22 ms·

Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative

186 points by depressedCorgi 6y ago

mikece 6y ago
If there is not a kick starter for this yet I hope there is soon. I would back this immediately.
- depressedCorgi 6y ago
  There isn’t a kickstarter but he does have a Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/joeycastillo https://www.patreon.com/joeycastillo
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
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?
- cherioo 6y ago
  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.
  - criddell 6y ago
    There's also ones from Sony, Supernote, and Remarkable.
    - cherioo 6y ago
      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.
      - criddell 6y ago
        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.
        coverband 6y ago
        I used to think so too, until I tried and bought one of the recent Samsung Tabs. Excellent experience on par with iPad.
        criddell 6y ago
        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.
        int_19h 6y ago
        Huawei M5 8.4" is an excellent Android tablet very much in the spirit of Nexus 7 (but with better screen and other hardware).
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Oh that's interesting, I missed this one: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/review-onyx-boox-max3-a-13-e-ink-android-tablet/ 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.
    - akavel 6y ago
      Take a look at the smaller models, like Onyx Nova 2 or Note 2; if you're ok with smaller size, they're cheaper
    - microtherion 6y ago
      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.
      - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        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.
        microtherion 6y ago
        It's mostly the refresh rate, I think. The processor is fairly decent.
    - m463 6y ago
      what was interesting was this one: I thought the boox was interesting But what about this one? https://amzn.com/B07XG9T898 https://amzn.com/B07XG9T898 it's a lenovo laptop with an e-ink screen
      - 6y ago
  - int_19h 6y ago
    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.
- eldelshell 6y ago
  I really wanted the Pixel Qi to release something and succeed but they are gone now.
  - profsnuggles 6y ago
    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.
- ikeboy 6y ago
  Well, the Kindle has a web browser. What's wrong with that?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    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.
    - ikeboy 6y ago
      Have you tried the Kindle Oasis?
      - souterrain 6y ago
        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.)
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  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.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- dafoex 6y ago
  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.
- AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
  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.
  - Legogris 6y ago
    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.
    - jamiek88 6y ago
      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?
      - Legogris 6y ago
        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.
- deng 6y ago
  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.
- soapdog 6y ago
  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.
  - JeremyNT 6y ago
    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.
- deleted 6y ago
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- dpedu 6y ago
  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.
- mmm_grayons 6y ago
  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.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    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.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    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.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  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.
catalogia 6y ago
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.)
inetsee 6y ago
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.
- kick 6y ago
  Calibre strips Amazon's DRM and most book reading software supports you fetching books directly from Calibre.
  - input_sh 6y ago
    Note: not out of the box, but there's a plugin for that. Keywords that will lead you to it: Apprentice Alf.
    - mmm_grayons 6y ago
      Is there some ban against linking drm strippers on HN? I've seen countless links to scihub or to paywall bypasses on articles.
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  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.
- deleted 6y ago
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jonahbenton 6y ago
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.
- skyfaller 6y ago
  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/360000282757-reMarkable-End-User-License-Agreement 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 https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6
  - jonahbenton 6y ago
    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 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.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
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 :)
- komali2 6y ago
  > 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.
  - amwelles 6y ago
    > 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/ https://libbyapp.com/ - does?
    - 0xCMP 6y ago
      But then you can't use it on an e-reader. It remains in the app.
      - 6y ago
fheld 6y ago
previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21246417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21246417
utf_8x 6y ago
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...
- mmm_grayons 6y ago
  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.
  - utf_8x 6y ago
    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.
wegs 6y ago
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.
- bittercynic 6y ago
  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.
  - wegs 6y ago
    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.
hardlianotion 6y ago
Looking at the GitHub page, I like how the board appears to be laid out like an equivalent of a literate program.
- disposedtrolley 6y ago
  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.
qwerty456127 6y ago
PocketBook is a reasonable DRM-free all-format alternative to Kindle.
- jtsuken 6y ago
  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 https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/catalog
- Jedd 6y ago
  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.
hmart 6y ago
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.
- hmart 6y ago
  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.
- app4soft 6y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader [1] https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Book
nine_k 6y ago
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.
Markoff 6y ago
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 https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book
- efreak 6y ago
  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.
  - Markoff 6y ago
    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
wojciii 6y ago
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.
- efreak 6y ago
  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.

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

depressedCorgi 6y ago
There isn’t a kickstarter but he does have a Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/joeycastillo https://www.patreon.com/joeycastillo

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?

cherioo 6y ago
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.
- criddell 6y ago
  There's also ones from Sony, Supernote, and Remarkable.
  - cherioo 6y ago
    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.
    - criddell 6y ago
      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.
      - coverband 6y ago
        I used to think so too, until I tried and bought one of the recent Samsung Tabs. Excellent experience on par with iPad.
        criddell 6y ago
        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.
      - int_19h 6y ago
        Huawei M5 8.4" is an excellent Android tablet very much in the spirit of Nexus 7 (but with better screen and other hardware).
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Oh that's interesting, I missed this one: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/review-onyx-boox-max3-a-13-e-ink-android-tablet/ 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.
  - akavel 6y ago
    Take a look at the smaller models, like Onyx Nova 2 or Note 2; if you're ok with smaller size, they're cheaper
  - microtherion 6y ago
    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.
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      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.
      - microtherion 6y ago
        It's mostly the refresh rate, I think. The processor is fairly decent.
  - m463 6y ago
    what was interesting was this one: I thought the boox was interesting But what about this one? https://amzn.com/B07XG9T898 https://amzn.com/B07XG9T898 it's a lenovo laptop with an e-ink screen
    - 6y ago
- int_19h 6y ago
  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.
eldelshell 6y ago
I really wanted the Pixel Qi to release something and succeed but they are gone now.
- profsnuggles 6y ago
  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.
ikeboy 6y ago
Well, the Kindle has a web browser. What's wrong with that?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  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.
  - ikeboy 6y ago
    Have you tried the Kindle Oasis?
    - souterrain 6y ago
      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.)
jonahbenton 6y ago
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.
- deleted 6y ago
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dafoex 6y ago
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.
AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
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.
- Legogris 6y ago
  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.
  - jamiek88 6y ago
    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?
    - Legogris 6y ago
      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.
deng 6y ago
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.
soapdog 6y ago
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.
- JeremyNT 6y ago
  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.
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dpedu 6y ago
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.
mmm_grayons 6y ago
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.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  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.
- int_19h 6y ago
  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.
m4rtink 6y ago
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.

catalogia 6y ago

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.)

inetsee 6y ago

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.

kick 6y ago
Calibre strips Amazon's DRM and most book reading software supports you fetching books directly from Calibre.
- input_sh 6y ago
  Note: not out of the box, but there's a plugin for that. Keywords that will lead you to it: Apprentice Alf.
  - mmm_grayons 6y ago
    Is there some ban against linking drm strippers on HN? I've seen countless links to scihub or to paywall bypasses on articles.
jonahbenton 6y ago
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.
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jonahbenton 6y ago

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.

skyfaller 6y ago
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/360000282757-reMarkable-End-User-License-Agreement 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 https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  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 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.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

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 :)

komali2 6y ago
> 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.
- amwelles 6y ago
  > 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/ https://libbyapp.com/ - does?
  - 0xCMP 6y ago
    But then you can't use it on an e-reader. It remains in the app.
    - 6y ago

fheld 6y ago

previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21246417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21246417

utf_8x 6y ago

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...

mmm_grayons 6y ago
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.
- utf_8x 6y ago
  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.

wegs 6y ago

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.

bittercynic 6y ago
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.
- wegs 6y ago
  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.

hardlianotion 6y ago

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

disposedtrolley 6y ago
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.

qwerty456127 6y ago

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

jtsuken 6y ago
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 https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/catalog
Jedd 6y ago
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.

hmart 6y ago

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.

hmart 6y ago
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.
app4soft 6y ago
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader [1] https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Book

nine_k 6y ago

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.

Markoff 6y ago

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

efreak 6y ago
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.
- Markoff 6y ago
  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

wojciii 6y ago

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.

efreak 6y ago
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.