A hot summer for e-ink displays

This week we are shipping two updates, improving both the firmware and the app. The previous August update (0.8.10) was all about improving Wi-Fi connectivity, and we are happy to see that's working well. Today's update is all about the screen and everything we learnt about e-ink this (very hot) summer.

When your device updates to the latest version, you'll notice the main screen only shows the eyes and the air quality level. Quite neat! The clock, Wi-Fi and battery have moved to a new Status page in the settings menu. This leaves space for more useful air quality related blocks. Wait, what's a block?

During our Kickstarter campaign we showed this early prototype. We are happy we could finally manage to build it.

Prototype we showed during our Kickstarter campaign

What happened to the screen

Some of you have seen ghosting: faint leftovers of old screens, or contrast that faded. We spent the last month testing and iterating. It turns out the screen was fine, but the way the firmware was driving it was not.

According to the manufacturer, our display needs a black-and-white flash after every five small updates. This is to shake the ink back into place. Until now, we were flashing on a timer every 15 minutes. That was too frequent for devices in spaces where the air quality was stable, and often not frequent enough for devices in spaces where the air quality changed often.

We went back to the start and rebuilt the driver with the panel maker, from their own sequences. But since we had to do it, we made it a little more fun :)

So how does it work? Now the screen cleans itself after five changes (in most rooms that's a few times a day). That's also why we removed the clock from the default screen, as it would require you to see a full flash on the display every 5 minutes (or 5 changes). As the clock changed every minute, it forced that display area to redraw over and over even if the air quality was stable.

Still want your clock back? You can now customise what your screen shows! Update your app to get the latest features.

Start with one of the layout templates (on the left) or create your own by choosing new blocks.

A few more things in this update

VOC no longer counts towards the headline score. VOC values are not absolute values, they are an index over the last 24 hours, so some of you asked us to remove it from the score calculation. It's still measured and shown on its own screen, and you can put it back into the score from the app if you want to track it (Device Settings → Air Quality Standard → VOC).

Settings you change on the device now stick after a restart. Night mode puts you back in the mode you were in. The menu is quicker. There's an About page with the MAC address and IP if you need it for your custom network setup. A shake pulls your latest settings. And if setup fails, the device now tells you why.

What to do now?

Nothing. Keep your ambient one on Wi-Fi and the update arrives within a day. Restart it to get it sooner.

Do send us a ticket in the App Support section or on support.ambientworks.io if anything feels or looks wrong.