Solar-Powered E-Reader With No Buttons

March 10, 2025 by Bryan Cockfield 19 Comments

Modern e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle are incredible pieces of engineering, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. A device custom-built to your own specifications is always going to provide a more satisfying experience than something purchased off the shelf. That’s why [fel88] put together this custom e-reader which offers a number of unique features, such as a solar panel on the back and button-free operation.

One issue with modern e-readers, at least as [fel88] sees it, is that they have a lot of unnecessary features. This project removes most of them, stripping down the device to its core functionality: a straightforward menu for selecting books and gesture-sensing for navigating the menu as well as changing the pages. The only physical input on the device is a small reed switch to turn the device on. A 3D printed case holds the e-ink display and encloses the inner workings, driven by an Arduino Mega 2560 and powered by three lithium-ion capacitors (LICs) and a small solar panel.

By dropping all of the unnecessary features, the device doesn’t need to waste energy with things like WiFi or Bluetooth and can get around 880 pages on a single charge, not counting any extra energy coming in through the solar panel while it’s operating. The LICs will also theoretically improve its life cycle as well. If you’re still stuck with a paperweight when you formerly had a working e-reader, though, there are plenty of ways to bring old devices back to life as well.

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.

Obsolete E-Reader Gets New Life

November 13, 2023 by Bryan Cockfield 6 Comments

For those who read often, e-readers are a great niche device that can help prevent eye fatigue with their e-ink displays especially when compared to a backlit display like a tablet or smartphone, all while taking up minimal space unlike a stack of real books. But for all their perks, there are still plenty of reasons to maintain a library of bound paper volumes. For those who have turned back to books or whose e-readers aren’t getting the attention they once did, there are plenty of things to do with them like this e-book picture frame.

The device started life as a PocketBook Basic Touch, or PocketBook 624, a fairly basic e-reader from 2014, but at its core is a decent ARM chip that can do many more things than display text. It also shipped running a version of Linux, which made it fairly easy to get a shell and start probing around. Unlike modern smart phones this e-reader seems to be fairly open and able to run some custom software, and as a result there are already some C++ programs available for these devices. Armed with some example programs, [Peter] was able to write a piece of custom software that displays images from an on-board directory and mounted the new picture display using an old book.

There were a number of options for this specific device that [Peter] explored that didn’t pan out well, like downloading images from the internet to display instead of images on the device, but in the end he went with a simpler setup to avoid feature creep and get his project up and running for “#inktober”, a fediverse-oriented drawing challenge that happened last month. While not strictly in line with a daily piece of hand-drawn artwork, the project still follows the spirit of the event. And, for those with more locked-down e-readers there’s some hope of unlocking the full functionality of older models with this FOSS operating system.

2600 Breaks Free From DRM With PDF/EPUB Subscription

July 21, 2023 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

Hackaday has been online in some form or another since 2004, which for the Internet, makes us pretty damn old. But while that makes us one of the oldest surviving web resources for hacker types, we’ve got nothing on 2600 — they’ve been publishing their quarterly zine since 1984.

While the physical magazine can still be found on store shelves, the iconic publication expanded into digital distribution some time ago, thanks largely to the Kindle’s Newsstand service. Unfortunately, that meant Amazon’s recent decision to shutter Newsstand threatened to deprive 2600 of a sizable chunk of their income. So what would any group of hackers do? They took matters into their own hands and spun-up their own digital distribution system.

As of today you’re able to subscribe to the digital version of 2600 in DRM-free PDF or EPUB formats, directly from the magazine’s official website. Which one you pick largely depends on how you want to read it: those looking for the highest fidelity experience should go with PDF, as it features an identical layout to the physical magazine, while those who are more concerned with how the content looks on their reader of choice would perhaps be better served by the flexibility of EPUB. After signing up you can download the current Summer issue immediately, with future issues hitting your inbox automatically. Load it onto your home-built Open Book, and you can really stick it to the establishment.

While the ending of this story seems to be a happy one, we can’t help but see it as a cautionary tale. How many other magazines would have the means and experience to offer up their own digital subscriptions? Or for that matter, how many could boast readers savvy enough to utilize it? The reality is many publications will be injured by Amazon’s decision, some mortally so. That’s a lot of power to be put into the hands of just one company, no matter how quick the shipping is.

Two e-readers side to side. On the left, you can see the frontal view, showing text on the e-ink screen. On the right, you can see the backside with a semi-transparent 3D-printed cover over it, and two AAA batteries inside a holder in the center.

Open Book Abridged: OSHW E-Reader Now Simplified, Pico-Driven

September 29, 2022 by Arya Voronova 17 Comments

If you ever looked for open-source e-readers, you’ve no doubt seen [Joey Castillo]’s Open Book reader, but you might not yet have seen the Abridged version he’s building around a Raspberry Pi Pico.

The Open Book project pairs a 4.2″ E-Ink screen with microprocessors we all know and love, building a hacker-friendly e-reader platform. Two years ago, this project won first place in our Adafruit Feather contest — the Feather footprint making the Open Book compatible with a wide range of MCUs, giving hackers choice on which CPU their hackable e-reader would run. Now, it’s time for a RP2040-based reboot.

This project is designed so that you can assemble it on your own after sourcing parts and PCBs. To help you in the process, the PCB itself resembles a book page – on the silkscreen, there is explanations of what each component is for, as well as information that would be useful for you while hacking on it, conveying the hardware backstory to the hacker about to dive into assembly with a soldering iron in hand. There’s simple but quite functional software to accompany this hardware, too – and, as fully open-source devices go, any missing features can be added.

Joey has recorded a 30-minute video of the Pi Pico version for us, assembling and testing the newly ordered boards, then showing the software successfully booting and operational. The Pi Pico-based revision has been greatly simplified, with a number of self-assembly aspects improved compared to previous versions – the whole process really does take less than half an hour, and he gets it done with a pretty basic soldering iron, too!

If you’re looking for updates on this revision as development goes on, following [Joey] on Twitter is your best bet. He’s no stranger to making devices around us more free and then sharing the secret sauce with all of us! During the 2021 Remoticon he showed off a drop-in replacement mainboard for the Casio F-91W wristwatch, and told us all about reverse-engineering its controller-less segment LCD — worth a listen for any hacker who’s ever wanted to bend these LCDs to their will.

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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.

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Hands-Free Page Turning

January 7, 2021 by Chris Lott 12 Comments

For people who can’t lift a finger to turn the page on their ebooks, a solution is at hand. Seoul based technology company Visual Camp has adapted their eye tracking algorithms to an ebook reader. (Video, embedded below.) Reportedly this is the first time an ebook reader has been so equipped.

If your eye lingers on the page turn button, it will turn the page. While this particular application seems innocuous, some of the other applications being touted seem a little contrived if not invasive. For example, applying gaze analysis while you are reading a book, they claim to be able to make targeted recommendations for other books.

We’ve discussed eye tracking devices before, but they have utilized hardware. Visual Camp claims their AI-based technology only requires a color camera and can be integrated into existing camera-equipped devices, such an this ebook reader. They also offer a SDK for developers who want to add eye tracking control into their apps. Eye tracking is hard, though, and the devil is in the details. It’d be neat to see what they’re up to.

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