The Unexpected Joys Of Hacking An Old Kindle

November 24, 2025 by Tom Nardi 22 Comments

In the closing hours of JawnCon 0x2, I was making a final pass of the “Free Stuff for Nerds” table when I noticed a forlorn Kindle that had a piece of paper taped to it. The hand-written note explained that the device was in shambles — not only was its e-ink display visibly broken, but the reader was stuck in some kind of endless boot loop. I might have left it there if it wasn’t for the closing remark: “Have Fun!”

Truth is, the last thing I needed was another Kindle. My family has already managed to build up a collection of the things. But taking a broken one apart and attempting to figure out what was wrong with it did seem like it would be kind of fun, as I’d never really had the opportunity to dig into one before. So I brought it home and promptly forgot about it as Supercon was only a few weeks away and there was plenty to keep me occupied.

The following isn’t really a story about fixing a Kindle, although it might seem like it on the surface. It’s more about the experience of working on the device, and the incredible hacking potential of these unassuming gadgets. Whether you’ve got a clear goal in mind, or just want to get your hands dirty in the world of hardware hacking, you could do far worse than picking a couple of busted Kindles up for cheap on eBay.

If there’s a singular takeaway, it’s that the world’s most popular e-reader just so happens to double as a cheap and impressively capable embedded Linux development environment for anyone who’s willing to crack open the case.

Continue reading “The Unexpected Joys Of Hacking An Old Kindle” →

A black and white image of a dark framed e-reader with a keyboard below its e-ink screen. It is on a piece of cloth.

Auto-Download Your Kindle Books Before February 26th Deadline

February 18, 2025 by Navarre Bartz 86 Comments

With the news that Amazon will no longer be allowing users to download their Kindle books after February 26th, many are scrambling to download their books before it’s too late. The most up-to-date project for automating this process appears to be Amazon Kindle Bulk Downloader.

As the company that famously removed 1984 from thousands of devices without users permission, this is a move that shouldn’t be surprising, but is still disappointing, especially for those of us that were somewhat early adopters of ebooks with Kindles that don’t have a WiFi connection. (Yes, you can tell us about how you bought a Sony reader before the Kindle even came out in the comments.)

The Typescript-coded tool runs inside bun which can be installed in any of the big three OSes and even has a handy Docker image if that’s more your speed. Whether you use this tool or not, if you have any Kindle books we’d implore you to download them now.

Once you’ve downloaded those books, how about cracking the DRM either with LEGO or with software like Calibre. You could load it on a completely Open Source Reader then.

Free And Open E-Reader From The Ground Up

July 17, 2024 by Bryan Cockfield 21 Comments

Although ebooks and e-readers have a number of benefits over reading an analog paper book as well as on more common electronic devices like tablets, most of them are locked behind proprietary systems like Kindle which make it difficult to take control over your electronic library. While there are a few off-brand e-readers that allow users to take a bit of control back and manually manage their files and libraries, there are few options for open-source solutions. This project aims to provide not only a free and open e-reader from the hardware to the software, but also a server to host a library as well.

The goal of most of the build is to keep everything as FLOSS as possible including the hardware, which is based on a Raspberry Pi compute module. The display comes from Good Display, which includes a built-in light and a touchscreen. There’s a lithium battery to power the tablet-like device with a number of support chips to charge it, handle the display, and interface with the Pi. On the software side, the system uses MuPDF which has support for most ebook file types while the server side is based on Calibre and the Open Publication Distribution System.

A subsection of the build log discusses a lot of how the code works for those looking to build their own similar system based on this project. The project code is even hosted on GitLab, a more FLOSS-y version of GitHub. Free and open ebook readers have been a goal of a number of builders for some time now, as we’ve seen projects going back at least a few years now and others that hope to make the Kindle hardware a little more open instead.

Turning Old Kindles Into AI Powered Picture Frames

May 15, 2023 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

While we tend to think of Amazon’s e-paper Kindles as more or less single-purpose devices (which to be fair, is how they’re advertised), there’s actually a full-featured Linux computer running behind that simple interface, just waiting to be put to work. Given how cheap you can get old Kindles on the second hand market, this has always struck us as something of a wasted opportunity.

This is why we love to see projects like Kindlefusion from [Diggedypomme]. It turns the Kindle into a picture frame to show off the latest in machine learning art thanks to Stable Diffusion. Just connect your browser to the web-based control interface running on the Kindle, give it a prompt, and away it goes. There are also functions to recall previously generated images, and if you’re connecting from a mobile device, support for creating images from voice prompts.

You can find cheap older Kindles on eBay.

All you need is a Kindle that can be jailbroken, though technically the software has only been tested against older third and fourth-generation hardware. From there you install a few required packages as listed in the project documentation, including Python 3. Then you just move the Kindlefusion package over either via USB or SSH, and do a little final housekeeping before starting it up and letting it take over the Kindle’s normal UI.

Given the somewhat niche nature of Kindle hacking, we’re particularly glad to see that [Diggedypomme] went through the trouble of explaining the nuances of getting the e-reader ready to run your own code. While it’s not difficult to do, there are plenty of pitfalls if you’ve never done it before, so a concise guide is a nice thing to have. Unfortunately, it seems like Amazon has recently gone on the offensive, with firmware updates blocking the exploits the community was using for jailbreaking on all but the older models that are no longer officially supported.

While it’s a shame you can’t just pick up a new Kindle and start hacking (at least, for now), there are still millions of older devices floating around that could be put to good use. Hopefully, projects like this can help inspire others to pick one up and start experimenting with what’s possible.

Continue reading “Turning Old Kindles Into AI Powered Picture Frames” →

Kindle, EPUB, And Amazon’s Love Of Reinventing Wheels

May 17, 2022 by Tom Nardi 48 Comments

Last last month, a post from the relatively obscure Good e-Reader claimed that Amazon would finally allow the Kindle to read EPUB files. The story was picked up by all the major tech sites, and for a time, there was much rejoicing. After all, it was a feature that owners have been asking for since the Kindle was first released in 2007. But rather than supporting the open eBook format, Amazon had always insisted in coming up with their own proprietary formats to use on their readers. Accordingly, many users have turned to third party programs which can reliably convert their personal libraries over to whatever Amazon format their particular Kindle is most compatible with.

Native support for EPUB would make using the Kindle a lot less of a hassle for many folks, but alas, it was not to be. It wasn’t long before the original post was updated to clarify that Amazon had simply added support for EPUB to their Send to Kindle service. Granted this is still an improvement, as it represents a relatively low-effort way to get the open format files on your personal device; but in sending the files through the service they would be converted to Amazon’s KF8/AZW3 format, the result of which may not always be what you expected. At the same time the Send to Kindle documentation noted that support for AZW and MOBI files would be removed later on this year, as the older formats weren’t compatible with all the features of the latest Kindle models.

If you think this is a lot of unnecessary confusion just to get plain-text files to display on the world’s most popular ereader, you aren’t alone. Users shouldn’t have to wade through an alphabet soup of oddball file formats when there’s already an accepted industry standard in EPUB. But given that it’s the reality when using one of Amazon’s readers, this seems a good a time as any for a brief rundown of the different ebook formats, and a look at how we got into this mess in the first place.

Continue reading “Kindle, EPUB, And Amazon’s Love Of Reinventing Wheels” →

Inkplate Comes Full Circle, Becomes True Open Reader

August 20, 2021 by Tom Nardi 15 Comments

Regular readers will likely remember the Inkplate, an open hardware electronic paper development board that combines an ESP32 with a recycled Kindle screen. With meticulous documentation and full-featured support libraries for both the Arduino IDE and MicroPython, the Inkplate makes it exceptionally easy for hackers and makers to write their own code for the high-quality epaper display.

Now, thanks to the efforts of [Guy Turcotte], the Inkplate family of devices can now boast a feature-rich and fully open source ereader firmware. The project started in October of last year, and since then, the codebase has been steadily updated and refined. Nearing its 1.3 release, EPub-InkPlate has most of the functions you’d expect from a modern ereader, and several that might take you by surprise.

For one thing, [Guy] has taken full advantage of the ESP32 microcontroller at the heart of the Inkplate and implemented a web server that lets you manage the reader’s library from your browser. This allows books in EPUB v2 and v3 formats to be uploaded and saved on the Inkplate’s SD card without any special software. There’s currently support for JPG, PNG, BMP, and GIF images, as well as embedded TTF and OTF fonts.

As of this writing EPub-InkPlate supports both the six and ten inch Inkplate variants, and uses the touch pads on the side of the screen for navigation. While it’s on the wishlist for the final 1.3 release, the project currently doesn’t support the Inkplate 6PLUS; which uses the backlit and touch compatible displays pulled from Kindle Paperwhites. With shipments the new 6PLUS model reportedly going out in November, hopefully it won’t be long before its enhanced features are supported.

With the rising popularity of ebooks, it’s more important than ever that we have open hardware and software readers that work on our terms. While they may never compete with the Kindle in terms of units sold, we’re eager to see projects like EPub-InkPlate and the Open Book from [Joey Castillo] mature to the point that they’re a valid option for mainstream users who don’t want to live under Amazon’s thumb.

Continue reading “Inkplate Comes Full Circle, Becomes True Open Reader” →

Review: Inkplate 6PLUS

June 21, 2021 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

While the price of electronic paper has dropped considerably over the last few years, it’s still relatively expensive when compared to more traditional display technology. Accordingly, we’ve seen a lot of interest in recovering the e-paper displays used in electronic shelf labels and consumer e-readers from the likes of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. Unfortunately, while these devices can usually be purchased cheaply on the second hand market, liberating their displays is often too complex a task for the average tinkerer.

Enter the Inkplate. With their open hardware ESP32 development board that plugs into the e-paper displays salvaged from old e-readers, the team at e-radionica is able to turn what was essentially electronic waste into a WiFi-enabled multipurpose display that can be easily programmed using either the Arduino IDE or MicroPython. The $99 Inkplate 6 clearly struck a chord with the maker community, rocketing to 926% of its funding goal on Crowd Supply back in 2020. A year later e-radionica released the larger and more refined Inkplate 10, which managed to break 1,000% of its goal.

For 2021, the team is back with the Inkplate 6PLUS. This updated version of the original Inkplate incorporates the design additions from the Inkplate 10, such as the Real-Time-Clock, expanded GPIO, and USB-C port, and uses a display recycled from newer readers such as the Kindle Paperwhite. These e-paper panels are not only sharper and faster than their predecessors, but also feature touch support and LED front lighting; capabilities which e-radionica has taken full advantage of in the latest version of their software library.

With its Crowd Supply campaign recently crossing over the 100% mark, we got a chance to go hands-on with a prototype of the Inkplate 6PLUS to see how e-radionica’s latest hacker friendly e-paper development platform holds up.

Continue reading “Review: Inkplate 6PLUS” →