shape and spread.
And pixel-level addressing isn't innovative either. If you've written on an e-ink tablet and observed that the screen doesn't refresh with every pixel change under the stylus, that is surely because pixels are being toggled individually instead of doing a full screen refresh.
So perhaps the only difference is that it's an open source controller that's competitive with commercial e-ink display controllers? That's no small achievement and worth celebrating in and of itself. But it's not at all made clear by the article.