ePaper + eInk

The dumbphone revival and the broader push to reclaim our attention have zeroed in on one habit in particular: reaching for a phone the moment we wake, and again as the last thing before sleep. A growing crop of devices now promises to break that loop, from feature phones built purely for calls and texts to social-media-blocking flip phones like Commodore's retro Callback 8020. Copenhagen-based Habity Design is tackling the same problem from a different direction, replacing the phone on your nightstand rather than the one in your pocket.

Bigme has launched the B1051 Ultra, a 10.3-inch color E Ink device aimed at reading, note-taking, and office work. It combines a Kaleido 3 display with a MediaTek Dimensity 1080 processor, Android 14, stylus support, and a 6,900 mAh battery.

I'm pretty jaded when it comes to tech but this gives me The Lust.

E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s biggest e-paper display supplier, yesterday revised downward its revenue growth forecast for this year to between 10 and 15 percent, from the 20 to 25 percent it previously estimated, as surging memory prices are hurting demand for its e-readers and e-notes.The

I am looking for an e-paper device with a polychromatic screen, with a GPS chipset, able to run OSMAnd, enough storage for offline maps (64GB+) and preferably an option to flash LineageOS or any other de-googled OS. Or is there maybe even a dedicated e-paper GPS navigation device not reliant on Android? Any recommendations or tips?

I didn't know this form factor is a thing!

With refresh rates reaching 60Hz, the possibilities for eReaders are endless.

Something different...

Valve made the eInk Steam Machine faceplate open source to see what the community could do. We're already seeing results.

There is no option to change the default location of the Calibre library in the built-in UI, but you can edit the config file to do this.

Calibre stores its default library path in global.py.json. You can change it directly:

Go to Windows: %APPDATA%\Roaming\calibre\global.py.json

"library_path": "C:\\Books\\Library",

Change the path to your new library location

I believe the solution for all this Amazon Kindle shenanigan is not about buying a Kobo. It's about how we do not allow corporations to determine how we protest. Responsible consumption combined with political and social activism is a more sustainable way to challenge corporate power.

Fair warning, I used Claude for a lot of the details. Architecturally, it's my design.

Got NixOS running on my reMarkable Pro Paper Move (codename: chiappa) because when I got this tiny tablet, it was with the goal of replacing my iPad Mini (which I mainly used to read books on anyway) and wanting to use something that ran Linux (I use NixOS on every other machine I touch except my Phone...).

Finally got around to (helping Claude) port NixOS though so now, besides having my config live alongside the rest of my machines, I can boot right into KOReader and not play silly games with Xochitl everytime I reboot. Plus, being my own NixOS config, I can (WIP/testing) load/use other applications with ease.

The details and how to set it up are mostly in the NixOS flake/associated repo over here:

https://github.com/gitman-101111/remarkable-nixos

If you want to use the e-ink bridge/associated tools to port to another OS of your choice (I tried and succeeded in porting to PostmarketOS but they have a strict no generative AI policy), you can use this repo (which the flake also references):

https://github.com/gitman-101111/chiappa

All the hardware works with KOReader with some minor patching. Feel free to play around with different configurations, etc.

Details on the setup and specifics are in the repos.

Lastly, I wouldn't recommend this to people unfamiliar with NixOS or at least some Linux experience. There's a lot of information here on how to essentially brick your device lol. Be careful out there! :)