Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative (vice.com)
186 points by depressedCorgi on June 20, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 105 comments



This isn't really equivalent to a kindle though. The fonts are basic, there's no enclosure. Fonts are a huge thing for eReaders and Amazon has spent a lot of time perfecting them.

It's also important to remember that it's perfectly possible to use the Kindle without DRM. You can just put your own books on it with a cable, though you'll have to convert them to MOBI as it doesn't do ePub. The same can be done with other brands like Kobo, which can take raw ePub. Also, the Kobo's can be pretty easily modified as they just run plain Linux, I'm running PyGame on an older one. The entire OS was simply on an internal SD card so really easily modified (though not sure if the new ones can be modified too).

I think the problem with DRM and ebooks is not the readers. It's the availability of books without DRM... Basically the "GOG" of eBook stores. Even if you have an open eBook reader, where are you going to get the books from?

I think for the reader, I would prefer to buy commercial hardware as look and feel is an important thing for a device you will interact with a lot. Similar to the way us Open Source aficionados don't build our own laptops, but do use free software :)


Most technical books I buy are sold by DRM free sites: informit.com, oreilly.com (although they don't seem to be much in the book selling business anymore), pragprog.com, raywenderlich.com, or single book sites such as Building Git (https://shop.jcoglan.com/building-git) or Haskell Programming from first principles (https://haskellbook.com)


>I think the problem with DRM and ebooks is not the readers. It's the availability of books without DRM... Basically the "GOG" of eBook stores. Even if you have an open eBook reader, where are you going to get the books from?

libgen


... it's clear the OP meant, where do you obtain / purchase books legally (i.e., without violating copyright & piracy laws).


Why would you care about violating a law nobody on earth has any chance of catching you and punishing you. If you want to give money to the author you could consider seeing if they have a way to take donation/patronage or buying a physical copy. If you don't actually need the physical copy or have room for it gift it to someone and request that they gift it when they are done with it.


You kind of answered your own question -- it's not about the getting caught (in my opinion), it's about the ethics of the author getting compensated for their work.


- try emailing the author directly, asking for a pdf/zip file in exchange for paypal payment. sometimes they can't because of their publisher, but they're often happy to.

- download the content through whatever means are most convenient for you, and paypal the author/mail the author a check. My money has never been returned :)


> I think the problem with DRM and ebooks is not the readers.

At least Kindles do track what the user is reading even if it wasn't purchased on Amazon so having a good, high quality, open source e-ink device would be of great benifit. [1]

> I think for the reader, I would prefer to buy commercial hardware as look and feel is an important thing for a device you will interact with a lot.

In the case of laptops, at least 99% of the software can be replaced save for stuff like the BIOS and Intel ME, etc. In the case of phones and devices where side loading the OS is not currently possible both due to the hardware being more specialized AND the manufactors locking the systems down to prevent modification of the software; there are open source hardware systems like the PinePhone and the do laptops as well. [2]

Also unless anything has changed, the DRM can be removed from Amazon ebooks so it's not a huge deal compared to DRM on other media like Ulra-HD Blurays.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117217/amazon-kindle-tr...

[2] https://www.pine64.org/


> At least Kindles do track what the user is reading even if it wasn't purchased on Amazon so having a good, high quality, open source e-ink device would be of great benifit.

How do they do that without any account, registration and internet connection? I use my kindle entirely for offline reading of books I copy over cable.


Well then obviously not. Note that turning the info off isn’t always enough. I can’t remember if it was my kindle or my kobo but it knew my WiFi password and would turn the WiFi home periodically without my knowing to call home anyway.


>Even if you have an open eBook reader, where are you going to get the books from?

At the very least, Baen and Tor offer DRM free ebooks of their offerings.


ebooks.com has plenty of them, Kobo has some of them, and pretty much every publisher offers DRM-free works if you purchase directly from their website (to name a few: Smashwords, Verso, No Starch). Oh, and there's Humble Bundle. Sometimes there's watermark involved, but I'm personally completely fine with that.

If all else fails, you can remove DRM protection from pretty much any major DRM method (Adobe Adept ePub and PDFs, Barnes & Noble ePubs, Kindle ebooks, Kobo ebooks).


The other issue I have with the enclosure is it looks like the page-turn buttons are in the center on the bottom. Who would ever feel comfortable holding the thing like that? The buttons should be on the sides, and not at the bottom.

Regardless, though, it's a really cool project and I could see it morphing into something just as good or better than a commercial e-reader after a few iterations.


> The buttons should be on the sides.

Both sides please. the 10% of the population that are left handers will thank you.


You don't even need the cable. You can use their Send to Kindle email feature (that's advertised for "documents") to send .mobi files. They then show up in the library same as any other Kindle book, cover and all, and even sync their last read position across devices.


Aside from libgen, you can also buy your books from amazon or Kobo and use calibre with the dedrm plugin to free your books. You can then load books from any platform to any reader and keep a copy of them yourself. Even if they delete the ebook from your device, the one you dedrmed will still be there.


> Even if you have an open eBook reader, where are you going to get the books from?

There's a huge ebook pirating scene, so you could always do that, buying the book beforehand if the ethics disturb you.

What is sad to me is that there's no way to check out an ebook from a library in a way that doesn't involve Amazon.


> there's no way to check out an ebook from a library in a way that doesn't involve Amazon

Isn't this what Libby - https://libbyapp.com/ - does?


I use overdrive from my kobo. I have three library cards in it, unfortunately I can't use them three at the same time so depending on what kind of book I want, I switch accounts. I can search, reserve, and borrow from any of those consortiums directly from the Kobo device.


But then you can't use it on an e-reader. It remains in the app.


Libby (and by extension Overdrive) supports checking out books onto supported e-readers. They must support either the Kindle or Adobe DRM standards though.

https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6059.htm


Overdrive, which is what most libraries I know of use, supports Kindle, Adobe, and it's open format (which IIRC cannot be downloaded and must be viewed in the browser/app one page at a time).


Overdrive is supported on-device by Kobo ereaders.


> I think the problem with DRM and ebooks is not the readers. It's the availability of books without DRM

I have a 'niche' interest in SFF magazines and for that, WeightlessBooks fills it well [1] by offering subscriptions to Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, Interzone, Locus (the Newspaper of the SFF world) and many others.

I also occasionally buy non-DRM books from Smashwords [2] and there are plenty of other dedicated non-DRM book/story sellers out there [3]

[1] https://weightlessbooks.com/

[2] https://www.smashwords.com/

[3] https://www.libreture.com/bookshops/


> it doesn't do ePub

I was able to easily jailbreak mine and it does ePub fine after that. I don't think a home-made device offers me any more freedom than a jailbroken kindle; I can drop to a shell and do all the same things. That said, while I enjoy tinkering, basically the only non-stock things I do are read ePubs and play zork. I'd prefer to save my tinkering for a desktop or laptop and keep a device just for reading books.


Unfortunately that's getting harder and harder to do. I have a second gen Kindle Oasis from about 3 years ago and there is no working jailbreak for it for any recent firmwares. It's really annoying because I love the hardware, I just wanna tinker with the software.


This signals that you are OK with drm.


I'd buy one if:

1) It was prebuilt, plug-and-play.

2) It comes as a kit. I can do it as a project with my kid. Once assembled, it's as above. Kit is consumer-friendly.

Digikey parts list and PCB is a little over my laziness tolerance.

People confuse free-as-in-freedom with free-as-in-not-making-a-profit. I've done free-as-in-freedom businesses, successfully. I wish others did too.

A lot of manufacturers underestimate the power of 100% open. I'm not price-sensitive. I'll pay for it. If my cheap Chinese [tablet/keyboard/mouse/webcam/etc.] comes with a PCB schematic, parts list, and open source firmware, I'll probably pay triple and prefer it to a Logitech/Razor/etc. I'll give nice online reviews too.

And the designs are simple enough no competitive edge is lost.

On the other side, projects like this, lacking a business model, rarely get mature enough for me to use. Make 'em nice and sell 'em, I say.

And yes, there will be cheaper clones, so profit margins can't be insane, but people will pay extra for the original branded version, AND profit margins can't be insane in competitive markets either way.


Digikey parts list + pcb can be a reasonably convenient way to put your own kit together - you can upload a csv to digikey and have them fill your shopping cart automatically, and it works pretty well. They even suggest alternatives like if your list had 8x an item, but it is actually cheaper to buy 10x the item it will suggest that.


One big difference is that if I order a parts list and PCB based on your web site, if you've made an error or have a part missing, I'm stuck debugging. If you're putting together a kit, you've (presumably) gone through and made sure it's all there and all works together. That includes the auxiliary stuff, like firmware, or having a case.

Another big difference is if I place three orders, and one comes up out-of-stuck or delayed by months, I get stuck with a useless 2/3 of a kit. I can't return the useless 2/3, since those vendors didn't mess up. If you're selling me a kit, you're doing logistics for me.

Even with things with standard parts, like putting a computer or bicycle together from standardized parts, I've had issues. With DIY, this thing can explode.


As someone who has several pcb + digikey projects, I don't buy this.

It's literally 2 clicks instead of one click. 3 clicks to add the 3d-printed part fromShapeways.

It IS already exactly, a kit. You get a box in the mail that has everything in it, it just says DigiKey on the box instead of mydumbproject.org

That's 3 fully pre-loaded urls all together in one spot. No uploading a csv. Just click the link and up pops a pre-loaded shopping cart. If anything is out of stock, you see that before buying not after they ship 1/2 of it.

I'm exactly the same amount likely to "forget to include some parts" in my painstakingly crafted digikey cart as in any kit. It takes days sometimes to hunt down and figure out just what all should go in the cart because there are 500 versions of everything. You don't do that much work to leave things out.

I want to share my efforts for whoever wants it, or just for reference, not run a mail order business. I have a day job. The stuff is free, the knowledge and directions are written up into a followable recipe, in a wiki and github which I don't even have to be the only one who can improve over time, and you only have to pay the actual material suppliers, and fill out 3 order forms instead of one. And when I lose interest or die, it's all still there without me to keep providing it.

If you think it makes so much sense to provide that last little bit of service, and charge for it, feel free to start up and run that business. You can take all my stuff and produce and sell those kits. I bet you have no interest in that though because you have better things to do. Yeah, me too, and this ereader guy too. If you want anything more, you want a Kobo or any of the other 50 rootable no-names. Those already exist. You don't need this or a kit version of this for that.

Figuring out what all to put in that digikey cart was the 900x hard part, but clicking 2 links instead of one is just over your laziness threshhold? OK.

You have to buy the pcb from a different link? Well you have to buy batteries from somewhere else even for a complete finished product let alone a kit, and a protective cover, and a memory card, and a car charger, and headphones, any number of extra bits like that. The book reader didn't already come with the books I hate to surprise you with that outrageous ommission. This argument just doesn't wash on so many levels.


I'm not complaining about what you're doing. I'm describing what I want. You can accuse me of being unreasonable, but people said the same thing about remote controls. Who'd be lazy to not just want to walk over and switch a channel on the TV? And countless other conveniences.

I'm also not asking YOU to do anything differently. You have a day job, and with however many kits you've made, no way in heck this would compete with YOUR day job. I also want a blueberry plant in my back yard. Neither you, nor this ereader guy, nor even the local garden store have any obligation to give me that. It's a free market.

But yes, I do think there's a pretty good business in providing that last little bit of service. I'd pay for it, and I suspect many others would as well. You can view this as an integration of Digikey+Shapeways+PCB. Or you can view this as an expansion of AdaFruit/SEEED/etc. to be more open. Or you can view this as moving cheap Chinese manufacturing up-market.

And I'd buy an open source Kobo too, for that matter. There's a world of difference between a rootable device and an open source device too. Most rootable devices I have are now sitting in storage somewhere, unused, when the fun ran out and the maintenance overhead kicked in. One or two were never used, as rooting became a pain-in-the-butt, some feature I needed was missing, or there was some hardware change between the rooted version and the one I bought. Most open source devices I have are in active use, some with a few tweaks.

I'm glad to support open. I value my freedom. I also like having things which keep working, and open mitigates risks (if the manufacturer goes under, the community sometimes takes over). I'm glad to pay for that.

However, I'm busy, and I'm not glad to buy a headache. That goes double for people less technical than you or me, ones who want projects for kids, etc.


The kindle doesn't lock you into Amazon's ecosystem though... It supports many different formats, Calibre allows you to convert your books to a kindle-specific format for convenience and I've yet to find an ebook DRM that can't be easily cracked...


Same experience here. I have literally never purchased a single book from Amazon, though I have read lots of their free "classics editions". I've jailbroken my paperwhite so I can read/do whatever I want, but I still get great battery life and the ability to do things like send to my kindle over e-mail. I get the free-as-in-freedom guys' argument, but I'm perfectly happy with my device and like the convenience of a simple book-reading device.


Exactly. Don't get me wrong, I love open source hardware as much as the next guy but fixing something that isn't broken is a plain old waste of time.


I want an e-ink web browsing tablet.

I want to be able to go to nytimes.com, or Vox, or Hacker News, and read the articles and comment threads on a high-contrast screen that doesn't hurt my eyes. I don't want to use some read-later service that sends specific articles to my e-reader, I want to just navigate to the sites directly. There would be trade-offs for sure, but it seems like the benefits would outweigh the downsides.

I've been waiting for ~ 10 years now. Am the only one? Is anyone ever going to make this?


There are many, you're just not seeing them because they're probably out of your usual tech bubble. Check goodereader.com for their eReader reviews. They often review eReaders which are running Android with web browsers in it, recently they reviewed a couple eInk smartphones, including a color eInk one.

There is a lot going on in the eReader world but it is at the fringe of the tech bubble of SV. It is in Europe and Asia, specially Asia.

The usual FAANG companies don't want you using that stuff because it moves you away from their silos and platforms. If you start using a device to read books away from their profiling disguised as social interaction, away from their ad machines, and walled garden shops, they lose money. Oh boy, that sounded way more conspirational than I wanted. What I want to mean here is that since these type of eReaders do not favour major tech companies from the USA, they're usually not covered in their platforms or news media that follows SV stuff.


Indeed, came to say the same thing. I have the Likebook Mars Android device, and it's leaps and bounds better than the Kindle.

Literally my only complaint about the device is that it runs an outdated and heavily skinned version of Android. I wouldn't recommend this device today for that reason, but there are a lot of options running newer versions these days.

It's a shame Google doesn't offer a "pixel" device like this, unlocked and without all the junk. For whatever reason, though, Google seems completely uninterested in eink.


Both the Kindle and the Kobo have "experimental" web browsers, but it you try to read any webpage that was made after the year 2000 or so, the site is nearly impossible to navigate on them. Even freaking Wikipedia mobile pages are pretty annoying to read on my Kobo. I end up saving the page to Pocket if it's particularly long due to the headache of e-ink redrawing on longform pages.

The hardware isn't enough. The modern web itself resists being displayed on single-purpose devices.


Now that you mention it - this makes an open source device such as this interesting. Make it go through your own self-hosted proxy, which renders the page to and sends over something suitable for the ereader. Like Opera Mini if anyone remembers. I think calibre has features that can be used as a foundation to build on.


Hmm I remember that opera browser in the early days of iOS, that’s not a bad idea! Kinda like a plex transcode but for text.

How would you navigate tho?


You could still have a web browser with address bars and links and all that, just with “transrendered” responses. No need for css or JS.


It's not quite the same, but Calibre can actually generate epubs from websites. There's a recipe called "HN with comments links" which will create an epub with the articles from the current front page. It works surprisingly well. I have a VPS which generates this daily and which I download onto my Kobo in the morning.


Yeah- part of the reason is that a browser is an extremely expensive piece of machinery to host from a hardware utilization perspective. The horsepower required on the device is extremely high.

eInk displays are incredibly limited- low refresh rates, low density, limited/no color, limited/no touch etc.

It just doesn't make sense to build a product with that combination- high end under the hood, low end IO to the user.


Those exists now, in the form of eink Android phone/tablet. The refresh rate of eink makes their experience suboptimal, but some find it usable enough.

You can search for Boox tablet, or Hisense A5 phone.


Oh that's interesting, I missed this one: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/review-onyx-boox-max3-a...

I know I shouldn't be complaining about price now that I've heard it exists at all, but $840 is really steep! I was thinking something more like $400. I know it's a niche product, but even so.


Take a look at the smaller models, like Onyx Nova 2 or Note 2; if you're ok with smaller size, they're cheaper


The Max3 has a giant screen (larger than the biggest iPad Pro). I'm still getting used to mine, but I mostly like it.

The web browsing experience is OK, but it's slow and monochrome.


Monochrome is expected. Do you say it's slow because of the screen's refresh rate, or do pages take a long time to render?

I'm kind of eying the BOOX Nova2, which is in my price range at $340. The screen is 7.8", which is ~ 2" smaller than what I'd ideally want, but not by much.


It's mostly the refresh rate, I think. The processor is fairly decent.


what was interesting was this one:

I thought the boox was interesting

But what about this one? https://amzn.com/B07XG9T898

it's a lenovo laptop with an e-ink screen


It's interesting, but I really have no interest in a laptop I can't type on.

On a tablet, I just acknowledge that I won't be typing, and I live with it due to the form factor's other advantage (namely, it's easier to lay back on the couch with a tablet than a laptop).


I think there's an actual keyboard on the other side of the e-ink screen. So It appears to have an lcd display, an e-ink display and a keyboard.


No the keyboard is a virtual keyboard using the e-ink display.

You can type, in the sense that what you type is appearing on the fast color screen not the e-ink, so you can go as fast as you want.

But it's probably terrible because there are no mechanical keys, just a flat touch screen displaying a virtual keyboard like an ipad.


Also Kingrow K1, although I'm not sure they're available for sale anywhere yet - I got mine from the crowdfunding campaign. It makes for a very convenient eInk reader with the corresponding apps installed (and it comes with Kindle out of the box).

Unfortunately, there's no Google Play Store on it. But that doesn't preclude web browsing with Chromium or Firefox.


There's also ones from Sony, Supernote, and Remarkable.


None of those appears to be Android, which IMO makes them have less utility value. There's definitely pros and cons though, and one should research which is right for them.


Android sucks on tablets. I had a Nexus 7 which is probably the last and only decent Android tablet.

I know the Remarkable has some third party software for it because it's running a version of Linux. The others probably do as well.


Huawei M5 8.4" is an excellent Android tablet very much in the spirit of Nexus 7 (but with better screen and other hardware).


I used to think so too, until I tried and bought one of the recent Samsung Tabs. Excellent experience on par with iPad.


Sure, the hardware is great. Depending on what you do, it's the software that is miles behind. The Android app situation is worse to begin with and Android developers pay almost no attention to big screen tablets because so few people have them. The app situation on the iPad isn't amazing, but it is better. I think Procreate alone is responsible for a lot of iPad sales.

Plus Android tablets are deceptively expensive. They aren't going to receive updates for as long as the iPad and when you sell it, the resale value is as good.


Me too. I've been keeping my eyes out for an e-ink based Android smartphone for a couple years now. There are a couple options out there - largely Asia-based manufacturers - but none of them have proper support for the frequencies my cell carrier uses.


I really wanted the Pixel Qi to release something and succeed but they are gone now.


Same here. Every once in a while I look at the OLPC sitting in my closet and wish I had the electronics knowledge to be able to hook the screen up to a raspberry pi.


My Kobo Glo has an experimental web browser that works fairly well. It has no reader mode which would be nice on an eReader, but its still a reasonable experience.


Well, the Kindle has a web browser. What's wrong with that?


It's slow to the point of being painful to use, never mind actually pleasant. I know the refresh rate is always going to be crap, but there's no reason we can't get half-decent internals alongside an e-ink screen.


Have you tried the Kindle Oasis?


Is the Oasis performance that different than the Paperwhite?

I personally am less concerned with closed-platform reader technology, and more concerned with closed-platform content. If a reader will let me sideload my open content, I'm reasonably okay with it. (Yes, I acknowledge supporting such an ecosystem is contributing to the overall problem.)


Glider pilots have simialar requirements - they need screens readable in bright dailight, which is most of their flights (really, if you are under a cloud for extended ammount of time, you are either rapidly loosing height as there are not thermals anymore or are entering a cloud on top of a thermal, which should be avoided at all costs due to gliders being VFR only) to display maps and navigation apps.

The problem is that most gliders are not very rich & fly on shared hardware of the local flying club. So there is no incentive for manufacturers to build a device for this kinda small and nit very afluent community.

IIRC a couple years ago some of them we using hacked Kobo devices.


I've tried it a few times on my kindle, and it sounds like a nice things to have. However, the screen's refresh rate is crazy low. I'm guessing that can be improved, but that would likely come with a battery life hit. More importantly, good luck scrolling on a webpage where it takes you a second to see how far you've scrolled. Same issue were you to respond to a comment: typing with that sort of latency is absolutely dreadful. E-ink works great for displaying text and is so much better for reading than a screen, but there's definitely some more technological work to be done first.


I'd expect to be using the equivalent of page-up/page-down buttons to scroll through sites.

I wouldn't expect to be typing on it—but, I've absolutely seen e-ink screens that can refresh quickly enough for typing. They start artifacting a bit when you force them to refresh quickly—which lessens the contrast advantage—but then they fix themselves once the screen has a moment to "refresh" itself.


Just as you've said, it's a battery life / refresh rate trade-off. Dasung makes some e-ink tablets and external displays that have a dedicated hardware button to switch between various modes - in "fast mode", it's good enough to type text and use the mouse. But, of course, don't expect anything like Kindle battery life.


PocketBook is a reasonable DRM-free all-format alternative to Kindle.


Agreed. I've used their devices since the Pocketbook 360 days (5" screen with a hard cover - features that were uncommon).

It eventually stopped working this year, and a new review of the market place suggested they're one of the better options - so I picked up the HD3.

I can not understand how anyone could accept a vendor (especially one like Amazon) limiting or remote controlling my device's contents.


I've always felt PocketBook was way ahead of their competitors with a wider range of books, some of them dust and waterproof some with brighter and better screens: https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/catalog


Hoping for good things for this product but will put in an plug for the Remarkable- open source software, well designed and capable hardware, solid product vision.


Are you sure it's accurate to say the Remarkable uses open source software? Their website says it runs on "Codex — A purposely designed Linux-based operating system for low-latency digital paper displays", so at least the Linux kernel is open source, but look at their EULA: https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000028275...

"You are not entitled to modify or distribute the Software."

Doesn't sound like open source software to me.

Also, in this day and age, I believe that devices should be open hardware as well (as the Open Book appears to be). Open source software is a good start, but it isn't good enough.

Another Kindle alternative that is open software + open hardware is the Inkplate 6, I've pre-ordered one: https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6


I take the point, but two responses-

1) in practical terms, what you get is essentially an open, hackable platform. The CTO is a former KDE dev, you get root on the device, much of the product is being developed in the open-

https://github.com/reMarkable

And there are recipes for getting UI and background components running on the device. I have not done this, but do use the API in my own workflow to get content on the device.

2) Yes, they are building a product. A, say, religious commitment to open source, and/or open hardware, is a commitment to limit the range of decisions that may help the business to a much narrower set that adhere to the religion. Sometimes strict open source is good for business. Often it is not.

As someone who in his younger years has bought quite a large number of "open hardware" products, the software for which was always only barely usable, the business model hypothetical, and therefore never went anywhere and now litter the graveyard- I am very happy for this team to be doing the right things for the business.

It's a really good product, with a really bright future, and it also happens to be pretty open and hackable.

Kind of best case, in my opinion.

Cheers.


I'd also like to push back on your cynicism about open hardware products. I must admit that history is full of open hardware failures, like the adorable Chumby (what went wrong?), but times have changed and I think you will find that the open hardware is building significant momentum today, I'd encourage you to take another look.

The purchase that turned me into an open hardware evangelist was the Planck EZ mechanical keyboard: https://ergodox-ez.com/pages/planck

It's a joy to use. The layers feature of the open QMK firmware blew my mind and changed how I think about typing. The keyswitches take seconds to replace so it's extremely easy to repair/maintain, which is great for the planet. It's tiny and portable, which was perfect for my needs before the pandemic hit and I stopped going outside. And perhaps most importantly, the company seems pretty successful, they seem to be a competent business that is in it for the long haul.

I am also very impressed with my Pinebook Pro: https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/ The year of the Linux desktop may never come, but this shockingly cost-effective open hardware laptop convinced me to quit Apple products after a decade of loyalty. For my needs, which are mostly browsing the web, editing code, and SSH-ing into servers, it's good enough for like 1/10 of the price. I'll grant you that Pine64 is more of a hobbyist project than a business, but it seems extremely successful on its own terms and seems sustainable despite selling stuff basically at-cost.

I've now ordered a System76 Thelio desktop, also open hardware (although closer to Apple prices, performance costs money I guess). https://system76.com/desktops

I don't say all of this to suggest that Remarkable is bad, it seems pretty good. I'm just saying that it can be better on open source software and hardware, without it hurting the business or the product. It might even help.


Thanks for the link, the Github repos greatly strengthen your case that we should consider this to be using open source software.

I'd just like to say that I searched their website and wasn't able to find any link to these repos. I think that open source is something that should be touted as a feature, not something hidden in shame. Perhaps their target audience doesn't care about source code, but would it kill them to mention it somewhere?

In short, I think one factor in deciding whether a product is open source is whether it is advertised as open source (and has the repos to back that up). It's harder to get collaborators and benefit from open source if nobody knows that the source code has been published.


Remarkable + koreader has been one of my primary work tools for the last few months. However, it's the storage capacity that most aggravates me (a commonality among most ereaders).

Really, I wish we had a sort of eink (and lcd) tablet PC: general, bare hardware that it's just assumed you'll probably throw your own OS onto at some point. Make it ugly: four torx screws and the back comes off and you can access the battery and the mainboard and the onboard storage. Maybe an external micro SD slot.

Not android, just plain linux + off the shelf components with solid driver support.

The real frustration is that the Remarkable is 90% of the way there to such a thing.

If desktop computers had started out like tablets, we would have skipped over the Apple II and it would have been hermetically sealed Macs from the beginning.

The problem with projects like these (other than for fun) is that the software isn't where the issue is. It's the lack of open hardware. We reinvent too many wheels and never bother to get to the actual cart.


Yesterday I gave up looking for anything remotely like you describe and just ordered a remarkable. Not a huge disappointment, most of my enjoyment is gonna come from software hacking anyway, any physical device I build will look like a TP roll fort.


I just want a ReMarkable, because I want a more pen and paper experience. I can't justify the price at this time though, since I wouldn't be able to use it to the full potential for a couple more years, and I'm sure something better will be out by then, Unless the market decides that writing stuff down by hand isn't trendy anymore.


The only thing keeping me from getting one is the reading experience.

I don't mind the lack of store so much, but things like the dictionary and being able to sync and read "saved" articles from anywhere.


I vow for open standards and used to upload epub files to Google Play Books and read in my devices (Kindle Fire 8 - with Google Play sideloaded, iPhone, iPad) with decent Sync. In december I got a Kobo Aura 2, my eyes are more comfortable have less distractions but I lost ubiquity and sync, also E-reader feels slugish and dictionary font is very small even with glasses. It's a take the blue/red pill situation.


I'm so sad that WikiReader project, debuted in 2009, was abandoned in 2014.[0]

Hopefully, The Open Book looks more promising & would be able to fully replace WikiReader.

JFTR, Need write an article about The Open Book Project[1] on Wikipedia.[2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader

[1] https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Book


Also had a Kindle some years ago and walked the Calibre road : Problems wity text flow, TOC, that are not Calibre problems but poorly formated books even from high end publishing houses.


This is not a replacement.

I love my Kobo but tend to use my phone because I can buy books using the Amazon android app. I hate the UI (both navigation and the suggestions on which are never what I want to read next) but it works ok for buying books.

A replacement would be a book market place where I can buy DRM free books and use clients on any ebook reader to download them to native format supported by the reader. Wirelessly and without fear of someone keeping track of what I read.

Kobos can be hacked to some extent, but no replacement firmware exists to my knowledge. Their readers already run Linux but I'm sure that they don't release drivers for their display or UI source code.


I really wish the publishers/distributors supported OPDS. Either add in a user/password prompt that's not to speed, or just put tokens in the URLs. I'd buy far more ebooks from any distributor willing to do this.


Imagine an open-source iPod that won't have access to iTunes. It likely would be a success, but not a replacement.

I see the power of Kindle in the ease of buying books. I see the device as a storefront to Amazon's e-book collection.

To be more massively successful, such a device should come with access to a sync service (or several), and access to e-book stores. IDK if Amazon has an API for buying books, but definitely some e-book sellers with APIs exist.

And yes, of course it should allow uploading DRM-free books of your choice, and maybe integrate nicely with Calibre.

The software part of the project looks much bugger and gnarlier than the hardware part.


who would want to read anything on 4.2" display?

I've had bigger (4.5") display in smartphone 8 years ago and I would not call even that suitable for reading books

why is nobody discussing this and why they don't show the device in hand to show how ridiculously small it is?

> Main features: > 4.2" inch e-paper display with partial refresh, driven over a dedicated SPI bus.

https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book


I did all my (non-school) reading for my first half of college on a Nintendo DSi, before I got a tablet. High resolution, large screen, good backlight, fast display refresh rate--all of these improve the experience, but none of them is required, and if you've never used them then all you know is this is so much better than reading on my laptop. Sure, having a small screen is a little frustrating, but having easy buttons to change pages makes up for it (the DSi RL buttons were better than all tablets I've ever had) and once you get into your reading, you stop noticing.

Tips:

- set the background color as close as you can to the bezel color, and remove the margins if you have a small screen - Set the font size a little large if you have a low resolution screen; antialiasing makes it much easier to read, even if your screen is also small.

Tips if your device has a slow processor and little ram (I had all or most of this automated at the time, through a batch file and a custom calibre conversion profile)

- resize or remove images. I stored mine alongside the book rather than in it, saved as smaller 8bit PNG files. - split your ebooks into multiple files (~100kb/file without images allowed pages to load in <1/2 second) - Make sure the files in your epub are actually split by chapter (calibre can do this automatically, I think) - if you have control over file compression (I use a script to generate epubs), don't use high compression--especially if there's images.


you are ruining your eyesight by using such small display/letters and fixed focused distance, it may not look like that when you are young, but give it few years and you will see results

4.2" is OK for temporary reading for very short periods, but ebooks are usually used for long reading sessions and one would want to use it for years before throwing away


Is there any text-to-speech system that could run on hardware like this with good results? I still use my old Kindle Keyboard with sideloaded books because it has pretty decent text-to-speech (which Amazon removed from later revisions.) I've tried some open source TTS systems like festival and could never get any to work well enough to actually use (insufficient voice quality to work at faster reading speeds.)


My question is whether this device can download and read ebooks from Amazon? I don't have a Kindle and the small number of Amazon ebooks I have (many of them free), I read on Amazon's Reader page. My take on Amazon is they aren't going to make it easy to bypass their controls, both DRM and otherwise.


I have removed DRM from all of my Kindle book purchases over the years (over 100) to read as PDFs on my Remarkable without issue. The Calibre toolchain- bless the work of the author- is a little painful to use but works consistently and though it's a GUI, the CLI works as well and can be automated.

It is definitely possible to make de-DRM harder, but lots of things are possible and thankfully don't happen.


Calibre strips Amazon's DRM and most book reading software supports you fetching books directly from Calibre.


Note: not out of the box, but there's a plugin for that. Keywords that will lead you to it: Apprentice Alf.


Is there some ban against linking drm strippers on HN? I've seen countless links to scihub or to paywall bypasses on articles.


Looking at the GitHub page, I like how the board appears to be laid out like an equivalent of a literate program.


Yeah this stood out to me too! It costs nothing to add more silkscreen to the PCB and it serves as an excellent learning tool.


If there is not a kick starter for this yet I hope there is soon. I would back this immediately.


There isn’t a kickstarter but he does have a Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/joeycastillo





Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: