Quadrant Lab, in collaboration with the ePaper Industry Alliance (EPIA) has launched the Quadrant.ePaper weekly bulletin, aiming to provide readers with insights on global industry innovations and the latest news on the ePaper industry and connecting the global IoT ecosystem.
01 Shelly Launches New H&T Gen3 Temperature and Humidity Sensor
European smart home device manufacturer Shelly has launched a new version of its temperature and humidity sensor H&T Gen3, as well as a smaller smart relay switch. According to Shelly, H&T Gen3 features an enhanced ePaper display and has doubled its response speed and efficiency compared to previous versions, thanks to its 8MB device memory. The device will retain all its functions when upgraded to the new smart home standard, Matter.
In addition, H&T Gen3 has an electronic clock function and is available in matte black and white color schemes. It can operate independently in a local Wi-Fi network or be used with Shelly's application and web interface. It can also be connected to platforms such as Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings. Similar to products from Seco Seco, Shelly's products can be installed on walls or supported by the included bracket. However, Shelly's products are powered by four AA batteries instead of smaller button batteries, and they are priced higher at $31.9.
02 Turn a Nook eReader into a iCloud ePaper Photo Frame
Ben Borgers has turned an old 2011 Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch Reader device into an ePaper photo frame. The photo frame displays web pages through an application called Electric Sign. Since Apple does not support directly displaying photos from the iCloud shared album on web pages in the photo frame, Ben Borgers had to imitate backend requests to share photos from the iCloud public album.
03 CicoENote Has Released CicoENote X10 E Ink Tablet
CicoENote has released its new E Ink tablet product, the CicoENote X10, integrating voice recognition, handwriting recognition, layers, boundless pages, and dual-note functions. The notes come with features such as voice-to-text conversion, handwriting-to-text conversion, image text recognition, and mind mapping, and it is priced at 2,558 yuan. CicoENote is a handwriting note-taking APP that was selected in Huawei's 2021 annual top ten tablet APP list. The development company is Guangdong Xinkong Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. The company offers products and services including CicoENote APP, cloud service, E Ink tablets, and intelligent solutions for voice and image recognition.
In terms of hardware configuration, the CicoENote E Ink tablet comes with an electromagnetic pen that supports global handwriting and palm rejection, as well as an eraser function on the pen cap. The device is equipped with a 10.3-inch black and white ePaper display, certified by Germany's TUV Rheinland for paper-like display. It adopts panel micro-etching technology to reduce the isolation between text display and the screen, and supports a resolution of 1870x1404, 227 PPI, and three refresh modes.
04 Ambient Photonics Showcases Dual-sided Solar Cells
California-based innovation company Ambient Photonics showcased dual-sided solar cells at CES 2024. This dual-sided technology allows solar cells to collect light from both at the front and back simultaneously. Ambient Photonics partnered with Google to launch the first smart device utilizing this technology in 2024.
Bates Marshall, co-founder and CEO of Ambient Photonics, stated that dual-sided solar cell technology allows various battery-powered devices to be more effectively self-powered under ambient light, and can be designed and installed in flexible ways, regardless of shape or orientation.
Thanks to a new revolutionary molecule, Ambient Photonics' unique dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) can provide three times more power than competitors, even in the dimmest conditions. This means that Ambient Photonics' solar cells can operate under any indoor light source. The company stated that it is collaborating with E Ink to integrate its solar cell products into the next generation of retail electronic shelf labels.
References：
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/17/24040874/shelly-climate-sensor-matter-upgrade-mini-gen-3
https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/cicoenote-x10-e-ink-tablet-launched-in-china
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ambient-photonics-showcases-future-battery-133400893.html
