E Ink unveils 1.73-inch flexible e-paper smartwatch display

The company E Ink offers a variety of electronic paper displays in many different sizes, some of them flexible. As smartwatches, such as the well-known Pebble and its various competitors, gain in popularity, E Ink has announced a new 1.73-inch e-paper display that it is aimed specifically for them. The display is flexible, and will be first available in Sonostar Smartwatch.

Later this week, the Sonostar Smartwatch will be unveiled at Computex, and was developed in part by Transmart, a subsidiary of E Ink. The display will find its way into other smartwatches in the future, though if other devices are slated to get it, they haven’t been announced yet. Says E Ink, the display was made specifically for both watch and smartwatch apps.

E Ink’s Director of Product Management, Giovanni Mancini, said: “The joint development between Sonostar and Transmart is the perfect example of the how E Ink can help its customers get their product to market. E Ink displays enable unique products that capture the customer’s imagination. Our business development team has the expertise to help our customers design the displays into their products in ways never before thought possible.” The 1.73-inch display is now available in the company’s Mobius line, and based off of E Ink-developed flexible TFT technologies. The display doesn’t do color, instead offering 16 levels of greyscale. The resolution is good for a smartwatch, coming in at 320 x 240 pixels. Like other electronic paper displays, it can be read in sunlight.
E Ink boasts that the flexible nature of the small display better enables it to conform to the shape of the wearer’s wrist, making room for more design options, as well. One of the design options includes the ability to cut the display into whatever shape is needed. Finally, the 1.73-inch e-paper display also requires little power, something necessary due to the small batteries in smartwatches.