Customer:
Which of your e-ink displays has the fastest refresh rate? What display protocols does it support (e.g. HDMI, DVI, etc)?
Originally submitted via email support on 17 July 2025. Migrated to the forum for community visibility.
Soldered Support:
The Inkplate 6 MOTION has the fastest refresh rate among our e-ink displays: partial refresh rate of 11fps and full refresh in 500ms (Black and white) and 800ms (grayscale). Our e-ink displays cannot be used as external monitors because they have no inward display protocol support. Everything displayed on the screen is controlled via the onboard microcontroller.
Customer:
What would be required to use the display as an external monitor? Is this even possible? What do you mean by “inward display protocol”? Can the board run an OS - for example, can an elementary form of Linux run on it?
Soldered Support:
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to use our displays as external monitors. The panel is directly driven by the onboard microcontroller - either the ESP32-WROVER-E, or in the case of the Inkplate 6 MOTION, the STM32H743ZIT6. There are no connectors or hardware interfaces (such as HDMI, DVI, or VGA) to accept and decode incoming video signals. All data goes through the onboard TPS chip, which handles communication with the e-paper panel. There is no operating system support for standard display output. Our displays are controlled exclusively via our Arduino library, which allows you to draw shapes, text, and images programmatically.