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Finding a Display You Can Read in the Sun?
max3000 asks: "I'm currently building an embedded device that will be used outdoors, and the technology is pretty much nailed down at this point, except the display. Quite honestly, I'm confused and lost in all the display technologies out there: LCD (TFT, passive/active, and so forth), ChLCD, OLED, FED, AMLCD, EL, electrophoretic, ePaper like eInk, and more (some of which may overlap). Can you help a confused, fellow reader? What I need is (apparently) fairly complicated: an outdoor, sunlight-readable (at-a-glance readable, not squint-your-eyes readable), VGA/SVGA display. The display should have a 4-6 inch diagonal, capable of displaying at least 16 color grayscale, and it should be based on a technology with a roadmap to color in 2-3 years time. If not driveable directly from a PC, the display should come with a development kit that is." What small displays are out there that can meet these specifications?
They made the Game Boy Advance LCD.
I think that was his problem, he looked and got overwhelmed. There really is a large number of competing display technologies out right now, and without having display samples to look at I can understand his confusion. I'm not sure about the color option, or development kit, but if you're looking for something that dosn't need to be viewable in the dark e-Ink is very promising. Only major problem with e-Ink is the refresh rate is pathetic, so not really viable for any sort of video. Other than that, OLED is the hot new thing, but those are still hard to come by in larger display sizes, and even then pricey unless you're looking to buy in bulk and have some clout to throw around. Also coming over the horizon be looking for SED displays.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Sure, but spending a couple of hours or so doing reasearch and due dilligence would probably be more productive than asking Slashdot. Just my opinion...his milage may vary. Then again it never hurts to get the opinions of geeks on technical matters and emerging technology.
"What small displays are out there that can meet these specifications?"
Simple. LCD with a backlight that turns off and on. Look at what gas station pumps use.
heh, buying a few bananas and heading off to ask the monkeys at the zoo would be more productive than asking Slashdot.
How we know is more important than what we know.
you might want to look at the OLPC http://laptop.org/
* Liquid-crystal display: 7.5" Dual-mode TFT display
* Viewing area: 152.4 mm × 114.3 mm
* Resolution: 1200 (H) × 900 (V) resolution (200 DPI)
* Mono display: High-resolution, reflective monochrome mode
* Color display: Standard-resolution, quincunx-sampled, transmissive color mode
* Special "DCON" chip, that enables deswizzling and anti-aliasing in color mode, while enabling the display to remain live with the processor suspended.
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml
Look into Aircraft Avionics Displays - contact some of those manufacturers (there are quite a few).
Who the fuck modded this as "informative?" This is typical /. assholery. Hey fucknuts, the guy asked the question because he needed some help because he had was confused about the plethora of options. It is called "ask slashdot" after all.
I hope the next time you ask for help with something someone gives you an equally useless and glib reply. Now, unless you have something constructive to contribute, why don't you go back to jerking off to pictures of your sister?
i got my sun monitor off of ebay for $30. its a 22" monitor but hey it plugs into my solaris box.
The Sony Reader has the type of screen you want, which is an eInk technology. I don't know when color will be generally available, but they do have prototype color displays now.
"Back in the day" my Pilot 1000, Palm iii, and Palm Vx PDA's all had monochrome, backlit displays that were very viewable in the dark, in normal office lighting, and in bright sunlight. No, they weren't color, but I NEVER had to worry about being able to read the screens. Now, over a decade later we have PDA's that rival small laptops, have amazing storage capacities, execute applications unheard of in the past,but are COMPLETELY USELESS in bright sunlight. Despite all of the advances, I sometimes long for the days of simpler designs. I would personally love to see the Palm Vx resurrected with some of today's features but a high resolution monochrome screen.
And the same holds true for cell phones. I have a typical LG phone from Verizon (provided by work, do I have no choice in the model) and it has a great battery life, the features are decent, and the voice quality is better than most, but in the sinlight, the internal screen is completely unusable. The monochrome external screen is amazingly clear in sunlight, but it is useless in that it doesn't match the internal screen. Thank, God for speed dials.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
I googled in my memory.
At last FOSDEM, Jim Gettys gave a presentation of the technical specs of OLPC's XO-1 machine. I remember I found the part about the low-voltage sunlight readable display particularly impressive for a $135 device.
OLPC XO-1 manifacturer Quanta announced selling a XO-like device on the open market later this year, at a price around $200. Presumably it will have a display of the same technology.
I'm pretty sure you would have other things to worry about if you were in the sun.
Just remember to stop reading when all that oh-my-god-in-burning stuff begins!
--
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Look for a Trans-reflective LCD. These don't wash out in the sun light. I'm pretty sure all LCD's are active matrix now so you shouldn't need to worry about that.
The problem is finding a laptop capable of withstanding the enormous heat and pressure found in the sun! ;-)
I know everything is better in Japan blah blah blah, but I do have a cell phone (the V603SH by Sharp) that I got from Vodaphone here in Japan, and it looks great in any light.
This might be what the writer is looking for, in general. The screen's great, anyhow, and small.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
I've had the same question...
I don;t like the current trend toward "shiny" displays on laptops.
What I'd really like to have is a filter I can put over a TFT display for times when I need to use a laptop outside. By saying "I've Googled and can't find anything" (which I have), I hope some wise-arse Slashdotian will inflate their ego and show me where such a device can be found.
All about me
Otherwise you might see a very dim or black display.
Motorola are making a phone designed for outdoor use, using an eink/epaper display, according to some articles.
You could buy some eink stuff for test purposes, and see if it's as good as they make out.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
We work outdoors a lot with our robots, and we found the best solution to be monitors made by Solarism. They're kinda pricey, but they put out nearly four times the brightness of a standard LCD.
Who the fuck modded this as "Insightful?" This is typical /. assholery. Hey fucknuts, the guy pointed to Google and pretended that was an answer because it's incredibly easy to do and works in any situation. Cut him some slack.
I think the main problem is that you want both colour and readability in direct sunlight. While transflective displays work very well in bright light, they do not usually come in colour (of if they do, they are very dark). Colour displays usually need a back light, and it is very likely that it cannot compete with direct sunlight.
The math is simple: direct sun light is about 1000 watts per square meter, or 13 watts on your display size. The back light has to be stronger, say twice as bright, but you loose about 50% of the light in the light bulb, in the light distribution, in the polariser and again in the colour filter. So you would need 400 watt of electrical energy to drive the back light!
Short version of the story: colour, good contrast and direct sunlight don't mix. Maybe some day with e-ink, but not right now.
Emissary: The thousand nations of the Slashdot Empire descend upon you! Our moderation points will blot out the sun!
Stelios: [grins] Then we will post comments in the shade.
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-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Take any modern LCD, and remove the case. The panel itself is clear with a stack of filters behind it to even out the backlight (look for panels that won't have wires obscuring the back. Ask for advice at the Lumenlab forums.). All you need to do is remove any opaque layers. Hold up the panel toward the sun so that the sun shines through the filters, acting as the backlight. You needn't remove the original backlight, so the display can still be used in darker environments.
In short, use the sun as the backlight for an LCD panel.
Install Ubuntu in Android
The Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx is built to be used in the sun, and its LCD is easily visible in bright light--the brighter, the better, in fact.
--Bruce
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
I recommend e-paper. The device I've tried, the iRex iLiad, works in all well-lit environments. It even runs Linux.
A LiteBrite!
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
GE-FANUC has recently acquired Computer Dynamics who makes a ruggedized product that they call a "Wolverine" which uses a laptop motherboard and has a sunlight-readable display and is encased in an explosion proof case for use in industrial and petroleum situations.
y s.html
http://www.cdynamics.com/
http://www.cdynamics.com/sunlight-readable-displa
So technically, it's a laptop that you don't have to throw your jacket over your head to see. Although it's not nearly as portable as my HP, and I can't see my HP in direct sunlight, so, yeah, I guess you're right. But if you want a stationary computer that's sunlight readable, the above's your best bet.
2^3 * 31 * 647
The only existing screen technology that likely suits your needs is transreflective LCDs. They're widely available, so you shouldn't have an problems.
Display tech with potential, like e-Ink, just isn't there yet, and likely won't be for several years.
Of course, if you want to go crazy, you could always grab an old LCD, and mount it in an enclosure with a massively powerful backlight, and lots of airflow directed at the screen to keep the LCD from burning up.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The Motofone F3 it's avaible on some developing countries, it's a very simple and cheap phone, it can only make calls and sms, but has a battery that last 2 weeks.
before buying a fujitsu tablet with reflective display (i disabled the lights completely and use it outside in direct sun) i experimented with a standard lcd.
take it apart, remove the backlight, get a white diffuser for even light and sandwhich it on a mirror. it works.
There is a display under development which I consider practically ideal.l
Unfortunately, it's still under development!
But here's a link that explains it: http://www.qualcomm.com/technology/imod/index.htm
As I recall, it was really easy to see in the sunlight..
My Treo 650 has a transreflective type LCD, full color, very brightly lit indoors, and completely readable from all angles outdoors. Figuring out who makes the screens for recent Treo smartphones would be a good place to start.
I have a Sony Reader with the e-ink screen, and it's more readable the brighter it gets. They have a roadmap towards color (and some working prototypes) although I'm not sure when it's scheduled to arrive. The upsides are low power usage, sunlight readability, and crisp, paper-like images. The downsides are probably expense (I don't know how much the components cost, but my Reader was $350 retail, which suggests the screens are expensive), low refresh rate (on the order of .5 seconds per refresh at best - no video applications, obviously), and a "gray" look to your screens.
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
The Sharp Zaurus SL-5600 display is totally reflective, and is frontlit - and therefore it actually works well in sunlight. In fact, I can run the machine with the backlight off in bright sunlight (and save power), unfortunately there's a bug in openzaurus 3.5.4.2/2.6 that mucks with the backlight controls that no longer let me do this...
eInk is great if you don't need to refresh the display much.
It is useless for any type of scrolling display or animation.
For an Ebook, clock, or watch it isn't bad.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Specifically, check with the manufacturers of avionics for the experimental or light sport market. Any certified avionics will be significantly more expensive. There are a number of companies that make EFIS displays for the experimental/LSA market. This avionics shop seems to have a pretty good list. "Glass" cockpit displays must be readable in direct sunlight - you don't want to be flying an approach with the sun behind you and not be able to see important stuff like airspeed.
Wow more mods on crack...how is that shit flamebait? Because the person posing the question was too fucking lazy to do a google search himself? LOL...slashbots at work again.