Contrast is remapped
The eye does not read tones the way a sensor records them. The tonal range is redistributed for human perception, so that the mid-tones keep their separation instead of collapsing into grey.
About ePaper technology
We didn’t invent a new material: we liberated ink.
Inside every Ginko display is the very same ink that is in your pen. It is set in motion neither by heat nor by light, but by invisible electric signals of extreme precision. Millions of microscopic capsules hold pigment in suspension, and under that electric field the pigment migrates inside each capsule, towards the surface or away from it, until the image is in place.
What you see is not light pushed towards your eyes, as it is on an LED panel. It is the light already in the room, returned by pigment that has just been rearranged in silence. The result is a surface that is soft on the eyes and holds its image from any angle, and that reads on a wall the way a framed print reads.
Laying ink on a surface is an old gesture, and one of the few that changed how knowledge travels. We are extending it, and giving it the one thing it never had: the ability to change.
Millions of microscopic capsules. The same ink that is in your pen.
Non-emissive by nature
Energy only when the image changes.
An emissive panel spends power continuously, because it produces the light you look at. It has to keep producing it, second after second, or the image disappears.
ePaper works the other way around. The ink is moved into position, then it stays there. Holding an image costs nothing at all. Power is drawn only during the moment the image changes, which lasts a fraction of a second and happens a handful of times a day at most.
This is what makes a frame with no cable possible. Not a bigger battery: a surface that asks for almost nothing.
Up to 3 years
Autonomy
99.9 %
Less energy
3 hours
Full charge
Zero
Power when static
Autonomy based on typical use. It varies with the number of image changes, ambient temperature and active hours. Energy reduction compared with a 42-inch LCD display operating 12 hours a day.
Depth
Sixteen levels of grey.
The panel renders from 2 to 16 levels of grey, which is 1 to 4 bits of information per point. Written down it sounds modest. On a wall it is the difference between a pictogram and a photograph.
Two levels give you pure black and pure white: enough for a letter, a number, a line of text. Sixteen levels give you the fall of light on a face, the grain of a fabric, the gradation of a sky at dusk. A black and white photograph becomes readable as a photograph, with its depth intact.
It is also why the image holds at an angle. There is no backlight to fall away as you step aside, only pigment sitting on a surface, exactly like a print.
Inside the object
Elegantly engineered.
Nine layers, from the glass to the backplate. Scroll to take it apart.
Dimensions and weight
- 42-inch canvas
- 700 × 900 mm, 8 kg, Ginko Horizon
- 1 000 × 1 200 mm, 14 kg, Ginko Monumental
Materials
- Monochrome ePaper panel, 2160 × 2880
- Solid wood frame, four tones or bespoke
- Real glass as standard, anti-reflective optional
- Powder-coated aluminium backplate
The invisible work
Every image is re-composed before it becomes ink.
An image is never sent to the panel as it arrives. It is rebuilt for it.
Matter is rebuilt
With sixteen levels available, texture is reconstructed by dithering: pigment is distributed so the eye recomposes a gradient the panel cannot hold literally. This is where grain and softness come from.
The panel is calibrated
Every panel has its own response curve. The result is corrected against the exact curve of the one it is destined for, so the print matches the intention.
The fleet agrees
Two displays therefore show the same image in exactly the same way, in a lobby in Paris and in a suite in Marrakech. Across a fleet, consistency is the whole point.
This preparation work is ours, and it is what separates a photograph on a Ginko display from the same file sent to a generic panel.
An honest comparison
Where each surface belongs.
ePaper is not better at everything. It is better at being quiet.
| Criterion | Ginko ePaper | LCD | OLED | Framed print |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light emission | None, reflective | Continuous backlight | Continuous, per pixel | None |
| Power draw | Only when the image changes | Continuous | Continuous | None |
| Cabling | None, Wi-Fi and battery | Power and data | Power and data | None |
| Remote update | Yes, fleet-wide | Yes | Yes | Reprint and reinstall |
| Eye comfort | Paper-like, 180° | Glare, viewing angle | Deep contrast, still emissive | Paper |
| Moving image | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Full colour | Greyscale | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Architectural integration | Reads as a framed work | Reads as equipment | Reads as equipment | Reads as a framed work |
If you need video or full colour, an emissive panel is the right tool. If the surface has to disappear into the architecture and change on command, that is where our displays belong.