E-ink, also known as “electronic ink” or “electronic paper,” is a type of display technology known for its low power consumption and visual similarity to ink on paper. These features make it a perfect fit for e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle and also for E-Ink price tags that display information about products on supermarket shelves.

With e-ink technology, tiny microcapsules are suspended in a liquid that is inside a very thin layer. The microcapsules, which are roughly the width of a human hair, contain positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles.

Applying a negative electrical field causes the white particles to rise to the surface. Conversely, applying a positive electrical field causes the black particles to rise to the surface. By applying different fields at different parts of a screen, e-ink produces a text display.

Image source How-To Geek

Let's create a project to make our e-ink display into a name badge that displays some different information about us.

Create a new Microbit project.

To access the blocks we need to program the e-ink display, you need to add the inkybit extension to your project.

Show: Microbit: How to add an extension

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To add an extension follow these steps:

1. Click on 'Advanced' in the toolbox
2. Click 'Extensions'
3. Type the name of the extension in the search box
4. Click on the extension in the search results
5. The extension and all it's blocks will be added to your toolbox

Let's program the A button to display your name.

Add the following code to your project. The code will:

1. Clear the display.
2. Draw the text of your name at the upper left part of the screen, in the colour black with a regular size.
3. Display your changes on the screen.