Open source e reader

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?

doubtingtammy,

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

LazaroFilm,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

The photo is a good added content for your post imo

doubtingtammy,

True. Gotta let the people know we (communists) out here

DessertStorms,
DessertStorms avatar

Na, those nails definitely deserve to be seen, that's such a cool design!
Great choice of book, too lol

doubtingtammy,

Thank you💅

jodanlime,
@jodanlime@midwest.social avatar

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

Lettuceeatlettuce,
@Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml avatar

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

Alsephina,

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

doubtingtammy,

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

lemmyseizethemeans,

Plus one on the hacked Kobe. Even replaced the battery. All these books, right there.

fmstrat,

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

nilloc,

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

thefartographer,

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.

doubtingtammy,

Dope! I think I will get that

IrritableOcelot,

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.

glimse,

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

doubtingtammy,

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

glimse,

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

Schorsch,

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

Hopefully the patent runs out soon…

glimse,

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

captainjaneway,
@captainjaneway@lemmy.world avatar

/s for stroke?

slacktoid,
@slacktoid@lemmy.ml avatar

s is for scamp. Small s is little scamp.

Atemu,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

parents are a motor to innovation

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

Schorsch,

Oops, missed that typo. Sorry I guess…

agressivelyPassive,

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

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

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.

JustEnoughDucks,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

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”.

CorrodedCranium,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

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.

glimse,

I don’t have one handy, sorry. I’ve been very casually following it for awhile because once the price comes down I have some project ideas

Here’s a non-article discussing it

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779

And here’s the eink page discussing their 2500 parents

www.eink.com/investor/governance?bookmark=ip

CorrodedCranium,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

Thanks for the links. I’ll check them out

ficolox,

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

BRINGit34,
@BRINGit34@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Wahhhh wahhhhh. That’s you

The_Walkening,

Here’s an explanation

BolexForSoup,
BolexForSoup avatar

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

Outtatime,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

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

doubtingtammy,

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?

WalrusByte,
@WalrusByte@lemmy.world avatar

This website is run by Marxists.

Do you have a source for that?

Cowbee,

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

WalrusByte,
@WalrusByte@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks

Cowbee,

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.

jgrim,
@jgrim@discuss.online avatar

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

maniel,

Yeah, your can easily get a ban for saying something wrong on China for example, it depends on the instance thought, anybody knows Lemmy creator’s political views by the way

davel,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

I heard that it’s three Satoshi Nakamotos in a trench coat.

z00s,

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

thisismyrealname,

lol countdown

CableMonster,

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.

doubtingtammy,

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

davel, (edited )
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

CableMonster is a libertarian petit bourgeois property flipper.

Cowbee,

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

maniel, (edited )

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

Faresh,

(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)

z00s,

Nelson Mandela learned Afrikaans.

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

Cowbee,

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.

z00s,

I know, I am too 😅

It was more of a minor troll haha

davel,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

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

Schorsch,

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.

maniel,

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

JimboDHimbo,

Your nails are so dope!

mctoasterson,

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.

CorrodedCranium,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

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

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

cricbuzz,

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

Palacegalleryratio,

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.

KryptonNerd,

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

bonn2,

There is actually an open source eReader, openbook www.oddlyspecificobjects.com/projects/openbook/

Unfortunately, the current screen it uses is not being made anymore. People have stated that they have gotten other screens to work, but no official instructions on using them yet

What_Religion_R_They,
@What_Religion_R_They@hexbear.net avatar

if you feel like it you can try change the battery, there’s probably some seller on AliExpress selling these exact batteries for 2 bucks 💀

z00s, (edited )

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

spaduf,

I’m also watching the open book project.

If it just had epub support it’d be perfect

z00s,

Indeed, hopefully that will be added in the future

ZeroHora,
@ZeroHora@lemmy.ml avatar

Thoughts?

Cool nails.

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