Steve Kroop at Flytec <<info>>
writes:

I suspect that my comments about Flytec having announced that the
7000 series will come in 2014 and that I expect an imminent announcement of the
7030 may have stirred up some curiosity about the hardware and especially the
display. I will try and get some confirmation about the hardware and comeback to
that later but in the meantime here is what I know about displays.

Not necessarily from a functional or practical stand point but from
merchandizing stand point I have been bugging Flytec for a color display since
the 5030 days. Unfortunately the problem today is the same as it was then, that
an affordable and practical sunlight readable color display simply is not
available. Yes, there are color displays that are sunlight readable but they are
not truly transflective and require an inordinate amount of power (think of how
long your smart phone lasts with the brightness all the way up). For a display
to be truly sunlight readable in needs a reflectivity ratio of about 15% which
is what the original Garmin 76C had. The currently available transflective
displays have a reflectivity ratio of about 7-8% and their sunlight readability
is poor. For anyone interested in why transflective displays are not readily
available there is a good article here:
http://www.ecnmag.com/articles/2012/06/what-happened-transflective-displays.
There are a handful of good transflective displays manufactured like the one
used in the Garmin 78, however, these are too small and the producer is not
interested in selling in quantities below several hundred thousand units!

Of course, one way to achieve some level of sunlight readability is to just run
up the backlighting on a conventional or marginally transflective color display.
This approach is fine for a Nuvi or TomTom since they can plug in to vehicle
power. Without an external power source the device will either have a short
runtime or require a very large internal battery. Short runtimes are at best
inconvenient and at worst, render the instrument into a brick when the battery
is exhausted inflight. A short runtime can be compensated for with an external
battery pack but for hang glider or paraglider this is a cumbersome proposition
since it requires a connection cable and means another device to mount, charge
and keep track of. Marginal runtimes are also problematic because a rechargeable
battery's runtime will deteriorate with age, so a battery that is just adequate
when new will become inadequate over time. Large capacity internal batteries are
also a poor design choice because of the bulk and weight added to the device as
well as longer charge cycles. None of these solutions are elegant, compact,
aerodynamic or convenient.

Another possibility that I hear requested is an e-ink display. The contrast and
readability of this display is quite good and their availability is better than
the transflective displays but they have significant problems for our
application. E-ink displays have a relatively slow refresh rate, which is why
they are typically used as e-book readers (the display only needs to refresh
when you turn the page). In our application, the image is continuously refreshed
(2-5 times per second) and at that rate, changing numerical values would be
overwriting themselves and a moving compass or map would appear either frozen or
blurry. Furthermore, at the cold temperatures we routinely experience, these
displays perform significantly slower. The other major problem is that these
displays washout with use. Flytec tested e-ink displays and found that at a 5Hz
refresh rate, the life of the display would only be about 250 hours of flight
time before the quality of the image would appreciably deteriorate.

So considering these limitations and based on my discussions with engineers, I
expect a greyscale display on the next instrument. Greyscale has the distinct
benefit of being highly readable in direct sunlight, capable of showing greater
detail on maps and generally improve readability and aesthetics, while at the
same time, meeting low power consumption and low operational temperature
requirements. Most importantly, a greyscale display will allow a very powerful
device to fit into a very compact housing. I also expect that the hardware is
prepared for a transflective color or e-ink display if/when an appropriate one
becomes available. However, in the meantime, there is no reason to stall
advancement while we wait for a display that may or may not become available. I
expect the 7030 display to have a light sensor for adaptive back lighting and be
temperature and ambient light compensated to yield the best contrast in the
varying temperatures and lighting conditions experienced in our sport. For
example, when flying under a well developed cloud, where the sunlight is
considerably obscured, adaptive backlighting will automatically bring up the
contrast and appreciably improve readability. Adaptive backlighting should have
a negligible impact on battery consumption.

At this point in the technology world it is hard to find an advanced device that
does not have a touchscreen and I expect that the display on the next instrument
will be no exception. Over the years I have discussed the touchscreen concept
with many pilots and conveyed the challenges to the engineers. As anyone who has
tried to use a smartphone/tablet with gloves on will tell you, it can be quite
frustrating. This is due to the fact that most of these devices use capacitive
digitizers which rely on the capacitance of the users skin, whereas, resistive
digitizers rely on pressure. I know that Flytec has been testing various
resistive digitizers to find one ideal for our use. It cannot be too sensitive
that a light incidental contact would register and it cannot be too numb that
you have to press with so much force that it moves the instrument out of
position. The other challenge of touchscreen is ergonomics. Anyone who has used
the Garmin Oregon or Montana will tell you that it can be very frustrating to
perform certain operations on the touchscreen because a virtual button is too
small or too close to the display edge to select while wearing gloves and/or
being tossed around in rough air. Users of these devices either cut a finger tip
out of the glove or glue a stylus tip to their glove finger tip. The engineers
are aware of these challenges and I am confident that activation pressure and
ergonomic issues have been appropriately addressed for in-flight use with gloved
hands.

Of course, a discussion of display options would not be complete without
mentioning the heads-up-display (HUD) concept. Some huge strides have been made
in the wearable HUD in the past few years, namely Recon and Google Glass. This
is an intriguing technology with potential application for paragliding and hang
gliding, however, it is more likely to be a supplemental display rather than the
primary display. Since it is impractical (and undesirable) to have all of the
information typically shown on a flight instrument presented full-time in your
field of view, a HUD cannot negate the need for a display on the instrument.
However, Flytec has fully embraced Bluetooth 4LE which should make it relatively
easy to send flight data to one of these wearable HUDs.