E Ink Goes Yellow

June 2, 2015 by Dave Haynes

einkyellowA typical flat panel monitor supports millions of colors, so it’s a little funny to see a press release celebrating how a display now supports yellow.

We Did Yellow!!!

But in the case of electronic ink, it’s a big deal.

E Ink has announced its Spectra shelf displays can now do black, white, red and now yellow colors. The yellow Electronic Shelf Labels (or ESLs) are being shown off right now at the SID Display Week 2015 in San Jose, California.

Says a press release:

Price optimization strategies and adaptable technology are vital to ensuring retailers’ competitive advantage, success and growth. By using ESLs with E Ink’s technology, retailers have the ability to change pricing strategies as needed in real time, allowing them to stay one step ahead of competitors, while attracting consumers based on changing market conditions. Spectra allows retailers to elevate the impact of their ESLs, by adding color to logos and quickly directing consumers’ attention to important information, such as product sales and promotions. With a choice of either red or yellow, Spectra now offers two of the most widely used colors relevant to in-store displays and signage.

“The Spectra product was engineered to deliver multiple color options from the beginning,” said Dr. FY Gan, vice president and general manager of the ESI Business Unit at E Ink. “The delivery of the yellow product option shows the flexibility of E Ink’s three pigment system. More importantly, it provides retailers with color options for their pricing systems that can better engage the customer. Spectra red or yellow provide retailers with the same visual clarity and power saving attributes of E Ink’s products.”

The idea is that ESLs can replace paper pricing labels and fact tags around stores, making pricing and SKU changes dynamic through networked control.

In addition to replicating all that can be printed on paper, these dynamic displays can have a third color activated remotely to highlight promotions and offers.  Displaydata ESLs are being rapidly adopted by tier one retailers worldwide, who wish to use our enterprise software to manage dynamic pricing and product information changes including price comparisons, peer reviews as well as product provenance and specification. This automation not only frees up store staff to better serve customers, but greatly enhances consumers’ in-store experience, and ultimately drives increases in sales.”

einkyellow2

This background looks purple, which I guess is true blue and red mixed (assuming E Ink can do that).

Spectra will support both active matrix and segmented format ESLs, making it the ideal product for a range of retail applications. The three pigment EPDs are also appropriate for industrial, smart card and medical market applications, where Spectra can be used to display information on electronic identification badges.

While the eReader market continues to be an important part of E Ink’s business, E Ink continues to invest in different applications across a number of different markets. The ESL business has experienced 100 percent year over year growth for the past two years, and E Ink expects similar growth in 2015 as well.

Spectra will be available in Q3 2015.

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