[i.am.stack]

I found these forums from a comment in a youtube review of the Kobo Clara HD. I've already answered several questions browsing through previous posts so thank you very much to the community!

I've always preferred physical books to reading digitally. However, I have quite a digital library (managed with Calibre). A month or so ago, a friend let me borrow his remarkable 1 after I complained about reading on my android tablet at night (one reason I prefer physical books). That was my first experience with these e-ink e-readers. I've been debating for a few weeks on buying a remarkable but it is very expensive and, personally, it wasn't a great fit for just reading (and I would never use the writing nor the other features). I saw a Kobo Nia for 100$ at the store and decided to research it which led me to the Clara HD. I've now watched several youtube reviews and am pretty confident that hardware wise this is a great entry tablet for me. But I have a question that's keeping me from placing an order. I've not found in any of the reviews about the Kobo account which all the reviewers just seem to blitz by or edit out.

Is an account with Kobo required to use the device? That seems really sketchy. What information are they harvesting off the device that an account is required?

That's a potential deal breaker.

It's none of their business what I do with the device nor what I read on the device. I have no intention of sharing with them how often I read nor any other metrics. Also, I've lost too much data in "the cloud" when services abruptly end for some reason or the other. I don't trust "the cloud" any further than I can throw it. All my data is managed locally. I can't fathom any reason why I'd ever want to connect to their infrastructure. I won't buy from any source that doesn't give me a DRM-free copy that I can manage locally.
(and before any comparisons with Android, please note that I won't buy any Android device that I can't wipe and install LineageOS on for similar reasons - my android devices don't talk on the network unless I want them to. :-D )

I simply want to read my books already stored in my Calibre library. I'm not even sure I want to connect into overdrive (I trust my small local library with the quantity of books I read; however, I'm not sure I trust the overdrive service yet). I've seen enough reviewers to know that the Kobo device will work with Calibre so I'm not worried about that (though I do wish it would connect into the Calibre server over wifi like my tablet instead of only using the USB cable but... eh. Small issue.)

If the Kobo account is simply to register the device for updates, then fine... I don't like it when companies do that, but whatever. However, I am not OK with them scraping _any_ metrics from me. And disabling the wifi only to upload all the metrics when I pull an update is equally not a useful solution. At no time should the device talk outside of the network unless I explicitly tell it to for the reasons I tell it to. (I know. Many think it is a silly expectation that I should be able to manage my own devices and data... But it is a big reason why I only run Linux and LineageOS. :-D )

I would be appreciative of any information people can provide as to if an account is absolutely necessary, what it provides, and what metrics they harvest from their users/devices. Also, if I should be looking at another device instead I would appreciate recommendations.

Thanks!

PS: No, I'm not actually that paranoid - I've just been burned too many times and have almost no trust for companies to do the right thing with my data. :-(