JP2001109407A - Electronic shelf tag - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic shelf tag of an inexpensive electrophoresis display system which is the shelf tag used in supermarkets, convenience stores, etc., allows display to remain as it is in spite of turning off a power source and is capable of making colorful display. SOLUTION: This electronic shelf tag has a contact for receiving electric power supply, a reception part for receiving display information on merchandise prices, etc., from an external terminal, a memory part for storing this display information and a display part for displaying the display information by the electrophoresis system, and the reception part which receives the display information from the external terminal is an antenna. The display information memory part which stores the display information is an IC chip. Further, the information to be displayed in one sheet of the shelf tag is displayed by different colors with each of kinds.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic shelf label attached to a product display shelf of a supermarket, a convenience store, or the like, and which electronically displays a price of the product displayed on the shelf.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In many cases, shelf labels for displaying prices and the like of commodities displayed on the shelves are attached to upper or lower shelves of merchandise display shelves such as supermarkets and convenience stores. It can be attached in various ways, for example, by directly attaching an adhesive label on which product information is printed, or by inserting thick paper on which information is printed in the gap between two transparent films previously fixed to the display shelf. Are common. However, recently, as the number of products handled by branches has increased, and price changes frequently occur due to competition with the same industry, it has become troublesome to construct new shelves for new products or replace shelf labels. There was a problem that it took too much time to meet the needs. This led to the emergence of an electronic shelf label system.In supermarkets, etc., the host computer of the head office and the retail terminals of the branch were connected wirelessly or by wire, and the product information transmitted from the host computer was sent from the terminal of the branch to the inside of the store. And send it electronically to display prices and other information.

With the introduction of such a system, service information or price information of a store can be quickly transmitted to a customer, and a rapidly changing commodity price can be changed by a small number of people in a short time. . However, many of these systems use a liquid crystal display type shelf label, which has a problem that the unit price is high as a display body, and since there is no memory function, a large amount of power is consumed and the thickness of the shelf label itself is large.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-described problems, the present invention provides an inexpensive electrophoretic display type electronic shelf label which can retain the display even when the power is turned off, and can provide colorful display. It is intended to provide.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic shelf label receiving a contact for receiving power supply and receiving display information such as a product price from an external terminal. An electronic shelf label comprising: a receiving unit that stores the display information; a storage unit that stores the display information; and a display unit that displays the display information in an electrophoretic manner.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the electronic shelf label according to the first aspect, the receiving unit that receives the display information from the external terminal is an antenna.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the electronic shelf label according to the second aspect, the display information storage section for storing display information is an IC chip.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the electronic shelf label according to the third aspect, wherein information to be displayed is displayed in a different color for each type in one shelf label. It is.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a front view of an electronic shelf label according to the present invention, and FIG.
Is a schematic cross-sectional view taken along the line AA in FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a front view of 2a in FIG. 2, FIG. 4 is an exploded front view of 2b in FIG. 2, and FIG.
FIG. 6 is an explanatory view of an example of an electrophoretic display, FIG. 7 is a display method using a microcapsule, FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view of the microcapsule used in FIG. 7, and FIG. FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of an electronic shelf label system, and FIG. 10 is a layout example of a supermarket.

(Structure) In FIGS. 1 and 2, the electronic shelf label 1 is composed of an electronic information display section 2 for displaying the price of a product and a print information display section 3. Since the electronic shelf label 1 is used in large quantities in one store, it is required that the unit price be low. Since the electronic information display unit 2 is more expensive than the print information display unit 3, it is commonly used in any corner such as “special price”, “member price”, or “regular price” even if printing is performed. Display only what can be done. On the other hand, information that is frequently exchanged in the display at that time, for example, information on advertising products such as flyers, is displayed on the inexpensive print information display unit 3, and the electronic information display unit 2 and the print information display unit 3 are used as a set. .

In FIG. 2, the electronic display unit laminate 2b is
An antenna and a power supply circuit are mounted, and a masking plate 2a made of a transparent resin is laminated and used to cover these. The masking plate 2a is printed with a concealable printing ink while leaving only a portion of the masking plate 2a transparent so that the electronic information of the electronic display portion laminate 2b can be seen. The power supply terminal support plate 2c is a plate necessary to protect the back surface of the electronic display unit laminate 2b and supply power from the product display shelf 7 to the electronic display unit laminate 2b. And the layers 2b and 2c are laminated via a conductive adhesive or the like. In order to fix the electronic shelf label to the shelf with magnet rubber or the like, a thin metal piece felt by a magnet may be attached to the shelf on the contact side of the power supply terminal support plate 2c as described above. As described above, the electronic information display unit 2 obtained by laminating 2a, 2b, and 2c is fixed to a product display shelf to which a power supply is wired, together with the printed print information display unit 3.

In FIG. 3, a masking plate 2a made of a transparent resin is made opaque by printing a masking ink on the other portions while leaving an electrophoretic display portion on a transparent plastic. Reference numeral 21 denotes an opaque portion formed by masking ink printing, and reference numeral 22 denotes a transparent portion. Further, the opaque section 2 formed by the masking ink printing is provided in the price display section 23.
Before printing No. 1, prints such as "member price", "regular price", and "yen" are printed in reverse characters on the inside of the plate as shown in FIG.

In FIG. 4, the electronic display unit laminate 2b is
They are laminated to form a uniformly flat film. A DC voltage is applied to the electronic display bottom plate 24 of the electronic information display unit 2 via a lead 26 in a space (corresponding to the segment display unit 25) in which a dispersion medium containing electrophoretic particles described later is sealed, which is described later. Power supply circuit 28, a booster circuit, an IC chip 27 for temporarily storing display information, a DC power supply circuit 30 for sending a DC current to the power supply circuit 28, and a thin foil of conductive material or metal. The formed spiral data receiving antenna 29 is formed. Electronic display bottom plate 24 on which the various functional components are mounted
Is covered with a transparent film (not shown) on which a counter electrode is formed via an adhesive (not shown) also serving as a gap filling material, and laminated so that the entire surface 2b has substantially the same thickness. Is done.

In FIG. 5, the power supply terminal 31 is
c is a pre-drilled hole, and a metal contact 4
Has been fixed. The power supply terminal support plate 2c
Contacts 4 viewed from the power supply terminal 31 opened at
And a metal foil exposed (not shown) on the back side of the DC power supply circuit 30 in FIG. 4 in a similar manner using a conductive adhesive.

In FIG. 6, first, the display-side transparent film 2
41, a closed space is formed by the non-display side substrate 242 and the spacer 243, and the space is filled with the dispersion medium 254 and the electrophoretic particles 253. The driven voltage is applied to the transparent electrodes 251 and 252 facing each other via the lead 281.
52 is applied. Negative voltage on electrode 251, electrode 252
When a positive voltage is applied to each of the electrodes, the electrophoretic particles 253 floating in the dispersion medium 254 migrate to the positively charged electrode side. As a result, the color of the dispersion medium 254 is displayed on the electrode 251 on the display side. Thus, the positive electrode
Alternatively, by selectively applying a negative voltage, an image based on a difference in color between the electrophoretic particles and the dispersion medium can be expressed. Therefore, by printing (21) the masking ink of FIG. 3 in a color close to the color of the electrophoretic particles 253,
Only the price information can be shown in a different color with the entire front of the electronic shelf label as the background. Also, in FIG. 4, the color of the dispersion medium in the portion 2b1 is red, and the color of the dispersion medium in the portion 2b2 is black.
For example, by making the color of the electrophoretic particles and the print color of 21 in FIG. 3 white, it is possible to express two different pieces of information in the same background color (21). In the above example, the color of the electrophoretic particles and the background are the same. However, the color of the electrophoretic particles can be changed by matching the color of the dispersion medium with the background color.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 7, since the electrophoretic particles are easily aggregated in the dispersion medium to cause display unevenness in the method of FIG. 6, a method devised for improvement (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. No. 10-149118), the microcapsules 255 and the vehicle 256 are used together with the display-side transparent film 24.
1. The space filled by the non-display side substrate 242 and the spacer 243 is filled. According to this method,
By making the permittivity of the electrophoretic display liquid containing the electrophoretic particles and the dispersion medium in the microcapsules 255 substantially the same as that of the vehicle 256, the contrast can be enhanced and high-quality image can be obtained. FIG. 8 shows a cross section of the microcapsule used in FIG.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an outline of an electronic shelf label system.
1, the product code, the regular price, and the member price are extracted for each store from the store 1, and the infrared light emitting device 54 installed on the ceiling of the sales floor or the like from the transmitting device 53 through the receiving terminal (not shown) of each store.
Send to Store employees walk around each product display shelf,
While receiving data from the infrared light emitting device 54 to the handy terminal 55, it communicates with the electronic shelf labels 56, 57, 58,
Perform operations such as changing prices instantly. The employee confirms the number displayed on the display of the handy terminal and the number displayed on the electronic shelf label, and sequentially changes the contents of the shelf label.
For a new product, a new electronic shelf label 1 is set on the display shelf, and based on the price set on the list,
Tap the key of the handy terminal, enter the product code, regular price, and member price into the handy terminal, confirm it on the display of the handy terminal, and send it to the electronic shelf label. The communication between the handy terminal and the electronic shelf label is performed by electromagnetic waves, and the information emitted from the handy terminal is received by the data receiving antenna 29 of the electronic shelf label in FIG. Parts 2b1, 2
It is displayed in b2.

In FIG. 10, an electronic shelf label is set on each shelf 7 of the supermarket 6, and is transmitted to a handy terminal from an infrared light emitting device 54 attached to a ceiling or the like of each floor. The shopper pays at the checkout point where the POS register 8 is installed.

(Material) Next, the material will be described.

The print information display section 3 selects a material having a good coloring effect by a color printer, or a material having a high printing effect in the case of printing. For example, in the case of printing, coated paper, art paper, and the like are more preferable, and in the case where the sales floor has high humidity, synthetic paper is preferable. The power supply contact on the back side of the power supply terminal support plate may be anything as long as it conducts electricity, but is preferably made of a metal which has good workability and hardly generates rust, for example, copper and chrome plated products, brass, aluminum, lead, etc. . The synthetic resin used for the masking plate 2a made of the transparent resin of the electronic information display body is polyester, polycarbonate, polyvinyl chloride, which has good transparency and is easy to process.
It can be selected from films such as polyvinyl acetate and methacrylic resin. The printing method of the masking plate 2a is preferably a silk-screen printing method in which ink with high opacity can be used and a wide selection of inks depending on the printing material is provided. In order to enhance the concealment property, metal powder may be mixed with the ink of the opaque portion 21 formed by the masking ink printing, or the ink obtained by mixing the metal powder after printing the 21 may be printed in the same pattern. Although the power supply terminal support plate 2c does not require transparency, the selection range is wide,
Since it is easier to select the adhesive if the material is the same as the electronic display bottom plate 24 of the electronic information display device described later, the same material as in the above 2a is selected from films of polyester, polycarbonate, polyvinyl chloride, polyvinyl acetate, methacrylic resin and the like. I do.

Next, the electronic display bottom plate 24 needs to be formed with a power supply circuit or an electrode by a conductor, and can be selected from films of polyester, polycarbonate, methacrylic resin and the like which can withstand relatively high temperatures. 25, 2
Each of 6, 251 and 252 needs to be a conductive material that transmits light, and indium tin oxide (ITO) or the like is generally used. The IC chip 27 is preferably an electrically rewritable flash memory, and a memory capacity of about 1 Kbit is sufficient. The data receiving antenna 29 and the DC power supply circuit 30 are formed by printing with conductive ink, wrapping a thin copper wire on a loop and bonding it with an adhesive, or pattern etching a metal foil, often a copper foil. I do. In addition, the DC power supply circuit 30 is formed by pattern-etching a copper foil in order to conduct with the contact 4 via the power supply terminal support plate 2c.

Since the display side transparent film 241 needs to form a counter electrode, it is preferable to use the same material so that the expansion and contraction ratio is the same as that of the above-described electronic display portion bottom plate 24. Polyester, polycarbonate, methacrylic It is preferable to select a film having high transparency from a resin or the like. Note that the spacer 243 is provided with
The electronic display unit bottom plate 24
It is preferable that the same material is used.

Next, as the electrophoretic particles 253, for example, a material in which a white pigment such as titanium dioxide is dispersed in transparent wax, zinc oxide, or the like is used. The dispersion medium 254 includes, for example, hexylbenzene, an isoparaffin hydrocarbon,
A mixture of a blue dye and an ionic surfactant in an insulating organic solvent such as tetrafluorodibromoethane or perfluoropolyether is used.

Next, the materials used in the method using microcapsules will be described. A mixture of zinc sulfide, a surfactant, a spun titanium coupling agent, a blue anthraquinone dye, and hexylbenzene as a material encapsulated in the microcapsules 255 is subjected to an average particle diameter by a complex coacervation method using a gum arabic gelatin. Is adjusted to an average of about 35 microns. Vehicle 25
6 is a mixture of a silicone-based, acrylic-based, ester-based, urethane-based compound and the like, and a compound such as an alcohol, a ketone, and a carboxylate, and has a dielectric constant substantially equal to that of the dispersion medium inside the capsule. Adjust as follows.

EXAMPLE A 7-segment electrode pattern was formed of indium tin oxide (ITO) on each inner side of a polyester having a thickness of 100 μm, and a copper foil was attached to one of the polyesters, and the antenna pattern was etched. 29 were formed, and the outline of each number was formed as a spacer by silk screen printing using a rectangular pattern of 7-segment numbers as a unit, and the thickness of the spacer at this time was 100 μm. Next, a 128-byte EEPROM (IC memory chip) having a thickness of 50 μm was adhered to a part 30 of the copper foil, and connected to a power supply terminal, an antenna terminal, and an electrode voltage supply circuit by wires.

Next, a dispersion of electrophoretic particles dispersed in a dispersion medium is dropped on the inside of the spacer by silk-screen printing, and the outside of the spacer is solvent-free over the entire surface up to the IC chip and the data receiving antenna. And the two polyester films were bonded together. A mixture of hexylbenzene, a blue dye, and an ionic surfactant was used as a dispersion medium, and a dispersion of titanium oxide in a transparent wax having an average particle size of about 70 μm was dispersed in electrophoretic particles. .

On the back surface of the non-display side substrate on which the data receiving antenna is wired, the power supply terminal plate 2c is directly connected with a conductive adhesive through a hole (not shown) formed in the display unit bottom plate of the electronic information display body. Affixed. A masking plate 2a made of a polyester film was bonded to the electronic display unit laminate 2b. A 5V DC power supply was supplied to the prototype electronic shelf label in this way, and an electromagnetic wave having a frequency of 2.45 GHz was transmitted from the transmitting terminal to form a number on the display unit. As a result, a high-contrast electronic swimmer was displayed on the masking plate. The display was able to be obtained. Further, even if the power supply was stopped, the displayed information was continuously displayed as it was.

[0029]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, a receiving unit for receiving display information such as a product price from an external terminal,
A power-saving, inexpensive, and thin electronic shelf label including a storage unit for storing the display information, a display unit for displaying the display information in an electrophoretic manner, and a contact for receiving power supply is provided. can do.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view of an electronic shelf label according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic sectional view taken along line AA of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a front view of 2a in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is an exploded front view of 2b in FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a front view of 2c in FIG. 2;

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of an electrophoretic display.

FIG. 7 is a display method using a microcapsule.

FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view of the microcapsule used in FIG.

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of an electronic shelf label system.

FIG. 10 Layout example of a supermarket

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 electronic shelf label 2 electronic information display section 2a masking plate made of transparent resin 2b electronic display section laminate 2b1 display section 1 2b2 display section 2 2c power supply terminal support plate 3 print information display section 4 power supply contact 6 inside supermarket 7 product display Shelf 8 POS register 21 Opaque part 22 Transparent part 23 Price display contents printing part 24 Electronic display part bottom plate 25 Segment display part 26 Lead 27 IC chip 28 Power supply circuit 29 Data receiving antenna 30 DC power supply circuit 31 Power supply terminal 51 Data File 52 Host computer 53 Transmitting device 54 Infrared light emitting device 55 Handy terminal 56, 57, 58 Electronic shelf label 241 Display-side transparent film 242 Non-display-side substrate 243 Spacer 251, 252 Transparent electrode 253 Electrophoretic particles 254 minutes Medium 255 microcapsules 256 vehicle 257 microcapsules transparent outer wall 280 DC power supply 281 lead

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A contact for receiving power supply, a receiving unit for receiving display information such as a product price from an external terminal, a storage unit for storing the display information, and displaying the display information by an electrophoretic method. An electronic shelf label comprising a display unit. 2. The electronic shelf label according to claim 1, wherein a receiving unit that receives the display information from an external terminal is an antenna. 3. The electronic shelf label according to claim 2, wherein the display information storage unit that stores the display information is an IC chip. 4. The electronic shelf label according to claim 3, wherein the information to be displayed in one shelf label is displayed in a different color for each type.