How I made a 60fps Eink monitor, the Modos Flow

OK, did some power measurements; TL;DR 1.5W at idle/with text usage, up to 2W+ when redrawing the whole screen (playing a video with significant changes.)

Power readings came from a cheap USB-C interposer (labeled ATORCH AT085, purchased via Amazon). This didn't pass the data lines, so I had to run the video over a separate HDMI cable rather than through USB. (The cable that I used otherwise carries displayport over USB, and can serve as the monitor's only cable.)

The reader was reporting 5.2V as the primary voltage; this was on a disconnected laptop, running off battery. I don't know whether that means my laptop is offering a little high voltage, or if the meter is off, or what. I mention it to give an idea of the margin of error on these measurements. Also I was in a bit of a rush, so treat these as approximate, not scientific!

The meter read about 1.5W when I displayed an almost-static screen (Obsidian with the cursor blinking, plus Waybar updating a bit at the bottom).

Scrolling some web content (a feed in Mastodon's web client, in Firefox) caused a bit of a spike, up to about 1.9W.

I put the meter into "chart" mode and ran a fullscreen video from YouTube (Satisfactory's 1.2 launch trailer, if you want to see for yourself). There are a couple large wipes in that, when it switches from largely-light to largely-dark; these produced visible spikes on the chart. I don't have a peak measurement, but comparing to the 1.9W I think it did get about 2W. Just briefly, though.

I ran these tests in each of the the four modes (reading, typing, watching, browsing) and didn't see any noticible difference in power draw.