E-ink Watches – Ultra Modern Watch Designs
Friday, February 25th, 2011Casio Men’s MQ24-7B2 Analog Black Resin Strap Watch
- Quartz movement
- Protective mineral crystal protects watch from scratches
- Case diameter: 35 mm
- Plastic case; white dial
With a classically casual style, the quartz-powered Casio Men’s Analog Bracelet Watch #MQ24-7B2 features a white dial face, which is embellished with stand-out Arabic numerals and minute indexes and comes protected by a durable mineral dial window. A black resin band is equipped with a sturdy buckle clasp. Other details include a black-tone, plastic, stationary bezel and 35-millimeter plastic case. Sleek and sporty, this handsome timepiece brings an easy functionality to your fast-paced lifestyle.
E-ink watches are the latest development in wristwatches, using the latest development in electronic displays. There have been many developments in watch design before, but this one is visually a very big change indeed, it could be the biggest. First came the LED watch display, followed closely by the LCD watch display. Now it is the turn of the e-ink display to be the catalyst for a whole new range of wristwatch designs.
Previous changes in technology, although producing different ways of displaying the time, did not have a significant effect on the size of the display, they remained much the same. E-ink has changed the size and appearance considerably. Watch designers have been given possibilities to explore, this has produced some radical new watch designs.
Electronic ink or e-ink is a proprietary material that is processed into a film for integration into electronic displays. It’s a revolutionary concept, a fusion of physics, chemistry and electronics to create this new material called e-ink.
Watch designers are making use of the fact that e-ink displays can be formed into large curved displays. This has resulted in watches that can curve around the wrist, creating a whole new range of wristband style watches. This has resulted in some watches that will no doubt be appearing in films that are supposed to be set in the future. But unlike the the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which prompted the production of the LED watch featured in it, these watches are available for you to buy first.
At present displays have been in black and white or grayscales, but later color E-ink displays available now will surely make their way into watches too. Presently the e-ink displays you are most likely to have seen are not in watches, but more likely to be found in e-readers such as Amazon’s Kindle reader.
Another advantage of this latest type of digital display is its low power consumption. Displays are bi-stable, which means they use most power in the process of changing the display, once there it can stay there for weeks or months with minimal power used. This is particularly useful for e-readers, but also helps in watch displays too.
Watch design in these new wristwatches as wristbands has unisex appeal in many watches on offer at present. The color of wristband watches is probably going to determine their appeal to different groups for now, but designs aimed at men and women are bound to follow.
E-ink displays are aimed to look like printed pages, with a natural high contrast between black and white. It is also possible to reverse the displays, so you can either have black letters or numbers on a white background or white letters and numbers on a black background. With a high contrast between black and white, plus the fact that displays are generally bigger, they are easy to read in many conditions, however they do need an external light source to be read, so no good in dark conditions, like many other watches though.
Next, to see what I mean, have a look at these radical gents E-ink watch designs here. Some of these wristband e-ink watches have unisex appeal.
