I find it amusing that after all these years we’re still supposed to believe it’s economics of scale, low demand, or costly manufacturing behind the reason a 2 inch epaper module costs $25 CAD even on aliexpress. Meanwhile physical retailers are installing them by the tens of millions on store shelves complete with microcontrollers and OTA updates for unit costs in the $4-6 range, meaning the actual eink module cost with profit margin for the manufacturer is a fraction of that. It was believable 15 years ago.
Store shelf screens are extremely tiny. If a 1 inch by 2 inch screen costs a dollar to manufacture. Then a 7 inch x 6 inch screen by linear scaling should cost 21 dollars to manufacture. But I think manufacturing costs are more than linear since the control electronics become more complicated and yields become lower (more pixels, more screens have dud pixels that need to be thrown away).
They're under $3 on Alibaba.
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/SAEF-2-13-Inch-High-R...
That's in the sizes used for price tags, and it's just the panel without the drive circuit, let alone a battery optimized one.
Exactly. Even OLED displays around the same size come to half the price with the driver board and a i2c interface.
This is a relatively recent price drop though, right? There was a patent that ran out recently or something?
Aren't the supermarket labels controlled by subscription software?
I'd bet Amazon would be pretty willing to give away kindles that only work with a prime subscription.