Freezable electronic shelf labels coming to supermarkets

Tim Burne, CEO, Plastic Logic, commented: “ESLs are becoming increasingly sought after in the supermarket retail environment as they allow retailers to quickly, wirelessly and dynamically update content on shelving signage, thereby overcoming many of the problems associated with traditional paper labels which are easily damaged and require time consuming manual systems to manage updates.

"As well as pricing, ESLs could also be used to display other useful information such as price comparisons, ingredients and stock levels.

“However, one more challenging area of the supermarket for ESL installation is the freezer aisle, given obvious concerns about how well the displays will be able to update at sub-zero temperatures.

"We’re pleased to have put those concerns to rest with our new highly robust and bendable e-paper EPD and are seeing significant interest from the market to try them out. What’s key to this innovation is that our EPDs do not require any additional engineering to operate at sub-zero temperatures so retailers can deploy them very quickly and easily.” ‎

The new highly robust and bendable 11.5x0.5” electrophoretic display (EPD) offers low power consumption, ultra-wide viewing angles and crystal clear readability under any store lighting conditions. It features an organic TFT active matrix and greyscale 1,380x96 pixels 120ppi display with up to 16 shade levels (a colour display option will also available imminently in Q1/18). Gate and source drivers are included as standard.

An evaluation kit for the new EPD is available through Plastic Logic’s new online shop. Controlled by Beaglebone and connected via LAN, WiFi or Bluetooth it allows developers to easily create their own content and familiarise themselves with the 11.5” rail type EPD.

In addition to the standard 11.5x0.5” shelf-edge EPD option Plastic Logic is also able to offer custom display sizes on request.