Our first log on e-paper basics described two update modes:

• full update (whole display, flickering, best optical performance)
• partial update (only select pixels, no flicker, less power consumption, okay optical performance)

As we hinted in the log there is another update mode, we did not mention yet.

Both full and partial update take 0.8s at room temperature to drive the display. Here is a progress bar using partial updates:

Okay, so that takes a while. In general, e-paper displays are not suited for animations but rather for static content that only updates once in a while.

But there is a bonus update mode in our display's controller for exactly that. The mode is called "mono" or "fastPartial". It only drives pixels black and white (so no four gray levels in this mode) and takes around 250ms for an update.

The same animation as above with the mono update mode looks like this:

Not exactly suited for gaming (it's about 4 FPS), but definitely better than our standard 0.8s.

The mono update in a nutshell:

• fastest at around 250ms
• lowest power consumption
• worst optical performance