How my e-reader lost its stripes

A once avid reader had purchased a small e-ink reading device named Xteink X3, expecting it to be a convenient alternative to traditional books and e-readers. However, after discovering the device's limited color options and the presence of unwanted vertical stripes, the author delved deeper into the problem. The device's open-source CrossPoint firmware allowed customizations such as installing new fonts and even converting photos into dithered black-and-white images for the sleep screen.

The author discovered that the sleep screen displayed greyscale images with murky dark areas, unlike the sleep screen, which showed no such issues. Further investigation revealed that the viewer app and the sleep screen rendered images differently, resulting in bugs. The author eventually found that the issue lay within the image rendering process, where ghosted traces of prior images could be seen on e-ink screens.

After some trial and error, the author discovered that the stripes were caused by an incomplete update or insufficient voltage, leading to the ghosted traces. Despite their efforts, the author could not fully resolve the issue, as the underlying technical aspects of e-ink technology and image rendering proved challenging to fully grasp.