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Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader

66 points

by surprisetalk

5 hours ago

| past

| 8 comments

| crowdsupply.com

| HN

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zoom6628

8 minutes ago

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I really like the thinking of openness behind this device. Could be great as a pocketable "notice board" getting info on a schedule from mobile and "posting" to a pub on device for me to look at when I feel like it and react to messages on my schedule.

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hamdingers

2 hours ago

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> There are no physical buttons on the front

That's too bad. For whatever reason I find swipe gestures on e-ink annoying. I currently use a Kobo Clara BW and miss dedicated page-turning buttons.

I see they're offering the print files for the case, maybe there will be some pins on the ESP32 exposed somewhere for adding buttons

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tiagod

51 minutes ago

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I don't like swiping, but kobo supports just a single touch on the right and left edges of the screen for switching pages, and I don't mind that.

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kjs3

1 hour ago

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Yeah...I stick with my Kindle Oasis for the buttons. I'll wait until/if this gets them; otherwise would have been a no brainer purchase.

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holysoles

1 hour ago

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I almost bought an xteink the other week but held off due to lack of a frontlight option.

I instead resurrected my nook simple touch (2011) with this project [1] from XDA forums, its made it infinitely more usable and still has good battery life.

[1] https://xdaforums.com/t/nst-g-the-phoenix-project.4673934/

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eth0up

13 minutes ago

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Thanks for mentioning both of these, the xteink and the nook resurrection. My old nooks are all slimy with the black material liquifying, and unusable just for that, else I'd pursue the XDA option. Looking into the xteink now, else Kobo. The one the post is about seems extremely appealing, but the price is a bit high for me, and the lifePo option makes the lesser one seem even more expensive. I really love e-ink. I could easily go with it for all compute.

5k cycles would be nice.

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devindotcom

3 hours ago

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Looks nice. Personally I don't know I can go back to 220ppi, but if I did I would definitely pay for the touchscreen and light over the X4!

Maybe you already have this, but I'd encourage you to put a "pure" reading mode in there, with no status bars top or bottom. That would probably allow for an extra line.

I wonder if there's also room in the case spec to slot in a magnet here or there. Could make for some creative solutions for covers or stands. Personally I use a Clara BW with a folding cover-stand and it's incredibly convenient.

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mimo84

2 hours ago

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Looks like it's a well thought project. I might consider it to replace my old Kobo. There are only two things I don't see in the description:

1. A dictionary

2. A flash card creation functionality

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kjs3

1 hour ago

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Flash card creation? Talk about scope creep for a dedicated reader.

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joeycastillo

2 hours ago

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I actually just posted about the dictionary functionality yesterday! https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/open-book...

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lossyalgo

1 hour ago

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The YT video shows the dictionary (among features).

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aidenn0

2 hours ago

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I really liked their comparison matrix, it's honest about what it does and what it doesn't do. I'll probably go with Kobo + Koreader when my current ereader gives up the ghost, but given that 4" ereaders seem to be all the rage these days, I wish them success.

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crtasm

2 hours ago

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I'd like to see some corrections to the matrix, Kobo can run custom code and does not require an account. Also "DRM: yes" feels misleading - you can read DRM-free files on one just fine.

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cyberax

3 hours ago

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Nice. I wish it had a bigger screen and buttons, though. Kindle Oasis was the sweet spot for me.

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paulcole

1 hour ago

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> Open Book Touch is the device I’ve been trying to build for six years: a small, beautiful, completely open source e-book reader that does one thing and does it well

What makes this beautiful?