IIRC it only suports plain text files / Markdown rn. Not supporting EPUB is a non-starter for me. I use my Kobo right now and love it. If they add EPUB support i will heavily consider building one.
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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Yeah it's an interesting project, but it looks bad with the printed case and exposed tact switches, and seems to have little functionality.
The creator is working on an epub-to-text-file converter here:
Calibre already does this but cool we have options.
Epub to text is very easy and Pandoc can do it. I end up using lynx -dump because that's faster though.
Technically, epub is basically a wepage and thus everything but easy.
You could just strip out the content with a big regex. Surely nothing could go wrong with ̴̬̮̳͔̬̹͖̩͍̄̈̓̀͋̀̎̊̈́̑͛͊̕t̶̘͇̺̠̗̓̿̆̓͋͗́͑͆̈́̈́͊̉̈̍̚ͅḥ̷̡̛͓̹͕̞͎̃͂̽͠ͅã̸͈̟̩̫̪̣̳̜̑̈́̓͗͘t̴̡̮̹͌́̄̔̂́̒͑͘.
You can unzip an epub and find out. Ive done it a couple of times to remove some images from books.
unzip book.epub
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The extremely tiny screen is the deal-breaker for me, I want to build one of these for my father to replace the over a decade old kindle he uses, but I want to upgrade to a bigger screen.
We can't afford much, and we have a 3d printer and I know my way around a Pi and wiring, so it would be a great option.
But such tiny display for what should be an upgrade from the tech of 10+ years ago :-(
The problem is that such open hardware projects can mostly only work with the components on the market, and eInk displays (or advanced displays in general) are principally only sold by their manufacturers to the OEMs they have contracts with. We are lucky to have any eInk display available to us at all for these kinds of endeavours!
This, plus making bigger eink displays with reasonable refresh and antighosting is a pain. They are proportionately more expensive.
Except I'm dead certain you can buy screens a lot larger than 4.2 inches - the 6 inch screen behind the Kobo Clara HD is actually all over AliExpress and eBay, and it has a backlight and is not marketed for as a replacement for the eReader. Kobo just glues a thin metal plate and a battery to it for rigidity, but otherwise it's identical. And there are a fair number of other screens you can find online in various sizes if you want to get them working.
The hard part is getting data sheets or reverse engineering them. But it's far from impossible.
Aren't all e-readers tiny? I want an A4 sized one (with a stylus for taking notes and scribbling).
There are A4 e-readers. Bamboo note for example.
Yes I've seen one. Maybe there are more now than when I looked, but at that time there weren't enough to be able to make a choice as a consumer.
Onyx Boox has the Note Air 3(10in) and the Tab X(13in). They aren't cheap though, $400 and $900 respectively, mostly because of how expensive those large eInk screens are.
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Inkplate 10 is not tiny (10"). I'd prefer larger but it's a start, and fairly affordable. I might get one sometime.
This looks fun. I got a Kobo. I wish it was opensource. It would be cool if some people were to team up with Fairphone and make a Fairbook project to make a light weight device with USB-C charging and long lasting battery life. There needs to be a bigger incentive if the firmware is ever going to get better. You could just use Linux as per usual tho.
That would be great!
I also have a Kobo, Calibre works great with it (Calibre is a life saver) but it would be nice to get something that is more open.
A few years ago amazon made a few big screen kindles before settling on the current format, I don't know which eink screens sizes are available for consumers, but it would be interesting bring that back
A screen around 10" is perfect for reading pdfs. No need to reflow or anything, just read the pdf as it is.
personally I use a 10 inch tablet for pdfs, reading PDFs on eink is a terrible experience.
PDFs are also often reference materials that require flipping back and forth. which makes it doubly painful.
I would love a full kit for the open book. Or a preassembled one. I just don't have the time anymore to solder/assemble it but I would pay a good amount for the open book.
I feel that. I desperately want to support open source hardware, but don't have the chops to do it from scratch.
Framework laptops been close to that dream though.
Really cool! I do wish the screen was a bit bigger. It's the size of my 2012 windows phone, haha.
I've got a Hisense A5 and reading is surprisingly nice on it. Although this looks even smaller?
Also regarding the overall idea - just get a Kobo and put Koreader on it, then sideload any book format you like.
I do have a kobo! It's pretty good. What's Koreader? Is that software to jailbreak it?
Yeah, you don't even have to jailbreak it, you can just install it alongside the kobo software, then you can keep both. It's a bit fiddly to set up but not too bad https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Installation-on-Kobo-devices
Koreader is available from the Play store if you have an android phone, you can try it out first. Its very customisable, I spend hours tweaking the settings because that's my idea of fun 😂
Thank you! Saving this post :)
Pocketbook anyone?
Love my Era
Here!
To add, the used linux kernel of PB devices is mostly open source last time I checked.
I'm glad to see some other options. I'm not a fan of Amazon, but the only other practical option has been tablets, which are generally a lot more expensive and less well-suited to the purpose. This looks like a good design.
Kobo and Boox are both great alternatives to Kindles.
The first couple of Kobos I got over the last decade were admittedly a bit shit and plasticky, but I stuck with them, and the one I have now was double the price and ten times the quality. Really good company now
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I wasn't impressed with the Kobo, although it does the job. I'm not familiar with the Boox. I will have to look that one up.
There are other ebook readers. What's up with those?
Same. I'm waiting with baited breath. I feel like I'm the target market for this: I love my e-reader, I love open source stuff, and I hate the options on the market. Sadly, my experience is that these things can't compete on the economy of scale, and are often at least 50% more expensive than the alternative. I want to vote with my dollars, but I'm not rich, and used e-readers are always on eBay & Craigslist for $40.
We'll see, though.
What's wrong with the barbs n noble one?
Kinda basic for the price, and the built-in store is the B&N Store. But they at least have EPUB and PDF support, and Adobe DRM compatibility, so you can hook them up to a PC and transfer books.
They do run a stripped down Android underneath, so you might be able to Root them and install a third-party launcher and apps on it, I've done this in the past, but I haven't kept up in recent years(I've switched to Boox devices) so it might not be as easy to Root these days.
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