You can read e-books on just about anything—your tablet, your smartphone, or even your PC. However, the interface can be lacking somewhat compared to a traditional book—on a computer, you have to use the keyboard or mouse to flip the pages. Alternatively, you could do what [NovemberKou] did, and build a dedicated page-turning device.
The device was specifically designed for use with the Kindle for Mac or Kindle for PC reader apps, allowing the user to peruse their chosen literature without using the keyboard to change pages. It consists of a thumb wheel, rotary encoder, and an Arduino Pro Micro mounted in a 3D printed shell. The Pro Micro is set up to emulate a USB keyboard, sending “Page Up” or “Page Down” key presses as you turn the thum bwheel in either direction.
Is it a frivolous device with a very specific purpose? Yes, and that’s why we love it. There’s something charming about building a bespoke interface device just to increase your reading pleasure, and we wholeheartedly support it.
I wonder how tough it would be to make a capacitive thingy that detects your hand moving in front of the e-reader as you make a normal page-turning gesture and it determines whether you moved your hand from left to right or vice versa. Might be challenging to make it reject unintentional gestures.
Samsung and Apple already have Cameras (even IR depth cameras) with gesture control, for 15 years now. So the tech is available.
I have been using the $10 wireless ‘presenter’ remotes for Zoom. They have 3 programmable face buttons and volume on the side. (I program for raise hand, mute, and cut video). Depending on the reader software you might only need the volume buttons 🤷🏼♂️.
I think this is more a case of improper marketing that people don’t know about them. The brand is Norwii or knorvay (I think both are anglicized versions meaning the same thing). They also have a combo Bluetooth+Wireless dongle version. The website has a configuration utility that lets you set key combos, the remote stores the configuration so the utility is only needed for initial setup, or if the configuration resets (It has happened, not a lot, possibly power transients?). I have set up quite a few of the N26 model.
Cool hack, I remember back with my first Android (Galaxy SIII T-Mobile) I simply plugged in an OTG cable and mouse and used Moonreader with the left and right buttons to turn the page. I had one of those miniature Targus laptop mice.
Cool hack, this user has a lot of skills that they can leverage for more projects now.