Most e-paper projects don’t fail because of one wrong decision. They slip because of several small decisions nobody wrote down — a size that turns out to need custom tooling, a connectivity choice that wasn’t checked against the deployment environment, a certification requirement discovered after production started. This is the full list, in the order it actually comes up. For the full range of hardware this checklist applies to, see our e-paper product line and solutions by industry.
1. What Size Do You Need?
Start here — most projects already have a target size in mind from a brief or an installation constraint. What changes as that size goes up: price (non-linear, driven by yield), whether it’s a standard catalog part or a custom build, and refresh behavior on larger panels. Full breakdown in our display size guide.
2. Indoor or Outdoor?
This determines IP rating, operating temperature range, and power source (wired, battery, or solar) — three decisions that compound with each other rather than being independent. Covered in full in our outdoor deployment guide.
3. Monochrome, Color, or ChLCD?
Color adds cost and changes refresh behavior — it’s worth confirming it’s actually functionally necessary, not just visually nice to have. If color is needed, E Ink’s own color technologies aren’t interchangeable with each other: see our comparison of Gallery 3, Kaleido 3, and Spectra 6, and our separate look at ChLCD as a non-E-Ink alternative.
4. Standard Product or Custom Build?
Four layers of customization exist — cosmetic, hardware configuration, firmware, and TCON-level driving — and most projects only actually need the first one or two. Confirm which layer your requirement actually lives in before assuming you need a fully custom build. Full breakdown in our customization guide.
5. What Does the System Architecture Need to Support?
Beyond the panel itself: edge hardware capability, interface choice between MCU/TCON/panel, firmware refresh scheduling, and how content actually gets managed. Our system architecture guide maps the full stack; the data interface guide covers SPI/SPI-mini/parallel/mini-LVDS specifically.
6. What Connectivity Does the Deployment Need?
Indoor and high-density deployments generally favor a local gateway architecture (Sub-1GHz, BLE Mesh, Zigbee); outdoor and distributed deployments generally favor wide-area IoT radios (LTE-M, NB-IoT, LoRaWAN). Getting this wrong shows up directly in battery life. Full comparison in our connectivity architecture guide.
7. Where Does Rendering Happen?
Edge rendering minimizes data transfer but demands more of your MCU; cloud-to-image rendering keeps edge hardware simple at the cost of larger data transfers. This also affects how much your edge hardware choice from step 5 actually needs to handle. Full comparison in our edge vs. cloud rendering guide.
8. What Does This Actually Cost Over Its Service Life?
Purchase price is one line among several — installation, power, maintenance, certification, shipping, software, and end-of-life all move the real total. Full framework in our total cost of ownership guide.
9. Who Are You Building This With?
Choosing an e-paper supplier is not only about panel availability or unit price. The supplier’s engineering capability directly affects whether a project can scale from prototype to mass production.
Before committing, evaluate:
- Panel sourcing capability — Can the supplier work directly with reliable panel manufacturers and support long-term availability?
- Firmware ownership — Does the supplier develop and maintain the firmware, refresh algorithms, and system integration, or only provide hardware?
- TCON capability — Can they customize TCON functions, waveform tuning, and partial refresh behavior when standard solutions are not enough?
- Lifecycle support — Can they provide long-term component availability and engineering support throughout the product lifecycle?
- Customization experience — Can they support changes beyond enclosure design, including hardware configuration, interfaces, firmware, and display driving?
A capable e-paper supplier should support the complete product stack — from display sourcing and hardware design to firmware integration and production support. This becomes especially important for industrial, retail, and outdoor deployments where products are expected to operate reliably for years.
See our guides to vetting a supplier and sourcing from China.
10. What Certifications Does Your Target Market Require?
CE, FCC, RoHS, UL, CB Scheme, UN38.3 for battery-containing units, and — increasingly relevant for connected products — the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act. This responsibility usually sits with the brand bringing the product to market, not the factory, which makes it easy to miss if nobody asks. Full breakdown in our certification guide.
11. What Engineering Risks Should You Plan For?
Waveform driving, FPC routing, cold-weather battery behavior, refresh scheduling, and memory-constrained dithering are the issues that most commonly cause real project delays once development starts. Covered in our development pitfalls guide.
The Full Checklist
| # | Decision | Go Deeper |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Size | Display size guide |
| 2 | Indoor vs. outdoor (IP, temperature, power) | Outdoor deployment guide |
| 3 | Monochrome, color, or ChLCD | Color technology comparison |
| 4 | Standard vs. custom build | Customization guide |
| 5 | System architecture | System architecture guide |
| 6 | Connectivity | Connectivity architecture guide |
| 7 | Rendering: edge or cloud | Edge vs. cloud rendering guide |
| 8 | Total cost of ownership | TCO guide |
| 9 | Supplier and sourcing | Supplier guide / China sourcing guide |
| 10 | Certification | Certification guide |
| 11 | Engineering risk | Development pitfalls guide |
FAQ
Do all 11 steps apply to every e-paper project?
Not with equal weight — a project using a standard catalog size, off-the-shelf hardware, and an established supplier moves through several of these quickly. A fully custom, large-scale deployment needs real attention at nearly every step, since the decisions compound.
What’s the most commonly skipped step on this list?
Certification and total cost of ownership — both because they don’t show up on a basic hardware quote, and both because they’re easy to assume are “someone else’s problem” until a project is already underway.
What order should these actually be decided in?
Roughly the order listed — size and environment constrain nearly everything downstream, while certification and engineering risk are easier to plan for once the hardware and architecture decisions are already settled. In practice, several steps get revisited together rather than strictly in sequence.