A new e-ink display needs no batteries, can be powered by a phone’s NFC chip

Electronic ink (e-ink) displays rule the digital reading devices segment - they are easy on the eyes and don’t require much power, allowing a Kindle, for example, to last weeks on one charge. Apart from e-book readers though, the technology hasn’t spread to other gadgets much. A few smartphone manufacturers made attempts to integrate e-ink displays in their devices, bringing phones like the Motorola F3 and the Yota Phone to the market, but they failed to gain much popularity.

Now the Shenzhen-based company Waveshare used the specific characteristics of the technology to develop a new way to interact with and power e-ink screens, SlashGear reports. Waveshare created a whole slew of battery-free displays, getting power through the NFC wireless interface instead. Typically, NFC (Near-Field Communication) is used for transferring data between devices at short distances - for making payments with your smartphone on a POS terminal or signing digital documents. This type of connectivity can transfer small amounts of power too, and it appears to be enough to change the image on an e-ink display.