Open source e reader

doubtingtammy@lemmy.ml to Open Source@lemmy.ml – 320 points –

I recently got a Sony prs 600 e reader from 2009. The battery is at the end of its life (It lasts about 3 days with heavy reading, and a couple weeks without reading). No backlight, no Wi-Fi, just an SD card that I can load epub files and small PDFs. The screen is slow and the contrast isn't the best. The "touch screen" is the old resistive type where you really need to press with your nail or a stylus. Despite all those flaws, it's fantastic. It's just good enough for reading books.

I read with large text so I don't even need to put on glasses, and it's easier to read than an actual book. Combined with Anna's archive, I'm reading more than I ever have before. No Wi-Fi nd slow screen make the experience feel closer to an actual book than a smartphone. It's great to just have a device do one thing without distractions popping up every minute.

It's all old technology, but it's so rare to see anyone with an e-reader. Probably because they're still expensive and designed to microtransact the fuck out of you.

So do you think there could be a simple open source e reader? I see pine64 is making the "pinenote", but it's still just the developer version, it's expensive, doesn't have an sd card, and looks like it's trying to be a lot more than an reader. Maybe it'll come down in cost, or they'll release a simpler version? The biggest obstacle for making an e-reader seems to be the screen, so maybe the pinenote's screen could become something of a standard.

Or maybe I'm overthinking it, because there's already so many old Kindles and nooks out there that could be improved with a new battery and maybe new firmware too.

Thoughts?

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Kobo e-readers are known to be pretty hackable and many of their models can be used with 'KoReader' an open source e-reading OS/app

Very Cool, I didn't know about these. Maybe just keeping readers out of landfills is the way to go.

You might be in a better position than you realize! I see two great options for you:

Option 1.

Here's a new battery for your reader, it's about $13.

Here's a battery replacement video. It's amazingly simple! I forgot what wonderful times the aughts were for diy repair.

Option 2

If you're feeling a little more carefree and like saying "damn the aesthetics!" Especially when you mention keeping readers out of landfills:

Buy a broken eReader off of eBay that still turns on and scavenge the battery. Most of them seem to use the same voltage. If the battery you source doesn't fit, make a notch in the side of your reader and tape the new battery to the back or whatever. Donate the remainder to your local Makerspace.

If you end up enjoying your little rebellious repairs, buy bulk non-functioning eReaders and try using them to repair each other. Donate the functioning ones to your local library and the non-functioning parts to your local Makerspace.

You can also run KoReader on some Kindles. I have it on an old paper white.

I’m gonna look into that, we have an old kindle collecting dust that would be a good candidate I think!

Yeah, even if you don't hack em, I just use it for ebooks from my library and that works great. Not open source by a long shot, but wayyyyy better than kindle.

Damn I have a Kobo and didn't know this. Will definitely be doing this

The reason e-readers are still so expensive is because the company that makes the displays (E-ink) has a patent on them. The Pinenote website says it uses an E-ink panel so I'm assuming that's where they're sourcing from

A few years ago there was a potential competitor in the space (ClearInk) but....it looks like their website is gone and their Facebook page hasn't been updated in 5 years

You see, parents are a motor to innovation. (/s)

Hopefully the patent runs out soon...

parents are a motor to innovation

Absolutely. No parents -> No children -> No innovation.

Fucking Genius! (I would add the Simpsons Scorpio meme, but my instance currently is unable to handle images)

To be fair, e-ink has been reinvesting hard into RnD. That's why there have continued to be new generations of panels, with color capabilities and faster refresh-rates etc.

And yeah, the larger panels aren't cheap, but small cheap ones have already been used for years as re-usable price tags and product information displays in stores. They don't even need a battery as the image will stay on the screen without power until the next time they need to be programmed to show new product prices and details.

They might be charging a lot for the panels, but they are also not a patent troll, sitting on a technology without doing squat with it.

Yeah, but small, low res, slow-refresh ones without partial refresh (absolutely essential for ereaders and tablets) have not had patent limitations for a while I think.

They are simply called e-paper and there are many chinese manufacturers of them that sell them for "cheap".

I think basic patents are good for inventors but the way the system is set up to allow "evergreen" patenting is ridiculous. It heavily favors big businesses and pushes out the people the system was "supposed" to protect

Ah, thanks. That makes sense. I knew it was the screens, but didn't realize it's a whack patent issue

Yeah...I guess the original patent expired in 2018 but you know how patents go... "We changed one tiny thing and patented it again"

Do you know of any articles that talk about the patent aspect? This is the first I'm hearing of it and I'd be interested to learn more.

There's already projects going for open source firmware for pre existing hardware, such as inkbox and KoReader

I'm also watching the open book project. I'm hoping that supporting it will enable things to progress to the point where it gets in the hands of schoolchildren in developing countries

I like the Kobo readers they work very well. No bullshit or anything.

You don't even ever need to connect it to WiFi.

They are also much nicer than an ancient tablet form 2009.

Another option- Kindle paperwhite or even an old Gen 1 / gen 2 Kindle keyboard or other e-ink model. The old models can be battery swapped with only a guitar pick and a Philips screwdriver.

DNS ad blocker like PiHole, to block all the ads and telemetry while connected to WiFi. Keep WiFi off if not actively transferring books, as it wastes battery.

Sideload all your own books via whispernet free WiFi transfer or just plain USB.

Get free books from Gutenberg/Libgen/IRC/Usenet.

This is very workable and results in being able to read almost whatever you want for $0/year.

Get free books from Gutenberg/Libgen/IRC/Usenet.

I think Anna's Archive is still pretty popular as well

I do something similar to this. Paperwhite is permanently in airplane mode. Use Calibre to load books (from various sources) onto the paperwhite

I don't see a mention of PocketBook so here it is, last time I checked they are running a linux kernel and the source is available and the device should be moddable/hackable.

I am in love with my PB Touch HD 3, does exactly what it needs without any annoying stuff (but with goodies like backlight and blue filter). I did opt into using their cloud for book syncing (which is not required at all, usb cable works too or other clouds) but there was never an ad or intrusive thing, love it.

Not open source, but I use a Kobo Libra 2 with KoReader installed, and use Calibre to manage my library.

Though if waste is your concern, I would see about replacing the battery.

Some Kindles can be modded to use KO Reader as well.

MobileRead is my place to go for guides on how to jailbreak kindles for those interested. I'd link to the exact tutorial thread but I'm on mobile and can't seem to find it.

Also, I tried to just make a text post but voyager wouldn't let me

I don't remember the name of it but there is one. The only problem is it only takes text files iirc. also last I checked it was a PCB sandwich type device with open sides

7 more...

I had that exact same model 15 years ago. It got stolen and I'm still not over it. I got basic Kobo readers instead; they work fine with Calibre and any ebook you can get. I don't touch Amazon with a ten-foot pole, and I never use the Kobo account you have to create when buying the device.

But I'd give somebody's left arm to have the Sony back. It was perfect.

Interesting thoughts. Personally I use a pocketbook to read. It's been pretty good with a red light backlight for the dark(that is gentle for the eyes before sleep) a built-in dictionary and the ability to export notes from books. This is everything I need in an ereader. Unfortunately it has a browser, some unnecessary small games and some other features that anyone who buys relatively expensive ereaders(hence is committed to reading books) won't possibly ever need.

But the unnecessary features won't bother you too much. The UI is clean and easy to navigate.

Pocketbook is not open source or anything, but at least I don't fund Amazon's monopoly, it's a smaller company and it's definitely value for money imo.

ability to export notes from books

This is something I can't do on my Kobo and annoys me. Which pocketbook do you have?

It's a pocketbook era, but this feature will work for any pocketbook model that can highlight text, because the notes are exported through the pocketbook cloud in the app/website.

The closest I can offer to what you're asking for is that there are some e-readers that use Android. I own a Boox Page, which is one of those, and I'm happy with it. Boox products are a bit on the pricier side, but they do offer features that can be difficult to find on other manufacturers' offerings, such as a micro SD slot.

Yeah I have the Boox Page as well and I love it. i have a 256 gb as with so much room for games. Also i installed f droid and downloaded some open source eink apps.

Yeah but boox is full of chinese spyware. But you can root it and block some things with netguard.

remember owning a prestigio one and it was great, could just copy books onto an sd card and start reading them, the design was super sleek and stylish and it lasted like a whole week.

even had some extra features like viewing photos (if you wanted to do that on a b/w screen for some reason) and playing music while reading over 3.5mm jack on the top

broke the display pretty quickly tho, it's very repairable (even 12 year old me could've fixed it) but I decided not to buy a replacement eink because well i was 12 years old at the time and didn't have any source of income...

it was one of these bad boys:

There definitely should be a good open source e-reader, but for what it’s worth I use a Kobo Clara 2e (newer models are available in both black and white and colour eink) and it works fine for me.

I download books from various resources; like Project Gutenberg and use Calibre for managing them. Works pretty seamlessly, especially with the Calibre Kobo plugin for automatic conversion to the kepub format too. However this obviously requires the use of a computer, which may be a dealbreaker. Also Kobo works well with Overdrive for borrowing library ebooks, which is neat.

I don't know about open hardware but Inkbox is a FOSS OS which can be installed on Kobo devices. I'd like to try it out.

Briefly researched the idea after looking for an e-reader, a screen would be the most expensive part, a cheap microcontroller and battery would be the second ones, overall it would be more expensive than basic kindle with a lot worse capabilities, like worse screen etc

I have one of these in a box somewhere, maybe I should dig it out and see if the battery is still good.

I have a Sony Reader PRS-350 since 2011 and honestly the battery life never has been great. It's discharging too quickly when powered off and even faster when on standby.

The open book looks to be the sort of thing you're looking for, it's a very basic open source e reader

I bought a kindle 4 back when it first came out. I hacked it with duokan so i could put epubs on it. I never put it online and just sideload books on it with Calibre. Still going strong except battery is getting a little weak.

I just got an used Paperwhite. It was I think 50€. I never connected it to internet, I just transfer stuff with Calibre

I'm still using my PRS-505 I bought in 2009, it's amazing and l don't think I'll ever give it up.

I've still got my PRS-T2 from Sony, but I am regularly thinking about replacing it, because the low resolution is kinda wearing on me. Maybe with something from boox, they at least seem to not be bound to any store. Kinda pricy, though.

Cheaper and simplier devices can do that, I agree. Lowering gradations of grey can hurt comic books readers but won't hurt book reading routine that much. WiFi and bluetooth are convinient, but at the same time they hurts bettery life too much, so it's better to go without them. Sleeping or turned off mode is kinda stupid for it rerenders the whole page to show the default image on cheap devices - the goal as I see it is to minimize rerendering and thus turn off these completely. Touchscreens are rather useless and they too use power – a couple of physical buttons cover most needs. It's just the UI on most of them is very unfriendly, judging by chinese ones I had used, and open-sourcing it can save us a lot of headache. Backlit books though are here to be, and there should be a hotkey to turn it off and on, so one can resd it comfortably at any time and quickly avoid energy waste. Having SD card for everything exluding OS instead of internal memory would probably make it cheaper. And as we probably expecting schools to make them popular, there should be a dock for multiple devices to rapidly upload one collection of files to a dozen of devices.

Why is this website filled with unironic commies? Do you really want mass starvation so badly?

Yes, this is a communism diet site. It’s a weight loss program. Also we all share the same toothbrush and no iphone.

Are you Captain America, just unfrozen from Red Scare propaganda? specter

I hope you’re not so scared of the commie boogie man that you refuse to read Marx. It’s not even that long and it’s an important historical work, regardless of whether or not you agree with any of it.

I’ve read the Bible and i can assure you it bothered me more than the manifesto did. And it took a lot longer to read lol

Nelson Mandela learned Afrikaans.

If you're not learning everything you can about your opponent, how do you expect to beat them?

I get the spirit, but OP has already stated that they are a Communist. They are very much reading this to understand Marxism as a Marxist.

Plus, trying to "beat" Marxists on a site developed by Marxist-Leninists along Communist principles is pretty funny.

I know, I am too πŸ˜…

It was more of a minor troll haha

You're right, a lot of tankies on Lemmy, but I don't understand what's commie in open source concept, OP is right, e-readers are kinda expensive, composting to phones for example, being able to make an e-reader by yourself would be nice

Ah, the book title, to each their own, I think calling people out because book they read is kinda stupid, it's a small step from burning books

(pretty sure they are talking about the scary book that is the Communist Manifesto, which is visible in the picture. I think it is about a ghost haunting Europe or something)

I think its mainly jealousy and lack of purpose. They think things are bad but they have never experienced countries that actually have it bad. The problem is that we are currently having the american cultural revolution and they might get what they want.

You wandered into a communist website and then asked why there's communists here.

CableMonster is a libertarian petit bourgeois property flipper.

It's almost comforting seeing CableMonster around, like that one uncle. Consistently wrong and yet so tied to their own manufactured worldview.

It's crazy. I've noticed the same thing.

I'm surprised you had the courage to mention this in the comments. Most people ignored it. (As evidenced here)

If the OP had a book written by Orange man on their e reader they would be roasted into oblivion

This website is run by Marxists. The primary developers of Lemmy are Marxists. Haven't you wondered why ads aren't being shoved down your throat on this site?

This website is run by Marxists.

Do you have a source for that?

Dessalines is the lead dev. It isn't a secret, Lemmy was made along Communist principles.

Thanks

To be technical, Lemmy.World is run by Liberals, which is why they are trying to build their own site called Sublinks, rather than remain on Lemmy. Your instance isn't run by Marxists, Lemmy as a whole is developed by them.

Lemmy.World isn’t developing it. Some of their team members are contributing but they didn’t start it. I did. I’m the admin of discuss.online

Orange man can't even write a complete sentence, lol.

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