Hacker News

I’d be really excited to try something like this, just to see how it looks and feels! I wonder what cleaning the translucent lcd is like 🤔 I can’t really rely on a monitor like this for work (or things like blue light glasses) since I have to be color accurate to common screens, but I guess if this screen got really common?? Then… I still wouldn’t be able to replicate “common” conditions since it’s dependent on ambient light 😅

The only thing i find off about the idea is essentially the project is effectively using a different backlight (using a different backlight isnt a completely new idea, its for instance what powers ibuypowers project snowblind pc cases(lcd sidepanel) as it replaces the backlight with internal pc conponents that shine bright white.

If you wanted to fix the problem, would it not just make more sense to put time and effort designing a better backlight for lcds for this use case rather than to rely on a top shot ambient light to do it?

Unfortunately, over 83 % of light is blocked by color LCDs when they're showing white: half because of polarization and at least ⅔ of the rest in each subpixel’s R/G/B color dye. So lots of light is required to get the monitor bright enough... but hey, this “invention” makes it darker than the ambient light. Not taking pixel pitch and TFT corners into account.

There are lots of places where high-res, energy-efficient monochrome backlit or transflexive LCDs with standard inputs (LVDS/eDP/HDMI...) would make sense, such as public transport boards and signage. A mild change in the manufacturing process of standard LCDs (replacing color dyes with the same material but clear) would make such screens, monochrome but with 3x the power efficiency at the same brightness. Now that most light is not blocked, reflectivity would also increase so the display could be visible in daylight with the backlight disabled. Or the customer could opt for a 🟡🟡🔵 pattern if they require the common ⚫🔵🟡⚪ palette at 2x the efficiency.