MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - GLdashboard: Giving New Life to Nook Glowlight

GLdashboard · 07-06-2025, 10:34 PM

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a project I've been working on that turns an old Nook GL4 into an always-on information dashboard. The inspiration was simple - I had this e-reader gathering dust and thought it could be repurposed to display useful information throughout the day.

The dashboard shows:
- Current weather and 5-day forecast
- Latest news headlines
- Major stock indices (S&P 500, NASDAQ, DOW)
- Upcoming holidays
- Date, time, and battery level

Since I wanted to mount the Nook on a wall as a clean information display without any charging cables, power management became crucial. The most challenging (and interesting) part was getting this to work properly. The device's deep sleep mode (power_enhance_enable) is incredibly effective at conserving battery, but getting it to wake reliably for updates was a real puzzle. After days of experimenting with various wake approaches (AlarmManager, WakeLocks, etc.), I finally discovered a method that could reliably wake the device without root. It took a lot of log analysis and trial-and-error, but now it works consistently - waking every 45 minutes to fetch new data, then returning to deep sleep.

The result? About two weeks of battery life while staying updated throughout the day. Potentially could get it to to last three weeks or a month by disabling updates at night.

Currently running on a Nook GL4, but could potentially work on GL3 and other e-ink Android devices with similar power management capabilities.

Would love to hear if others would find this useful or have suggestions for additional features. Gauging interest to see if I should polish it up more. Some ideas I'm considering:
- An option to display an image slideshow instead of the dashboard
- Pressing button to turn on backlight for ~5 seconds to read information at night
- Countdowns, to-do lists, sales tracker, etc.
-Landscape orientation

For the developers out there - if you've worked with deep sleep states on this device, I'd be particularly interested in hearing if you were successful getting the device to wake from deep sleep without touching the hardware keys or the screen.

Let me know your thoughts!
Just a note, used AI to touch up the images a bit so the buttons/logos might look a bit weird.

07-06-2025, 10:34 PM	#1
GLdashboard Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2025 Device: Nook Glowlight 4	GLdashboard: Giving New Life to Nook Glowlight Hi everyone, I wanted to share a project I've been working on that turns an old Nook GL4 into an always-on information dashboard. The inspiration was simple - I had this e-reader gathering dust and thought it could be repurposed to display useful information throughout the day. The dashboard shows: - Current weather and 5-day forecast - Latest news headlines - Major stock indices (S&P 500, NASDAQ, DOW) - Upcoming holidays - Date, time, and battery level Since I wanted to mount the Nook on a wall as a clean information display without any charging cables, power management became crucial. The most challenging (and interesting) part was getting this to work properly. The device's deep sleep mode (power_enhance_enable) is incredibly effective at conserving battery, but getting it to wake reliably for updates was a real puzzle. After days of experimenting with various wake approaches (AlarmManager, WakeLocks, etc.), I finally discovered a method that could reliably wake the device without root. It took a lot of log analysis and trial-and-error, but now it works consistently - waking every 45 minutes to fetch new data, then returning to deep sleep. The result? About two weeks of battery life while staying updated throughout the day. Potentially could get it to to last three weeks or a month by disabling updates at night. Currently running on a Nook GL4, but could potentially work on GL3 and other e-ink Android devices with similar power management capabilities. Would love to hear if others would find this useful or have suggestions for additional features. Gauging interest to see if I should polish it up more. Some ideas I'm considering: - An option to display an image slideshow instead of the dashboard - Pressing button to turn on backlight for ~5 seconds to read information at night - Countdowns, to-do lists, sales tracker, etc. -Landscape orientation For the developers out there - if you've worked with deep sleep states on this device, I'd be particularly interested in hearing if you were successful getting the device to wake from deep sleep without touching the hardware keys or the screen. Let me know your thoughts! Just a note, used AI to touch up the images a bit so the buttons/logos might look a bit weird.